Chapter 10
NOVA
Iawoke to voices outside my bedroom door.
“You’re positive?” Hudson asked.
What the damn hell? Why were my roommates monitoring my bladder activities? That was personal.
Now, I was too awake to go back to sleep, which meant I needed coffee in the next ten minutes, or all my organs would fail, my brain would spontaneously combust, and my bones would break one by one.
Probably. I wasn’t going to test it.
When I opened the door, Hudson and Delilah both scrambled back.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” Delilah said in a sing-song voice. “Oh no, did Hudson wake you?”
Hudson glared at her. “Bitch, you were here too.”
“Yes,” I said, walking to the bathroom like a zombie. I paused in the doorway. “You two can make me a coffee as an apology.”
“Uh-huh,” Hudson said, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes. “Okay, fine. But you have much explaining to do.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, shutting the door.
“I like Morning Nova,” I heard Delilah say from the kitchen. “It’s, like, the only time she’s ever mean.”
“Yeah, I like when she’s mean too,” Hudson said with a sigh. “I feel like there’s a joke in here somewhere about how many queer people it takes to make a coffee. Since being a barista is queer-coded…”
“Keep workshopping it. You’re onto something,” I called with my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth.
When I made it into the kitchen, my coffee was waiting for me—as were Hudson and Delilah, sitting atop barstools and staring at me expectantly.
“Jesus,” I muttered with an eyeroll as I reached for my coffee. “All right, all right. What are your questions?”
Hudson wore an oversized t-shirt featuring surrealist art, and Delilah was still in her matching pink pajama set, her blonde hair up in a butterfly clip.
Hudson raised a hand, and I nodded to him. “What in the fuck happened last night?”
“And did you text Mr. Hottie from the diner?” Delilah asked without being called on, clearly not understanding the student-teacher bit Hudson and I were doing.
I paused. What had happened last night? I ran through the strange series of events, my blood running cold when I remembered what I had to do in order to ascend.
Not in the mood for Hudson’s self-righteous lecturing, I decided to focus on other tidbits. “First of all, there were slave nuns.”
They both froze, and I basked in smug satisfaction. Even Hudson was on the road to being flabbergasted. Then, I went in for the kill.
“And a woman on a St. Andrew’s Cross was astral journeying and whispering to men in suits the future of the New York Stock Exchange.” I took another sip of my coffee.
Saying nothing, Hudson’s brows inched closer as I spoke, and Delilah’s head cocked slightly as they each digested what I was telling them.
“Oh, while coming. I forgot to mention she was coming.”
“Naturally,” Hudson finally said, though the humor was slow to meet his eyes. “Well… did they try to get you up on that cross?”
I snorted. “No.”
He shook his head, tsking. “Men in suits don’t need any more help amassing resources. We’re the ones who need our spirit guides to whisper investment advice. You’re telling me that non-corporeal entities aren’t at all concerned about the rapidly widening wealth inequality?”
Delilah nodded. “Yeah, Nova, get on up there! We need you to be our orgasming Robin Hood.”
Hudson laughed. “The people’s pillow princess.”
I rolled my eyes, but the joke was too good not to smile. “I am not getting on up there.” I paused for another drink of coffee. “There is one thing I have to confess.”
They leaned over the counter. Inara jumped up with a trill, feeling left out.
“The man from the diner was at the orientation and last night’s soirée.”
Delilah gasped. “Say more.”
Hudson’s eyes flashed with concern.
“He didn’t follow me to the diner,” I said before Hudson could jump to that conclusion. “It was just a freaky fluke coincidence. He’s local.”
Hudson remained skeptical. “I don’t like that at all.”
“I do, but I don’t,” Delilah decided. “I do like it because he was hot as fuck and sparks were flying. We almost caught strays through the window.”
My gaze hardened. “Those were not chemistry sparks. They were sparks of suspicion and distrust.”
“Hmm,” Hudson said, studying me. “And let me guess: there were zero chemistry sparks between you two last night?”
Fuck, he was onto me. “Correct,” I said, because it didn’t matter whether we had chemistry. I could never fall for someone like Wes, and he’d already made it clear he could only offer friendship.
I explained more about the night and the promise of ascension from Jayne, still refusing to mention the sermon and potential hypnosis.
I didn’t even want to think about the choice I would need to make in six short days.
Hudson raised his brows just like I had at Jayne’s condemnation of technology in favor of primal kinks.
Inara rubbed against me before placing her paws on my shoulder and playfully headbutting my face while probing for attention. We all stopped talking to aww at her and gush over what a sweet girl she was.
