Chapter 5
Kyron
The phone screen has gone dark twice and I keep tapping it awake without reading anything.
I’m in the chair by the window. Good light. That’s the reason.
The others are scattered around the room, pretending to do things. No one’s fooling anyone.
None of us are talking about it.
Within the week, the administrator said. Three days ago. She could show up in an hour or four more days and we have no way of knowing, so we’re all just sitting here, waiting for our lives to change.
I look at my phone. Something about resonance signatures. I’ve read the same paragraph six times.
Then I feel it.
A pull. Low in my chest, like a hook catching on something I didn’t know was there. I look up, out the window, and my hands go still.
Two figures on the path. Still far, just past the eastern quad. One walks like she knows exactly where she’s going.
The other one is small. Silver-blonde hair catching the light.
I’m on my feet before I decide to stand. The phone hits the floor but I’m already at the glass, palm flat against it like I could reach through.
She’s too far to see clearly. I can’t make out her face, can’t tell if she’s scared or angry or calm.
It doesn’t matter. My whole body already knows.
Her.
“Kyron?”
Rane’s voice. I don’t turn around.
“Kyron, what—”
“Window. Now.”
I hear him get up. Cross the room. He stops beside me, follows my gaze.
“Holy shit.” Barely a breath. “Is that—”
“Yeah.”
“That’s her?”
“Yeah.”
And then they’re all there. I don’t know who moved first, but suddenly it’s all five of us pressed against the glass like idiots, watching a woman we’ve never met walk up a path.
“She’s early,” Vaelor says. His voice is rough.
“She’s here.” I can’t look away from her. “That’s what matters.”
She’s closer now. I can see the way she holds herself—shoulders tight, drawn in. The way her head moves, scanning buildings like she’s mapping exits. The way she stays behind the other woman instead of beside her.
“She’s scared,” Vaelor says quietly.
“She’s careful,” Beckett murmurs. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Fear is reactive. That’s not reactive. Look at how she moves.”
I’m looking. I can’t stop looking.
She’s close enough now that I can see her face—pale, guarded, giving nothing away—and I’m already wondering what it would take to make her smile.
“You’re staring,” Beckett says.
“We’re all staring.”
“You’re staring differently.”
I don’t have a comeback for that. He’s not wrong.
“She’s small,” Rane says.
No one answers. I watch the way her steps land, deliberate and sure, no wasted movement. The way her clothes hang loose. The sharpness of her cheekbones. The shadows under her eyes.
She’s been surviving. You can see it in every line of her.
“Something happened to her,” Vaelor says.
Locke makes a sound. Low. Not a word.
I glance at him. His jaw is tight, eyes fixed on her, and there’s something in his face I’ve never seen before. Something that makes me glad I’m not whoever hurt her.
“Locke,” Rane says carefully.
“I’m fine.”
He’s not. None of us are. But he’s the one who looks like he’s about to put his fist through the glass.
She’s almost to our walkway now. The woman beside her—Zoe—is gesturing at the building, explaining something. She nods, but I can tell she’s not listening. Her eyes are moving. Cataloging. Assessing.
Smart. Careful. Alone for a long time.
I want to know everything about her. I want to know what she likes for breakfast and what makes her laugh and what her voice sounds like when she’s not bracing for impact.
I want her to look at me.
“Kyron.” Vaelor’s voice, quiet. “Breathe.”
Right. Breathing. That’s a thing people do.
Zoe stops at the edge of our walkway. She’s saying something—probably the standard orientation speech, here’s where you’ll be staying, here are the people you’ll be living with, good luck with your new life that you didn’t ask for.
Her shoulders tighten. I watch her take a breath. Steel herself.
Then Zoe turns and walks away, and the woman who’s about to change everything is standing alone on the path, staring at our front door.
My hand is on the window frame. I don’t remember putting it there.
“Someone should let her in,” Rane says.
“Give her a second.” Locke’s voice is quiet. “She needs a second.”
So we wait. Watch her stand there. Watch her make the decision to walk forward even though everything in her posture says she wants to run.
She doesn’t run.
She walks to the door.
“I’ll get it,” Locke says, already moving.
Part of me wants to argue. Part of me is glad I don’t have to be the first thing she sees. I don’t trust my face right now.
The rest of us stay at the window like the lovesick idiots we apparently are.
I hear the door open. Locke’s voice, low and even—I can’t make out the words. A pause. Then her voice, and the sound of it hits me somewhere I wasn’t ready for.
Soft. A little rough. Guarded but not weak.
I close my eyes for half a second just to get my shit together.
Footsteps. The door closing.
The air in the house changes.
She’s inside. She’s here. I can feel her like a physical thing—not just sound, not just presence, but something that slots into place in my chest like it’s been waiting for exactly this space.
Rane exhales. “Okay. Okay. We can do this. We can be normal.”
“Can we?” Vaelor’s voice is strained.
“We have to. She’s going to walk in here any second and see a group of guys who look like they’ve been hit by a truck. We need to pull it together.”
He’s right.
I turn away from the window. Force myself to breathe. Try to make my face look like something that won’t terrify her.
The others scatter—trying to look like they weren’t just plastered against a window. No one’s pulling it off.
Footsteps in the hallway. Getting closer.
And then she’s there.
Standing in the doorway. Silver-blonde hair and pale eyes and a face that’s trying so hard to give nothing away.
Our eyes meet.
Everything stops.
My lungs forget how to work. My hands are shaking and I don’t know when that started. The room narrows down to just her, just those pale eyes looking back at me, and everything I thought I knew about myself rewrites around a single thought.
There you are.
I’d know you anywhere. I’d know you in the dark, in a crowd, in a hundred years. I don’t know how I know that but I do, I do, and she’s standing right there and I can’t—
She looks away first. Her cheeks go pink.
Oh. That blush. I want to know everything that makes her do that.
I take a step toward her without meaning to.
Rane’s hand lands on my shoulder. Warm, solid, keeping me where I am.
“Easy,” he murmurs, so low she can’t hear.
Thank gods someone is stopping me from doing something stupid.
She’s looking around the room now, taking in the space, the furniture, the four other men who are all trying very hard to look like they weren’t just plastered against a window watching her walk up.
Her eyes come back to me.
Just for a second.
My chest does something stupid.
She almost smiles. Almost.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to earn the full version of that smile.
Rane’s hand tightens on my shoulder.
I still don’t move.
I deserve a fucking medal.