Chapter 3
Beckett
I don’t remember getting inside.
One second we’re on the path, the next I’m standing in the living room watching Locke lower Nova onto the couch like she’s made of glass. His arms are shaking. His face is blank in that way that means everything underneath is screaming.
She’s still out. Still breathing. Her wrist is still glowing faintly, gold and red pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
Everyone else is frozen. Kyron in the middle of the room, arms stiff at his sides. Vaelor hasn’t moved from Locke’s side, his hand reaching toward Nova and stopping halfway like he’s afraid to touch her. Trey’s near the door, scanning the treeline through the glass.
Rane’s by the window. He hasn’t said a word since the lake, and that silence has been wrong the whole way back. Rane without words is like a warning light nobody’s reading.
“We have to leave.”
His voice is flat. He’s still facing the window.
“What?” Locke doesn’t look up from Nova.
“At the lake. On the far shore.” Rane turns around and his face is tight in a way I’ve never seen from him. “Someone was watching. They saw everything.”
The room changes. I feel it happen, the urgency that falls over us all.
“Who?” Kyron’s voice cuts through first.
“I couldn’t tell. Too far. But they were there and they saw the fire, the phoenix, all of it.” Rane’s jaw works. “We can’t stay here. If whoever that was reports what they saw, this is the first place they come.”
Nobody argues.
That’s how I know he’s right. Six people conscious in this room and not one of them says wait or maybe or let’s think about it.
Because we’ve been living under surveillance in a way that isn’t natural, not for the Academy.
Not even for the Nightmare Order. And Nova just became the most visible thing any of us have ever seen.
Nobody’s doing anything.
So I do.
“We have fifteen minutes.” I don’t know if that’s true but it gets people moving. “Kyron, medical kit and your bag. Locke, yours too. Trey, grab blankets, sleeping bags, whatever we can carry — and something for Nova to wear. Rane, help Vaelor in the kitchen — whatever food fits in a bag.”
“Vaelor.” He looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Food. Whatever you can carry. Don’t think about it, just grab it.”
He nods once and moves. Rane follows him without a word.
“Locke.” He finally looks at me. “Get her dressed.”
He doesn’t answer. Just nods once, jaw tight, and turns back to her.
I take the stairs two at a time.
I strip off my wet clothes and pull on dry ones without thinking about it. Down the hall I can hear the others doing the same — doors opening, drawers slamming, the sounds of people moving fast.
My room first. Laptop goes in the bag. Charger. External drive with everything Rane and I have been collecting. Phone charger, a change of clothes, and I’m done in under a minute.
The drive alone has months of work on it — redacted files, broken links, system logs that didn’t add up.
Rane and I have been pulling at threads since before Nova showed up, and none of them led anywhere clean.
Now there’s a mark on her wrist that doesn’t match any House in the system.
If the answer exists digitally, I’ll find it. I just need a signal and time.
Kyron’s across the hall. I hear him moving fast and efficient, the sound of zippers and buckles. His bag was already half-packed because of course it was. Whisper training. You keep a bag ready the same way you keep your eyes open.
I pass Locke’s room. His tactical bag is on the floor by the bed, military-grade, the kind Shadow operatives keep stocked and sealed. I grab it and bring it downstairs because Locke isn’t letting go of Nova to get it himself.
Then I stop at the bathroom.
The white outfit is folded on the shelf where I put it after the fire. She’d left it in the bathroom after her date with Rane, which meant it was the one thing that didn’t get touched. I folded it and put it somewhere safe because she was going to want it back. She just didn’t know it yet.
I tuck it into my bag between the laptop and the change of clothes.
Her jacket is on the hook behind the door. The one she was wearing the first time we saw her. I grab it without thinking and shove it in the bag.
Downstairs, things are moving. Trey’s got an armful of blankets rolled tight and strapped to a pack.
Kyron’s by the front door with his bag over one shoulder and the medical kit in his hand, already checking supplies.
Locke hasn’t moved from Nova’s side. I set his bag at his feet and he stands long enough to strap it on.
The seconds his hands aren’t on her, he looks like he’s not breathing.
She’s dressed. Black tee, gray joggers. Locke’s hands are still shaking and nobody mentions it.
The kitchen light is on. I pass through the doorway and Vaelor’s standing at the counter with a canvas bag half full of whatever he grabbed from the fridge and the pantry. Canned things. Bread. Fruit. A jar of peanut butter.
But he’s stopped moving.
He’s looking at the stove. At the counter where he’s cooked a hundred meals for us. At the kitchen that became the center of this house because he made it that way, because he stood there every night and fed people who didn’t know how to ask for it and never once made it feel like charity.
His hand is resting on the counter like he’s touching something he’s about to lose.
I don’t say anything. I give him three seconds. Then I put my hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll come back,” I say.
I don’t know if that’s true either. But he picks up the bag and follows me out.
The living room is staged. Bags by the door. Trey’s got the blankets bundled. Kyron’s running through the medical kit one more time.
Locke stands. Nova’s in his arms, her head against his chest, still unconscious. The mark on her wrist catches the light from the hallway and it looks like a small fire burning under her skin.
I do one more sweep with my eyes. Kitchen light off. Windows closed. Nothing left behind that tells anyone where we’re going.
Mostly because we don’t know where we’re going.
“Let’s move,” I say.
We move.
The afternoon air is cooler than it should be. We file out through the back, single line, quiet. Kyron takes point because that’s what Whisper does. Locke’s in the middle with Nova. The rest of us fall in around them carrying everything we own on our backs.
Nobody talks. The only sounds are our footsteps on the path and Nova’s breathing against Locke’s chest.
I look back once.
Same color. Same windows. Same door we’ve walked through a hundred times. The porch light’s still on because nobody thought to turn it off, and it glows through the trees like something waiting for us to come back.
I don’t look again.