13. Luca
Luca
Josie has been at Ember House long enough that Blossom no longer checks every form she completes, but I still review the care-coordination files assigned to her. That’s how I know the question she asks me shouldn’t exist anywhere in her work.
I’m reviewing next week’s staff assignments when she stops beside my desk with a resident’s care-coordination file held against her chest. Nothing in her expression or posture suggests urgency.
She looks exactly as she always does at work: composed, attentive, and prepared to explain why whatever she’s asking is necessary.
“I wanted to clarify something before I finish the housing referral,” she says. “Was her first placement considered a secondary match, or did the sponsor withdraw before the transfer?”
My hand stills over the schedule.
Neither phrase appears in the file she’s holding. They don’t appear anywhere in Ember House’s staff system.
The resident came through a hospital referral after a short stabilization stay.
Josie’s assigned work involves current housing requirements, transportation access, and whether the proposed program can accommodate ongoing medical care.
Nothing in that assignment should’ve taken her near the circumstances of an earlier placement, and the details she’s referencing were never entered into the shared staff records.
“Where did you hear that?” I ask.
Josie shifts the file beneath one arm and answers without hesitation. “She mentioned it while we were talking yesterday. I thought it might affect which housing programs we approach.”
I know the conversation happened because two other staff members were in the common room at the time. I also know the resident wouldn’t have called her history a match, described anyone as a sponsor, or mentioned a transfer that isn’t recorded in any approved file.
I keep my attention on the schedule instead of Josie’s face. “Only use the information in the care-coordination file. Her prior placement isn’t relevant to the referral you’re completing.”
“Of course.” Josie places the folder on the corner of my desk and smooths one hand over its cover. “I’ll keep the referral limited to her current needs.”
She returns to her desk without asking another question.
I finish the schedule before I let myself look at her again.
Josie’s posture hasn’t changed. She types steadily, pauses to compare two forms, and answers Blossom when she calls from the hall about an appointment time. Nothing in her behavior suggests she knows she made a mistake.
That’s what makes the question worse.
When Josie leaves the office to take a call, I open the private incident log Maceo created for me.
I record the time, the file she was carrying, and the exact phrases she used in the restricted incident log.
I don’t search her desk, confront her, or warn anyone else on staff.
Until I know where the information came from, I won’t teach her which part exposed it.
I’m locking the entry when Blossom appears in the doorway.
“She’s here,” she says quietly.
Philomena’s intake was arranged the night before through a referral advocate who contacted Ember House after business hours. The advocate waits with her in the smaller reception area, speaking only when Philomena looks toward her for help.
Philomena’s coat is buttoned to her throat despite the warmth inside the building. A canvas bag hangs from one wrist, the strap wound twice around her hand. She watches Blossom approach but doesn’t move until the advocate asks whether she still wants to continue.
“Yes,” Philomena says. Her voice is rough, as if she hasn’t used it much. “I want to stay.”
Blossom’s words soften immediately. “Okay, baby. We’ll take this one step at a time.”
She guides them into the smaller consultation room and leaves the door open until Philomena chooses the chair nearest the window. The advocate sits beside her only after Philomena nods.
I don’t bring the full intake packet to the table. I set down one page, a pen, and a printed list of immediate services.
“What name do you want us to use?” I ask.
Her fingers tighten around the strap of her bag. “You can use Philomena.”
“Okay, Philomena.” I sit across from her without moving the second chair closer. “We can handle food, a room, clothing, and medical care without discussing where you came from today. You can stop whenever you need to, skip any question, or ask me to leave.”
Her gaze moves from me to Blossom and then to the advocate beside her.
“Will you call them?”
“No.” I keep my hands visible on the table. “We won’t contact anyone outside Ember House unless you ask us to or there’s an immediate medical emergency. We can explain every exception before you decide what you want recorded.”
Philomena looks at the door.
Blossom notices and steps farther from it. “You can leave that open, close it, or ask one of us to sit outside.”
“Open,” Philomena whispers.
“It stays open,” Blossom says.
