We walk through the doors.
Whatever comes next, I’m not facing it alone.
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
Chapter 10
Nova
Whatever I was expecting, this isn’t it.
One row of chairs facing a podium. Six seats in a line, like we’re waiting to be processed.
I move to take a seat and notice another chair in the back corner. I don’t know why that bothers me, why there’s a tightness in my chest that showed up as soon as I saw it. I take a breath and sit.
The guys settle around me without discussion. I end up between Rane and Beckett. Locke takes the end closest to the door.
The woman at the front waits until we’re seated. She has a tablet in her hands and an expression that gives nothing away.
“This session is mandatory for all provisional clusters,” she says. “Attendance is recorded. You will remain seated unless directed otherwise.”
She looks down at her tablet.
“This group has been designated for review due to its unique forming sequence.”
She looks at all of us.
“Four years ago, five individuals affiliated with separate Houses were identified as repeatedly congregating within a restricted radius. Contact occurred in variable configurations. One or two at a time. No fixed hierarchy.”
She says it like she’s reading a weather report.
“Relationships formed prior to system intervention.”
I feel Beckett shift beside me. Barely. Like he knows exactly where this is going.
“After two years of persistent co-location and unauthorized proximity, the system identified a cluster. Due to the individuals’ relevance within their respective Houses, the cluster was placed under elevated observation.”
She looks up. Scans the row. Her eyes pass over me like I shouldn’t be here.
“The cluster was assigned a high-threat designation.”
High-threat. These five men sitting in a row of chairs, not moving, barely breathing.
What the fuck?
She looks back at her tablet.
“Separately.”
The word hangs there.
“An individual was recorded as lost outside of the system at age eleven following the confirmed deaths of her parents.”
My parents. She’s talking about my parents. My hands curl into fists in my lap.
“The system classified the subject as an anomaly. The anomaly was tracked intermittently across multiple House territories over a fifteen-year period.”
Fifteen years. Tracked. They knew where I was. They always knew.
