Chapter 34
Beckett
The fox is back on its feet.
Three days since Kyron carried it out of the forest and it’s already doing laps around the community hall like nothing happened.
Lena checked it this morning and declared it healed, which apparently is faster than it should be.
That sounds right. I guess it has something to do with the Hollow itself, but nobody wants to explain to me in more detail than “it’s just how things work here. ”
Fine. The fox is fine. That’s what matters.
Nova’s at the counter in the community hall, stealing bread again. She thinks she’s subtle. She is not subtle. Vaelor pretends not to see it and she pretends she’s not doing it and this has been their routine for weeks and I could watch it forever.
I’m in my usual spot. Corner table. Laptop that hasn’t connected to anything useful in a month but gives me something to look at that isn’t her. Because if I look at her too long my brain remembers the taste of her and I’ve been trying to be a functioning person today.
The door opens and Darcy walks in with Mel and Sade behind her.
They walk straight to Nova.
Oh, this should be good.
“We’ve been talking,” Darcy says.
Nova freezes mid-bite. She’s got bread in one hand and guilt on her face like she got caught doing something worse than eating.
“About what?” Nova says. Cautious. I can tell she doesn’t want to ask but feels like she has to.
“About having a night,” Mel says. “A real night. Music. Food. Dancing if people want. Just — everyone together.”
“A party,” Sade clarifies. Because apparently Mel was being too subtle.
Nova blinks. “A party.”
“Everybody’s been working so hard,” Darcy says.
“Training every morning, patrols, the kids barely see their parents during the day anymore. And we know what’s coming.
We’re not stupid. But that’s exactly why we should have one night where we just—” She gestures.
“Enjoy being together. Before the world goes to shit.”
Nova’s face is doing something extraordinary. I can see her cycling through confusion, panic, flattery, and a deep existential crisis about why three women she barely knows are coming to her about event planning.
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.
“Why are you telling me?” Nova asks.
“Because it’s your town too,” Darcy says. Simple. Like it’s obvious.
Nova’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. She looks at me. I look at my laptop.
“I — okay?” Nova says. “I mean, yes. That sounds great. I’m not — I don’t really know how to plan a—”
“We’re not asking you to plan it,” Sade says. “We’re asking if it’s okay.”
“Why would you need my—”
“Because you’re Nova,” Darcy says. And the way she says it isn’t the same way she said it the first time they met. Like it’s obvious.
Nova looks like she might cry. She covers it by shoving bread in her mouth.
“Mhm,” she says around the bread. Nodding. Thumbs up.
The moms leave. Satisfied. Organized. Terrifying in their efficiency.
Nova stares at the counter.
“What just happened?” she says.
I close my laptop. “I think you just got asked to a dance.”
“I don’t know what that is, not really.”
“It’s a party where everyone pretends they’re having fun and then something terrible happens.”
“That tracks.”
She’s still standing there with bread in her hand and this look on her face like the ground shifted under her and she doesn’t know which direction to lean.
Three women just came to her for permission.
Not because she’s the phoenix. Not because Minerva told them to.
Because she’s Nova and this is her town too.
And watching her try to process that is the funniest and most heartbreaking thing I’ve seen all week.
I stand up. Walk over. Take the bread out of her hand and eat it.
“Hey!”
“You weren’t eating it. You were holding it like a weapon.”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
She shoves my shoulder. I barely move. She shoves harder. I still don’t move. She makes a frustrated sound and I grin because I can’t help it.
Then the thought hits me.
Rane took her on a date. Before any of this. Before the lake, before the shift, before the Hollow. He took her out and it was the one normal thing she got before the world tore open.
The rest of us never did. We’ve fought beside her. Slept next to her. Built a house for her. Okay, slightly renovated a house for her. But we’ve never just — taken her out. Given her a night that wasn’t about survival or bonds or the system trying to kill us.
This party is our chance.
“Hey,” I say.
“What.”
“Tonight. Let us handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“You. Tonight. Just—” I search for the right words. “Let us give you a night.”
She looks at me. Those pale eyes doing the thing where they see too much.
“Okay,” she says. Quiet. She’s learning how to accept things like this, even though its hard for her.
“Okay.”
I can’t help the grin that comes over my face. I lean down, quickly kiss her cheek and head out. I leave the community hall and find Locke first because Locke will understand immediately.
“The party tonight,” I say.
“What about it.”
“We’ve never taken her out. Any of us except Rane. Tonight we fix that.”
Locke looks at me. A slow smile spreads across his face. Not the fighting one. The real one.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing complicated. Clean clothes. Actual effort. Show up like we give a damn.”
“We do give a damn.”
“Then let’s look like it.”
He nods. “I’ll tell the others.”
I watch him walk toward the house. Already calculating. Already planning.
Tonight Nova gets a party she didn’t ask for in a town that exists because of her with six men who are about to make fools of themselves trying to dance.
She has no idea what’s coming.
I can’t wait.