Nova
I can’t do this.
I’ve been standing here for a while.
In front of Lena’s door studying the wood while Beckett works fifteen feet away on something I don’t recognize.
The paint is peeling on the wood. Someone should…
This is stupid. It’s stupid because I already decided. I decided in the woods. I decided before the woods, probably. I’ve been deciding for days and somehow that doesn’t make me move.
Beckett looks over again. Looks away.
He’s not going to say anything. That’s the thing about him — he’ll just keep doing that until I figure it out myself, which I hate, because it works.
Okay.
Okay fine.
I knock before I can talk myself out of it and now I’m committed, which is — great. Love that for me. No take-backs.
Three seconds. If nobody answers in three seconds I’m leaving and that’s just how it goes. One. Two.
The door opens.
Dammit.
Max looks at me like he already knew it was going to be me and already decided he didn’t want it to be. Same.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
We stand there.
It’s awkward. We both know it is.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“She had a bad night and the—”
“I know.”
“Nova—”
“Max.” I meet his eyes. “I know. I still need to see her.”
He stares at me and my stomach churns. She was my friend. Is my friend. Max knows that and…
“Problem?”
I turn and there’s Beckett.
Sawdust on his sleeve, piece of wood in his hand, reading my face in about half a second. Whatever he finds there makes his mouth tip up.
My eyes go hot. Not on purpose. There’s just too much sitting in my chest right now and it picked my eyes to leak out of, which — cool, great, very helpful.
He looks at Max over my shoulder.
Max makes a sound. Steps back.
“That’s what I thought.” Beckett looks at me. “Firefly.”
He kisses my cheek. Quick. Warm. Already walking away.
I stand there.
Firefly.
My heart thuds in my chest and I swear if my face turns red…
I breathe.
“She’s upstairs,” Max says. “Yell if she needs anything.”
I clear my throat and head upstairs.
Her door is half open. I push it.
Lena is on the bed.
Pajamas, wool socks, arms around herself. Rocking — tiny, just her weight shifting — and looking at the window like there’s something out there. There isn’t anything out there.
Her mouth is moving.
I stand in the doorway. Listen.
“—didn’t come from Order. Linda needed — needed help for—” She stops. Starts again. “Too clean. Too clean to be—”
Linda.
Okay…
It can’t be the same Linda, right?
I cross to the chair by the window. Slow, so I don’t startle her. She doesn’t look at me. The room doesn’t change for her at all.
“Lena.”
“—save Nova. Not like me. Nova can’t be—” Her hands tighten on her own arms. “Linda’s not Order.”
I can’t breathe.
“She’s not Order. Came for Nova. Came for—” The thread breaks. “Too clean to be—”
“Lena.” My voice comes out too low. “What about Linda? What did she do?”
Nothing.
She just stares, rocks a little harder.
I sit back.
My shoulder aches and I focus on it because I don’t know how to think about the fact that she’s been sitting here saying Linda’s not Order like a skipping record. Linda, the only one who seemed halfway decent during processing.
“—Nova needs to know. Nova needs to—” She pauses and something shifts in her breathing. “Linda’s not what she said.”
Everything in me stops.
The rocking slows.
Lena turns her head.
She looks at me.
Her eyes find my face and I can see it. She’s here and what’s in her face is — relieved.
“Linda’s not what she said.” She says it clear. Present. Like we’re having a normal conversation.
Then she’s gone.
“Too clean to be—”
I move to the bed, sitting next to her. I reach over and take her hand. I don’t decide to. My hand just does it.
She doesn’t pull away. Keeps rocking, keeps looping, but her fingers curl around mine and hold on.
My throat closes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out smaller than I want it to. “Lena. I’m really sorry.”
She rocks slower.
“Nova safe,” she says. Soft. Far away. “Nova safe.”
I sit there and I hold her hand and I don’t say anything else because there’s nothing to say. She held onto this. Through all of it. Through whatever they did in there, she held onto the warning and kept trying and I didn’t even—
I stay until my shoulder makes it impossible to pretend I’m not feeling it.
Then I get up. Careful. I set her hand back down on the blanket like it matters, because it does.
She doesn’t look at me again.
Max is at the bottom of the stairs.
He reads my face and doesn’t say anything. Good call.
I stop on the last step.
“She was trying to warn me.” It comes out weird. Flat. “The whole time. That’s what the loops are.”
Max looks at the floor. He knew. I can tell he already knew.
Neither of us says anything.
“Okay,” I say.
I walk out into the night air.
Now, I have something to do.