The way her eyes move across the dishes before she reaches for anything. The way she waits until someone else serves themselves first. The way she takes small portions, careful portions, like she’s calculating something I can’t see.
She eats slowly. Controlled. Stops before her plate is empty.
No one comments. No one pushes seconds on her. The guys have figured out, without discussing it, that pressure makes it worse.
But I notice when she reaches for the bread. The way her hand hesitates for just a fraction of a second, like she’s checking to make sure it’s allowed. Like she’s waiting for someone to tell her no.
Fifteen years. That’s what the trainer said. Fifteen years outside the system.
I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what kind of life teaches you to reach for bread like it might disappear. But I’m starting to understand that whatever happened to her didn’t just happen once. It happened every day, for years, until it became the shape of her.
I get up to refill the water pitcher. When I come back, I set a small plate of rolls closer to her side of the table. Not offering. Not commenting. Just making them easier to reach.
She doesn’t look at me. But she takes one.
After dinner, she disappears upstairs.
I start on the dishes. Beckett brings his plate over without being asked, sets it on the counter beside me.
“You’re out of dish soap,” he says.
“There’s more under the sink.”
“Found it.”
He hands me the bottle. That’s it. That’s the whole conversation. But he stays in the kitchen instead of going back to his chair, which means he doesn’t want to be alone with whatever he’s thinking.
Rane’s voice drifts in from the other room. “—didn’t even finish the orientation. Just said ‘additional protocols’ and dismissed us.”
“She’ll reschedule,” Kyron says. Flat. Uninterested.
“Will she though? Because that felt pretty final.”
“It wasn’t final. It was interrupted.”
“Same difference.”
“It’s really not.”
I rinse a plate and set it in the rack. The conversation isn’t about orientation. It’s about not talking about Trey, not talking about Nova, not talking about the fact that everything shifted today and none of us know what to do with it.
Locke hasn’t said a word. He’s by the window, jaw tight, watching the path outside like he’s expecting someone. Beckett’s book is closed on the armchair. Rane’s being too loud about nothing, which means he’s scared.
And Nova is upstairs, alone, with whatever she’s carrying.
I dry my hands on the towel and hang it on the hook.
Tomorrow isn’t about orientation anymore. Tomorrow is about what the system does next.
And I don’t think any of us are ready for it.
Chapter 12
Nova
I wake up to voices downstairs.
Not loud—just the sounds of people existing in the same space. Cabinets opening. Water running. Someone laughing at something someone else said.