Lorelei was the one who brought Inara home with her one day on a whim, and I was the one who ended up taking care of her.
Inara was a character from the show Firefly—it nearly inspired Lorelei to change her handle from @siren_baby to @intergalactic_wh0re, but Hudson and I talked her out of it.
Naming the calico kitten of mysterious origins after her idol was the logical next best thing.
Inara was a reminder of all the times I’d picked up after Lorelei thanklessly. The Circle was just another one of her messes to clean. No one else was going to do it.
“You’re perfect, and I am happy to scoop all of your piss and shit,” I whispered to Inara, just in case she was telepathic and thought I saw her as a burden.
“Have you checked the burner?” Delilah asked.
My heart sped up. The thought of checking it alone was anxiety-inducing. But with Delilah and Hudson here, I decided to rip off the Band-Aid.
“No new posts,” I said. “But there’s a story.”
Hudson and Delilah slid off the barstools and gathered on either side of me. I clicked her profile image.
The first image was a shot of a familiar stained-glass window and a text box that read, Everything belongs to Him. Heart, soul, womb… The song playing was Flower Face’s Biblical Love.
Red hot rage coursed through my veins.
“Ew,” Hudson said at the same time Delilah said, “Oh, shit.”
“She doesn’t want children,” I hissed. “She once told me that was the only thing she has ever been sure of in her entire life. She said she would never change her mind, not for anything or anyone. She made me promise to smother her with a pillow before she ever reproduced.”
The story timed out, and a new slide appeared.
This time, it was a selfie. Her eyes were hauntingly empty, slightly glossy.
The text read, I’m trying every day to let go of fear.
I’m not ready yet. But I am transcending through His leadership and divine patience.
We must let go of everything that no longer serves us. We must be brave.
“Who in the fuck are these stories even for?” Hudson asked, breaking through my rising panic.
I barely heard him over my own spinning thoughts.
“Hudson—the pregnant women, Jayne’s weird speech from last night…
Maybe Lorelei’s being metaphorical and woo-woo.
I fucking hope so. But what if she’s being groomed to do something she doesn’t want to do?
Something as life-altering as having a baby. ”
“You think she’s being Ballerina Farmed,” Delilah said, referencing a famous tradwife influencer who was allegedly coerced to give up all her dreams to be a wife and mother of a soccer team of children.
“That was literally the life we escaped,” I said through a clenched jaw. “How can she not see that?”
The story ended, and I slammed my phone down so I could pace our tiny living room.
Hudson finally spoke. “Sometimes, it’s not enough to physically leave.
You have to mentally leave too—and I’m not sure Lorelei ever did.
The jumping from toxic man to toxic man…
that’s where she feels most comfortable.
Because it’s familiar, not because it’s safe.
” He pinned me with a serious look. “It’s not your job to rescue her, and you can’t fix her. She has to figure it out herself.”
“What if by the time she does figure it out, she’s trapped with an abusive oil oligarch and five children she never wanted? And I did nothing to stop it?”
“You want to know what I think?” Hudson said, frustration ripe in his chestnut eyes. “I think you’re having fun.”
I stopped pacing, struck with equal parts confusion and irritation.
“I think you’re having fun with Mr. Hottie and you’re having fun watching rich people do weird rich people shit, and I think you need the excuse of rescuing Lorelei so you don’t have to admit you’re doing what you’re doing because you want to.”
“That is—”
He cut me off. “And you’re allowed to want things, Nova.
Is it a cult? Probably. But you have a good head on your shoulders, and you’re allowed to have fun while you search for whatever it is you’re searching for.
Call it book research for all I care. I just wish Lorelei didn’t have to ruin it for you like she ruins everything else. ”
“Now look who’s wearing the tinfoil hat,” I said indignantly, ignoring the anxious churn of my guts and the itchy, uncomfortable heat crawling under my skin. “I—I need to write.”
I grabbed my phone from the counter and escaped. I was sick with shame and angry with Hudson for provoking it.
“Love you, Nova!” Delilah called nervously.
“Love you too,” I muttered. “And only you.”
Hudson sighed, and I closed Inara and myself inside my bedroom. Instead of sitting in my emotion, I distracted myself with a horrible decision.
I texted Wes.
How do I know you’re not going to hypnotize me into becoming your slave nun?
The moment I sent it, I regretted it. It only amplified the sick feeling in my stomach, the urge to flee upstate and start a new life in the woods.