He doesn’t argue. We both know how it works. They intervened because incidents cause paperwork, and paperwork draws attention, and attention is the last thing any finalized cluster wants. They didn’t do it because they give a shit about us.
No one gives a shit about us.
I dry my hands on a towel and head for the common room. Kyron’s on the couch with his phone, not even pretending to read it. He saw me come in. He sees everything.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
“I’m aware.”
“There’s a kit under the bathroom sink.”
“I know where the kit is.”
I don’t go get it. Instead I drop into the chair by the window and stare out at the courtyard. Empty path, flat light, nothing moving. Bonded housing—close enough to campus to be monitored, far enough to keep us separate from everyone else. Six clusters total, each of us tucked into ourown little box where the system can watch us without the inconvenience of integration.
We’re the only incomplete set. Have been for two years.
Two years of waiting for something that never came. Two years of being studied and monitored and quietly written off as a statistical anomaly. Two years of Harrick and people like him deciding that unfinished means broken, and broken means target practice.
Two years of knowing I’d take the hit for the right person without hesitation—and having no one to do that for.
I’m so fucking tired.
Beckett appears in the doorway. He takes one look at me—not at the blood, atme, reading something in my posture or my silence that I’m not aware I’m broadcasting—and disappears again. Returns a minute later with the medical kit. Sets it on the table beside me without comment.
He doesn’t hover. Doesn’t ask if I’m okay. Just makes sure I have what I need and settles into the armchair with a book he’s probably already read twice. That’s Beckett—always noticing, never pushing, waiting for the moment someone actually needs to be seen.
I wonder sometimes if he’s as tired of waiting as I am.
I clean the cuts because it’s easier than arguing.
Vaelor comes in an hour later, back from whatever training rotation he’s been running. He smells like sweat and effort and something that might be optimism, which means he had a good session and hasn’t heard about Harrick yet. He’ll find out eventually. He always does.
“Food?” he asks the room.
“Already cooking,” Rane calls from the kitchen.
“Need help?”
“When have I ever needed help?”
Vaelor ignores him and heads for the kitchen anyway. I hear them moving around each other, Vaelor pulling out plates before Rane can ask, Rane adjusting without breaking rhythm. Six plates. Always six.
This is normal. This is every day. The five of us in this house, moving around each other like we’ve been doing it for years—because we have—filling space that was designed for six and pretending the gap isn’t there.
Except we don’t pretend. Not really. We just don’t talk about it.
Vaelor sets the sixth plate on the table like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t mean anything. Like he hasn’t done it every single night for two years, making space for someone who never showed up.
The notification comes at 7:43 PM.
I know the exact time because I’m looking at my phone when the message appears, and something in my chest cracks open before I even read the words.
Cluster status updated. Missing element identified. Intake processing complete.
I read it three times. The words don’t change.
My hands are shaking. I don’t know why. I’m not scared. I’m not relieved. I’m—
