4. Enley
Enley
Day two at the cabin starts with my hands.
I’m sitting at the table running the check Render showed me yesterday when I notice my fingers aren’t cooperating.
My right hand’s steady and accurate. My left hand trembles with a fine shake that starts at the fingertips and travels up my wrist. It’s not bad enough to mess up my typing, but I can see it.
If I hold my hand up to the window light, the tremor is obvious.
I tuck my left hand into my lap and keep going with my right. The check on my systems finishes clean. Everything works the way it should. I should feel proud. I do, in a distant sort of way, but most of my brain is busy trying to keep the rest of me from falling apart.
Render’s outside doing his morning walk around the cabin.
I can hear his boots on the gravel when the wind shifts.
He takes the same route every morning, a wide circle that lasts exactly eleven minutes.
I’ve timed it. Not because I’m watching him, but because my mind counts and tracks everything right now, and I can’t make it stop.
It started in that container. The counting. The cataloging. My brain turned into an inventory system when my body couldn’t move. I counted rivets in the ceiling. I counted the guards’ footsteps. I counted my own heartbeats when the fear got too loud.
The counting kept me sane.
Now it’s a habit I can’t shake. I know how many steps it takes to cross the cabin.
Fifteen. I know how many breaths Render takes per minute when he’s focused.
Twelve to fourteen. I know the rhythm of the generator.
I know all these things, and the knowing crowds out everything else I need space for.
The door opens. Render steps inside with cold air clinging to his jacket and a few pine needles stuck to one boot. He crosses to the table and sets down a small bunch of wild mint he must’ve picked along the way.
“For the water,” he says. “Better than nothing.”
It’s such a small thing. Thoughtful in a way that surprises me. Poe would’ve been too focused on the plan to notice something like mint. But Render noticed. He stopped and picked it for me.
“Thanks,” I say. My left hand still trembles in my lap.
He sits across from me and pulls the laptop closer.
His morning routine. Check for messages from Knight, scan the emergency lines, look for any changes in Serafina’s visible network.
I watch him work the way I’ve been for two days now.
He’s harder to read than anyone I’ve ever met.
Not because he hides things, but because he’s so still.
Everything he does comes out calm and precise.
It makes him incredibly good at what he does.
It also makes him frustratingly hard to get close to.
Almost.
Because there are moments. The way his hand lingered when he cleaned the cut on my lip. The way he said “I’ve got you” like those words carried real weight. The way he looks at me sometimes when he thinks I’m not paying attention.
He’s in there. Under all that control. I’m just not sure what he looks like when he lets himself out.
We work through the morning. He shows me how to listen in on hidden messages today. His tools let us watch patterns in the way people communicate without them knowing. It’s not new to me, but his versions are cleaner and smarter than anything I’ve ever seen before.
“This one watches how big the messages are and when they get sent,” he explains, pointing at the screen. “Even when the actual words are hidden, the patterns tell a story. How often they talk. How much they say. If we watch long enough, we can guess when the next important message will come.”
“Pattern analysis,” I say.
“Exactly.”
I lean in to see the graph he pulls up. Clusters of activity spread across time. I spot one group that looks different. Smaller messages. Irregular timing. More careful.
“There,” I say, pointing. “That cluster doesn’t match the others. It feels deliberate. Like someone trying to stay hidden.”
He looks where I’m pointing, then at me, then back at the screen. “I’ve been watching that for days. Couldn’t figure out why it felt off.”
“It feels off because it is off. Whoever is sending those is being extra careful not to get noticed.”
He’s silent for a few seconds. On Render, that’s the same as applause.
“You just spotted a possible secret channel inside a criminal organization after twenty minutes of looking at that graph,” he says.
“I’ve always been good at patterns. Poe used to say I see shapes other people miss.”
“He was right.”
The simple way he says it, without any surprise or patronizing tone, sends a warm flutter through my chest. I’ve always thought Render was ridiculously good-looking.
