Twenty minutes later, it starts again.
By the third cycle, I stop going back to the couch. I stand in the hallway with my hand against her door, waiting. Each time she surfaces, I tell myself that's the last one. Each time she goes under again, the crack in my chest splits a little wider.
Around four, she finally goes quiet. Not the held-breath silence between nightmares—real sleep. Deep and still.
I stand there until my hand cramps. Until I'm sure she's not going under again.
Then I make coffee and head for the porch.
***
The air bites cold. No moon, no stars—just black and the smell of wet pine. I can see fine. Orcs don't need light.
I circle the property the way I learned after the camps cut me loose at eighteen—systematic, thorough, never the same pattern twice. I spent six months on the streets before anyone gave a damn whether I lived or died. Six months of learning that sleeping in the wrong spot gets you killed, that you check your perimeter before you settle, that you never, ever let anyone come up behind you.
The camps taught us to fight. The streets taught us to survive.
I check the tree line for broken branches—anything that might show someone pushed through recently. The soft ground near the windows for footprints. The crawl space under theporch, dark and tight, where a smaller human could wedge themselves and wait. The blind spot behind the woodpile.
Nothing. The road beyond the trees sits empty, a half mile of dirt and gravel cutting through nothing before it hits anything resembling civilization. We're alone out here. That's the point.
Just me and a woman whose nightmares woke her four times. After last night, I'd bet money I'm in the rotation.
I go back inside as the sky starts to lighten. I strip off my jacket, start pulling things from the fridge.
The chicken's been brining since before Maya showed up with a wounded woman and ruined my week. Whole bird—big enough to feed four normal humans or one orc. Might as well cook it.
I crank the oven. Rub the skin with rosemary, garlic, salt, a drizzle of oil. This I know how to do. This makes sense.
The smell fills the kitchen as it roasts—fat rendering, herbs blooming in the heat. I pour myself coffee and wait.
She emerges at nine twenty-two.
I've been tracking her for the last hour—the gradual stirring, the creak of the bed frame, the soft pad of feet on hardwood. When the bedroom door finally opens, she looks like hell. Pale. Shadows under her eyes so dark they look like bruises. Her lips are dry, her hair a tangled mess she hasn't bothered to fix.
But her eyes are sharp. Green and fierce, scanning the room before her feet cross the threshold. The fight is still in her. I shouldn't like that as much as I do.
She's upright and moving under her own power.
She's wearing Nova's clothes again—a sweater that gaps at the chest and pulls tight across her hips, the fit all wrong. Her sleeves are pushed up past her wrists, showing the fine bones there, the blue veins running beneath skin that probably hasn't seen sun in weeks. She looks breakable.
Like she barely survived the night.
I focus on the stove.
"Coffee's hot."
She nods. Doesn't speak. Crosses to the pot and pours herself a cup with hands that shake just slightly—not enough that she'd notice, but I do.
She settles into the same chair as last night, back to the wall, clear view of both exits.
I pull the chicken from the oven, golden brown, skin crackling as the heat releases. I set it on the counter and tear off a leg with my bare hands.
She stares.
I bite into it, let the juice run down my wrist, catch it with my tongue before it drips. The meat pulls away from the bone in long strips. I chew, swallow, tear off another piece.
"There's more if you want some."
