2 - Haven
HAVEN
The noise hit me in the face, even before I found the kitchen.
Laughter floated in; the loud, unfiltered kind who didn’t care who heard it. Someone dropped a spoon in the sink, as a chair scraped across the floor. Voices overlapped each other, rising and falling, cutting each other off without apology.
It wasn’t just noise, though. It was energy. Pure. Undistilled. Messy in a chaotic way that the rest of the house hadn’t been.
The hallway spit me into the kitchen, with a noticeable heat building the further I went. The air smelled like fryer grease and something vaguely burnt. It was layered with an underlying, sharper scent of sweat and detergent that I knew very, very well.
Hockey equipment.
The room was a lot bigger than I expected.
Old, like everything else in the converted Tudor-style Gothic house, but functional and utilitarian.
A long counter stretched down one wall, flanked by a pockmarked wooden table with bench seating.
The surface was stained with food, solo cup watermarks, and a thousand other spilled drinks.
I knew at first glance, that table had seen things.
The cabinets didn’t quite match, with doors that were either missing or removed on purpose. Beyond that was the fridge of a thousand magnets. One of them pinned a dog-eared piece of paper marked ‘Cleaning Schedule’ at the top, but the schedule itself looked like it needed to be cleaned.
Every available surface in the kitchen was occupied by Reavers.
Four guys I hadn’t met were scattered throughout the space.
One sat on the counter, long legs dangling, eating straight out of a takeout container.
Another leaned against the stove, scrolling through his phone.
A third had taken over the table, wrapping his hockey stick with two different colors of tape. The last…
The last guy walked out of the bathroom, just off the kitchen.
“Jesus Christ, Zack!” the guy scrolling through his phone cried, pinching his nose. “What the hell did you do in there?”
Zack — apparently — just shrugged, completely unbothered.
“Duty called.”
“That’s not ‘duty,’” someone else shot back. “That’s chemical warfare!”
The others groaned, in chorus. And something told me, not for the first time.
I stood there with my hand wrapped around my suitcase handle, which had become my security blanket. The living, breathing scene stopped all at once, a second after they noticed me.
Once they did, the change was immediate. It wasn’t obvious, it wasn’t dramatic. But I knew it when I saw it.
Conversations stopped. Shoulders straightened.
“Well, that explains it,” the guy taping up his hockey stick said, off handedly.
“Explains what?” asked Zack, already moving toward the fridge.
“The other smell in here.”
A few of the guys laughed. It wasn’t very kind laughter.
I didn’t move, but I also didn’t look away. If they were waiting for me to be the first to blink, they were going to be disappointed.
“Let me guess,” the one at the stove said. “Maxwell.”
It wasn’t a question, really.
“Yes,” I replied.
He nodded while poking his cheek with his tongue.
“Caleb,” he said, jerking his chin toward himself. He did the others in rapid succession. “Asher. Dorian. Zack.” He paused for a moment. “You already met the welcoming committee.”
I bit my lip, rather than smile.
“Something like that.”
Asher — the one with the long, dangling legs — snorted. “Did you see where they’re putting you?”
“Upstairs,” I said.
“Yeah. Way up.”
Another round of stifled laughter escaped four pairs of lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he shrugged. He went back to eating his food. “Just… hope you like stairs.”
There was a beat of silence, followed by four pairs of eyes shifting somewhere over my shoulder.
“And cold.”
Ares. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was him. I turned to face him anyway.
“What cold?” I asked him bluntly.
He was leaning casually in the doorway I’d just come through, effectively blocking my retreat. It was a head game, really. But I wasn’t playing.
“Top floor,” he said offhandedly. “The heat’s garbage.”
Something in the room shifted again, just barely enough to be noticeable. I filed it away, without saying anything.
“Yeah,” Zack called from the fridge. “Layer up.”
I stood there for a moment, trying to keep my death-grip on the suitcase handle from turning my knuckles white.
“Something wrong with the radiator?” I asked.
“House is old,” Ares shrugged. “Things don’t always work like they should.”
A tense silence stretched out, broken only by Zack slamming the fridge closed. He was already eating something, though I couldn’t tell what.
“There’s a basement too,” Dorian snickered. “If you’d rather—”
“Don’t,” Ares cut in immediately.
I glanced between them. “Don’t… what?”
“Just don’t,” he said.
Strangely, there was something even more ominous in his tone, now.
“Well,” Asher said, clapping his hands together, “this has been real. I’m heading up to my room before I pass out.”
“Coward,” muttered Zack.
“Survivor,” he shot back, already moving out of the kitchen.
The others followed his lead, in small ways. The energy changed again. They shifted back to whatever they’d been doing, completely ignoring me.
No more attention. No words of welcome.
Definitely no offer to help me carry my bag up a hundred stairs.
I turned to leave, and Ares eventually shifted his great bulk to one side. It was just enough to slip past. He watched me the whole way.
I’m not a part of this, I realized. Not yet.
The message was clear.
Maybe I never will be.