26. Nora
NORA
The school calls me at eleven twenty-three in the morning, while I’m halfway through answering emails for work.
At first I almost don’t answer because unknown numbers have started making my stomach twist over the last week.
Every time my phone rings unexpectedly now, I think about traffickers, biker gangs, wars, and the fact that I apparently let three violent criminals sleep in my bed before learning their real names.
Then I see the school caller ID. Ice floods my chest instantly.
I answer before the second ring finishes. “Hello?”
“Ms. Martin?” the front office receptionist asks quickly. “We need you to come to the school immediately please. There’s been an incident involving Paxton.”
I’m already standing before she finishes the sentence. My chair nearly tips backward hard enough to hit the wall behind me.
“What kind of incident?”
“There was a fight.”
For half a second my brain genuinely cannot process the words. Paxton? Fight?
“What happened?” I demand, already grabbing my keys from the counter. “Is he hurt?”
“He’s alright,” she says, in the careful tone people use when children are definitely not alright. “But we do need you here as soon as possible.”
I don’t even remember hanging up.
The next several minutes blur together into panic and movement. Shoes. Purse. Phone charger. Jacket. My hands shake hard enough dropping them and I curse under my breath while trying to breathe normally.
It’s been a week.
A full week since Stryker stood in my hallway and calmly explained that he, Blade, and Viper were leadership inside an outlaw motorcycle club tangled in organized crime and an active war.
A full week since I asked him to leave and for them to give me space. Technically they respected that. Mostly.
They stopped showing up at the house. Stopped texting outside occasional check-ins about the children.
Stopped trying to push conversations I clearly wasn’t ready for.
But they didn’t disappear completely either because Lena and Paxton still see each other at school every day and apparently the universe hates me personally.
Paxton asks about them constantly. About Lena too. Every morning this week starts with some variation of:
Is Lena coming over after school today?
When will Blade come back?
Did Viper finish his work trip?
Can Stryker help me build the dinosaur shelf this weekend?
Every single question feels like somebody quietly pushing against my ribs. Because I don’t know what the right answer is anymore. I know what I should do.
I should take my son and leave before deeper attachment forms. Before Paxton becomes even more emotionally connected to people capable of violence I barely understand.
Before I wake up one day fully dependent on men whose lives involve guns, trafficking investigations, cartel wars, and torture rooms.
But then I think about the way Paxton smiles around them.
The way Lena signs entire stories now, just because she wants him included faster.
The way Blade adjusts Paxton’s sleeves automatically when he washes his hands because he notices sensory irritation before I even do sometimes.
The way Viper sits on the floor building Legos for over an hour without checking his phone once.
The way Stryker looks at my son like protecting him is already written into his bloodstream permanently.
Long story short? Nothing feels simple anymore.
I nearly forget to lock the house behind me. The drive to the school feels endless despite only taking fifteen minutes.
By the time I pull into the parking lot, my pulse is pounding hard enough that I have to physically force myself not to sprint across the sidewalk toward the front office. Children still move through the hallways normally around me while I sign in at the desk with trembling fingers.
The receptionist gives me one of those overly sympathetic looks adults use when something involving your child has already escalated too far.
“This way,” she says softly.
I follow her down the hallway trying not to imagine worst-case scenarios. God forbid somebody physically cornered him and he couldn’t hear them coming.
The office door opens before I can spiral any further and immediately my heart cracks straight down the middle.
Paxton sits curled stiffly in one of the chairs near the principal’s desk with dried blood beneath his nose and dirt streaked across his sweater. One sleeve is half torn at the wrist. His hair sticks up messily like somebody grabbed it during the fight.
Beside him, Lena looks almost equally rough. Her braid has mostly fallen apart. There’s a scrape along her chin and another across one knuckle. She sits ramrod straight beside Paxton, like a tiny, furious bodyguard clutching an ice pack against her cheek.
Two unfamiliar children sit across the room equally miserable-looking. One boy around Lena’s age. One girl maybe six or seven. Both glaring.
Paxton spots me first. Relief floods his entire face so hard it nearly hurts to look at. He’s out of the chair instantly, crossing the office toward me before I even finish stepping inside. I crouch, automatically catching him against my chest while checking him over frantically with both hands.