The advocate leaves once Philomena asks her to. Blossom brings water, a bowl of soup, and a folded blanket, then waits until Philomena decides she’d rather have the food left beside her than placed directly in front of her.
For the first twenty minutes, she answers only what we need to arrange a room. She doesn’t give us an address, the names of the people who transported her, or the date she escaped. I don’t ask for any of it.
When I explain that no outside organization will be contacted, her fingers stop moving over the canvas strap.
“They said I owed them for leaving.”
I close the intake form instead of writing. “Who said that?”
Philomena glances toward Blossom, then back at me. “The placement service. They said the family paid for my evaluation, the housing, and the matching. I left before the transfer was finished, so the debt became mine.”
“What did they call the service?”
She shakes her head. “Different names. The building had one name. The papers had another. Sometimes the staff used a foundation name, but it changed.”
That fits the structures Maceo has been tracing, but I don’t tell her that.
“Do you want to tell me more about how it worked?” I ask. “You don’t have to.”
Philomena presses her lips together before nodding.
The service presented itself as a charitable placement program for Omegas without stable packs.
Families made donations that supposedly covered evaluations, temporary housing, and transfer costs.
The program matched residents according to compatibility, trauma response, and what staff called private-sponsor interest.
Every transfer was described as a placement, even when money changed hands.
Before anyone left, they signed nondisclosure agreements stating that disclosure could make them responsible for the sponsor’s expenses. Philomena remembers being told that speaking publicly could ruin a donor’s tax status and leave her liable for the full cost of her care.
The language turns the room cold around me because I’ve heard it before. I ask what the organization called each stage and let her answer in her own language.
Tiered intake.
Compatibility review.
Sponsor interest.
Placement debt.
By the third phrase, I no longer need to wonder whether someone copied Hearthstone’s charitable appearance. They’re using its internal method.
Philomena rubs one thumb over the frayed edge of her bag. “They said I was easier to match because I froze instead of fighting. They wrote it like it was something good.”
My body remembers before I can stop it: a room with no windows, a man discussing my response to restraint as if I weren’t sitting three feet away, the careful language that made fear sound like compliance and purchase sound like care.
I keep my voice steady. “What they wrote about you doesn’t belong to them,” I say. “You don’t have to use their words here.”
Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t look away.
“I don’t know what my words are yet.”
“That’s okay.”
We stop there and Philomena asks to sleep before we discuss anything else.
Blossom takes her upstairs, shows her how the lock works, and explains who can enter during an emergency.
She makes sure Philomena knows she can ask for a different room, more blankets, less light, or someone nearby without explaining why.
Then she leaves me alone in the consultation room with the closed intake form.
I stay there for another minute, listening to the quiet settle back into the room.
The chair across from me is still angled toward the window, and Philomena’s untouched tea has gone cold on the table between us.
I should use the time to organize my notes, but the pressure behind my ribs has only tightened since Josie stopped beside my desk that morning.
I take out my phone and call Blake. He answers on the third ring with the camera too close to his face. For a second, all I can see is one silver eyebrow and part of his forehead while Rosalie talks somewhere behind him.
“Why can I only see half your face?” I ask.
Blake moves the phone back and props it against a mug on the kitchen table. His cane is resting beside his chair, and half a sandwich sits untouched on the plate in front of him. “Better, Cupcake?”
“A little.” I study him while he settles back. He looks tired, though not worse than he did that morning. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
His mouth curves, but he doesn’t try to dodge me again. “A little tired. Grayson made me sit down, and Luther’s making sure I stay here.”
As if summoned by his name, Luther crosses behind him with Rosalie tucked against one side and a doll hanging upside down from his other hand.
She’s explaining something urgently about a missing shoe while Luther listens with the same attention he gives every crisis in the house.
He glances toward the screen as he passes, then presses a kiss to Blake’s temple without interrupting Rosalie.
Blake leans into the touch before looking back at me. “See? Closely supervised.”
“Have you eaten?”
His eyes flick toward the sandwich.
“Blake.”