The kind of bad boy handsome that sneaks up on you.
Right now, with sunlight caught in the dark scruff that shadows his jaw and those impossible eyes pinned on me, remembering I'm supposed to keep my distance feels like the dumbest idea I've had all day.
We keep working, heads close over the laptop. Our elbows brush. Our knees touch under the small table. Each little contact sends a spark through me. I notice the warmth of his arm next to mine. The way his shoulder fills out his shirt. The focused set of his mouth when he concentrates.
I like it too much.
Then the cabin door bangs in the wind.
It’s nothing. Just a gust slamming the unlatched door. But my body doesn’t hear a door. It hears the container. Metal slamming shut. The bolt sliding home. Darkness rushing in.
I’m not in the cabin anymore.
I’m back there. Wrists burning. Air thick with rust and fear. Boots outside. Laughter while I sit in the dark wondering if my brother’s already gone.
My lungs seize. I can’t pull in a full breath. My hands shake hard enough that the chair rattles against the table. The tremor spreads through my whole body.
I can’t stop it.
“Enley.” Render’s voice cuts through the noise in my head. “Enley. Look at me.”
I try, but the room keeps flipping between the cabin and that metal box. Then his hands are on mine. Both of them. Warm and strong, pressing down on the table, holding me steady. Not gentle. Just solid. Real. Anchoring me to the here and now.
“You’re in the cabin,” he says, voice calm and steady. “You’re safe. That was just the door in the wind. You’re with me. I’ve got you.”
His thumbs brush over the backs of my hands in slow circles. The contact is grounding. His face is close, eyes locked on mine, full of quiet concern. He doesn’t pull away. He stays right there, solid and warm, letting me feel that I’m not alone.
“Breathe with me,” he murmurs. “In slow. Out slow. That’s it. You’re doing good.”
I focus on his hands. On the steady rhythm of his breathing. On the way he’s looking at me like I matter more than the work on the table. Little by little the room settles. The container fades. My lungs open and air finally goes all the way down.
The shaking eases. I’m still trembling, but it’s manageable now.
Render doesn’t let go right away. He keeps his hands over mine, thumbs still moving in those soothing circles. “There you are,” he says softly. “Welcome back.”
I feel exposed. Raw. But also seen in a way that makes my heart ache. I’ve always found him attractive, but this is different. This steady presence, this willingness to sit in the mess with me, makes something warm and dangerous bloom in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be.” His voice is gentle. “You went through hell. It’s going to come back sometimes. I’m right here when it does.”
He stays close for another long moment before slowly pulling his hands back. The loss of his touch leaves me colder than I want to admit. Our eyes meet across the table, and the air feels charged.
I wipe my face and take a shaky sip of the mint water. The tremor in my hands has mostly stopped.
“The hidden messages,” I say, steering us back to safer ground. “I think the next one might come through in the next couple of hours based on the pattern. We should be ready.”
He nods. “I’ll set it up.”
We go back to work side by side. Our elbows brush again. This time neither of us pulls away quite so fast. The almost-touches feel different now.
A few hours later we catch the message. It gives us our first real clue. A partial code and a location hint about forty miles north.
“Good work,” Render says, looking at me with real pride in his eyes.
“I know,” I reply, managing a small smile.
He almost smiles back. The corner of his mouth lifts, then settles. That almost is starting to feel like its own language between us.
Night falls. We eat our simple dinner and he goes to take the floor again, but I stop him. I shift my weight from foot to foot.
“You’ll never get any sleep on that hard floor,” I tell him. “We’re adults, and we can share a bed.” I don’t want him knowing the truth. That I feel safer with him in the bed with me. A solid body, breathing beside me.
“Okay,” is all he says. He moves toward the bed, and pulls the covers back.
I climb in first and he slides in after me. We both lie flat on our backs, staring at the ceiling.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Always,” he whispers back into the night, and I already feel safer.
I close my eyes. The container doesn’t come back. Instead I hear Render’s steady breath beside me.