What happened? Are you hurt anywhere else?
Paxton signs fast and agitated against my forearms while making distressed little vocal sounds low in his throat.
My nose hurts but I’m okay. Lena punched Ethan because he called you bad names and then his sister pushed Lena and then he grabbed me and then I bit him.
I blink.
“You bit him?” I catch myself and sign the words quickly
Paxton looks deeply unapologetic, but nods. Before I can process any of that, the office door opens again behind me, and suddenly all three men are there.
The reaction inside me is instant and humiliating. Relief first. Then anger at the relief.
Stryker enters first, already carrying enough tension in his posture that the principal visibly straightens in her chair.
Viper follows behind him, looking equally serious, while Blade brings up the rear.
He’s still wearing dark jeans and a black henley that make it painfully obvious he got back from Los Angeles recently.
I didn’t even know he was home.
Lena immediately moves toward Stryker while still keeping one hand hooked in Paxton’s sleeve like she’s afraid somebody will separate them.
Stryker crouches in front of her instantly. “You hurt bad?”
She shakes her head quickly before signing with sharp angry motions.
They said Paxton is weird and broken because he’s deaf. Then they said Nora is gross because she has three boyfriends like a whore.
She has to finger spell that last one and the office goes dead silent as the four of us now get caught up on what happened.
Oh.
Oh.
I close my eyes briefly. When I open them again, every single one of the men looks dangerous in completely different ways.
Viper goes still. Blade’s expression empties out entirely. Stryker looks at the principal slowly enough that even she shifts uncomfortably in her chair.
“I see,” he says calmly.
The principal clears her throat. “I’m presuming the kids just explained the situation? Now obviously the language used wasn’t appropriate, but the physical violence from both Lena and Paxton was extremely concerning?—”
“Extremely concerning?” Viper repeats softly.
Something about his tone makes the principal falter immediately. The other parents sitting across the office stiffen too.
The boy—Ethan apparently—crosses his arms defensively. “They started it.”
“No,” Lena snaps out loud before immediately switching back to sign for Paxton’s benefit. “You lied first.”
The principal sighs heavily. “The issue here is that the children are struggling socially with…unconventional family dynamics.”
I stare at her. Actually stare.
“Excuse me?”
She gives me a tight, uncomfortable smile, clearly trying to sound diplomatic. “Children can be very reactive to lifestyles they don’t fully understand.”
Lifestyle. I glance toward Paxton.
He’s watching the adults carefully, but clearly missing huge pieces of the conversation already, because nobody besides us and Blade are signing consistently enough to fully keep up with rapid discussion.
Anger rises sharp and immediate inside me. I start translating automatically for him while speaking aloud at the same time.
Paxton’s expression hardens instantly. Then he signs something so blunt, it nearly shocks a laugh out of me despite the situation.
They are stupid.
Viper actually chokes slightly trying not to laugh. Stryker, meanwhile, looks about two seconds from getting himself banned from an elementary school permanently.
“With respect,” Blade says calmly before anyone else can escalate, “the concern here should probably be children bullying a deaf five-year-old and another child over their home life. Not whether they defended themselves afterward.”
The principal visibly bristles. “Violence is never acceptable.”
“No,” Stryker says evenly. “Bullying disabled children usually isn’t either.”
The room goes instantly tense again.
The other parents finally speak up then, the woman sounding flustered and defensive. “Well maybe if they weren’t raised around that kind of environment?—”
Viper cuts her off smoothly. “Careful.”
Something in his voice shuts her up immediately.
I rub a hand slowly over Paxton’s back, trying to regulate my own emotions, because suddenly I understand why the men reacted so strongly to hearing about bullying before.
People aren’t reacting to Paxton being deaf. They’re reacting to difference. To us. Three men. One woman. Two children who clearly function like siblings.
It doesn’t fit neatly enough for small-town comfort and children repeat everything adults say at home.
The realization makes something cold settle in my stomach. Beside me, Blade gently touches Paxton’s shoulder to get his attention before signing slower than usual.
You did not do anything wrong by protecting yourself.