Chapter 27
Harmony
The drive to the community center passed in a blur of frost-lined trees and early sunlight that felt too bright for how hollow I felt inside.
Eric kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely on the console like he was ready to reach for me at a moment’s notice.
The closer we got to the community center, the more the tension in my shoulders tightened.
I pressed my hands together and tried to keep my breathing steady.
“You’re sure you want to do this today?” Eric asked quietly.
“No,” I admitted. “But I need to. Being here… it reminds me I’m more than what he made me.”
He nodded, understanding settling in his expression. He didn’t try to talk me out of it.
When he pulled into the lot, I unbuckled slowly, my pulse fluttering like it didn’t know which way to run.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said. “Call or text me if anything feels wrong. Anything,” he accentuated the last word, but I already knew I had to be on alert.
“I will.” I forced a smile, despite my nerves.
He watched me until I stepped through the glass doors.
Inside, warmth wrapped around me. The community center always smelled faintly of old books and lavender cleaner, and today it felt like walking into a place where the past couldn’t follow me, if only for an hour.
“Harmony?”
Mara Duquette stepped out from behind the welcome desk.
She was in her late thirties, tall, steady, with soft brown hair she always kept clipped back.
She wore a faded “Community Center Outreach” hoodie and the same calm expression that had soothed a hundred kids before me. But when she saw my face, she paused.
“Hey,” she said gently. “Haven’t seen you around in a few days. Everything all right?”
I nodded too quickly. “Just tired.”
She didn’t push. She never pushed. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. The teens have been asking about you all week.”
I smiled, despite the knot in my stomach. “I’ll head in.”
“Take your time,” she said, her voice warm. “And if you need to step out or talk later, you let me know. You don’t have to carry the world alone.”
Her kindness almost undid me. In the rec room, Ethan spotted me first. Seventeen, all elbows and energy, he grinned like I hadn’t vanished for a few days.
“You’re alive!” he announced. “Kayla said you were abducted by aliens. Mateo thought you were auditioning for a secret government hacker job.”
Mateo rolled his eyes. “That was a joke.”
Kayla elbowed him. “Barely.”
I laughed. It felt good, like breathing fresh air after being locked underground.
Janelle, twenty and perpetually unimpressed, crossed her arms. “If you’re here, you’re helping with the canvas prep.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her mouth twitched with a smile.
The next hour passed in a comforting rhythm of painting, teasing, music humming low from someone’s phone.
These teens didn’t know the details of my past, not really, but they understood survival.
They understood growing up with the ground shifting under your feet.
That was enough. For a while, it was easy to forget the thistle, the message, the photo taken from the shadows.
But when I stepped into the supply hallway with a box of brushes, something stopped me cold.
The side door that was always locked, always checked, had a faint drag mark across the metal near the handle.
Not a smear this time. A thin scrape. Like someone had tested a tool against it.
Not breaking in.
Just… testing. It was messed up I knew these things, that I was taught how to think like a thief, a criminal. My pulse jumped.
Mara’s voice floated from the lobby. “Harmony? Everything okay?”
I forced my voice to stay steady. “Yeah. Just grabbing supplies.”
But my hand shook around the box. Back in the art room, Ethan waved a dripping paintbrush. “Harmony, we’re having a crisis. Janelle says my mountain looks like a dying potato.”
“It does,” Janelle said.
“It does not!” Ethan frowned.
I smiled weakly. “I’ll be right there.”
For the next forty-five minutes, I lost myself in color-blending, jokes, and the soft hum of belonging. But every so often my gaze drifted toward the hallway. Toward that door.
And every so often, Mara watched me with quiet concern.
By the time we wrapped up, my nerves were stretched thin. The teens filed out in groups, backpacks slung over shoulders, calling goodbyes.
“You’ll be here tomorrow?” Kayla asked.
“That’s the plan.” I hoped it was true.
After the room emptied, Mara walked me toward the entrance. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m okay,” I assured.
But the worry in her eyes told me she didn’t believe me. A car rolled past the center’s front drive, past the front automatic doors. Dark. Slow. Tinted. Moving just a little too deliberately. My breath caught.
Mara followed my stare. “That car’s been around twice today.”
My stomach dropped. “Do you know who it belongs to?”
“No.” Her voice was soft, careful. “But I can alert Officer Rousseau if you want.”
“No,” I whispered. “Not yet.”
She squeezed my arm. “Just be careful, sweetheart.”
Eric’s truck pulled in before I could respond. Relief hit so hard I had to steady myself. When I stepped outside, the cold air slapped my cheeks awake. Eric watched me closely as I climbed in.
“How was it?” he asked when I shut the door.
“It was good to see the teens.”
A beat.
“Mostly.”
His hand tightened around the steering wheel. “Tell me the rest when we get home.”
I nodded, looking back through the windshield at the brick building that had always felt like a safe place.
A place where someone had tested a locked door.
A place where a dark car circled slowly enough to be noticed.
Something was shifting. I could feel it as surely as the cold pressing through the windows.
The only difference now was, I wasn’t alone.