“I’m going to bed before you guys ruin this.” She’s already moving toward the stairs, smiling. “Goodnight.”
We all call it back—goodnight, sleep well, the usual chorus—and I watch her go. The way she moves is different tonight. Lighter. Like something that was wound tight has finally started to unspool.
Her footsteps creak up the stairs. Down the hallway. Her bedroom door clicks shut.
Then Rane turns around and his face is wrong.
“We need to talk.”
The grin from dinner is gone. Whatever was there when he walked in—the flushed cheeks, the stupid smile he couldn’t hide—it’s been replaced by something harder. Something that makes my spine straighten.
“What happened?” Locke’s already pushing off the wall.
“Not here.” Rane glances at the ceiling. “Kitchen.”
We move without discussion. Kyron sets his phone down. Vaelor closes the front door properly, turning the lock. Trey’s on his feet before I am.
The kitchen is far enough that she won’t hear us if we keep our voices down. Rane leans against the counter, arms crossed, and doesn’t look at any of us for a long moment.
“She told me what Silas said to her.”
The room goes still.
“When?” Kyron’s voice is sharp.
“At the dining hall. When he cornered her.” Rane’s jaw tightens. “She’s been carrying it alone because he told her if she said anything—”
He stops. Breathes.
“If she said anything, they’d stop pretending we’re innocent.”
Silence.
I wait for Locke to explode. For Kyron to start strategizing. For someone to say something, do something, break the tension that’s building in my chest like a fist.
No one does.
“They’re coming for her,” Rane continues. “That’s what he said. They’re coming for her, and if she tells us, they come for us too.”
“So he isolated her.” Vaelor’s voice is low. Controlled. “Made her think protecting us meant staying quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“And she believed him.”
“She didn’t know what else to do.” Rane scrubs a hand over his face. “She’s been alone her whole life. Of course she believed him. Of course she thought the only way to keep us safe was to carry it herself.”
My hands are shaking.
I notice it distantly—the fine tremor in my fingers, the way my pulse is pounding in my temples. I’m always steady. That’s my thing. I watch, I wait, I anchor. I don’t shake.
I’m shaking now.
“He threatened her.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “He looked at her and told her we’d be taken if she talked.”
“Beckett—” Vaelor starts.
“He put that on her.” I’m getting louder. I can hear it and I can’t stop. “She’s been walking around for days thinking she has to protect us. Thinking if she says the wrong thing, we disappear. And he just—he fucking—”
