Nova
I’m shaking.
Not visibly, I don’t think.
A fucking experiment.
That’s all I ever was.
Minerva’s hand finds my elbow.
“Community Hall. Thirty minutes.”
She’s gone before I finish processing it. The Hollow starts moving with her — people dispersing, conversations starting up, the town remembering how to be a town. Lena and Max are already halfway down the road. Mara behind them. Zoe in the crowd pulling Eli away, glancing back at me once.
And then it’s just us.
They’ve all shifted back… noticeably.
I try to focus on their faces. I swear I do.
They’re all moving at once. Closer. Around me.
Touching me, all talking at once.
It’s overwhelming and chaotic and I love it.
I love them.
“You were—”
“—that was incredible, Nova—”
“She made him confirm it,” Kyron says, to Locke, right over my head — and Locke’s hand is at my jaw and Rane’s arms are coming around me from behind and Vaelor is right there and they are all —
Naked.
Every single one of them.
So naked.
My brain goes sideways.
I’m still trying not to look. I look. I try to stop looking. My eyes just — they keep going, moving down, before I can get them under control — Locke’s chest, Kyron’s — yeah — Vaelor, who is, I knew this, but damn — Rane’s arms around me, which means Rane is directly —
I get back to six faces.
They all saw me do it.
My face goes hot.
“Hi,” I say.
Rane makes a sound against my hair that is pure delight.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“She did the full rotation,” Kyron says to Locke. Conversational. Like reporting weather. “All the way around.”
“I was looking at the — I wasn’t—” I stop. “It was a general survey of the—”
“She stopped twice,” Trey says.
“I didn’t—” I look at him. He looks back at me, completely straight-faced, which is worse than if he’d smiled. “I didn’t stop.”
“The road is very interesting,” Beckett says.
I stare at him. Beckett. Two words, perfectly flat, and somehow that’s the thing that makes my face feel like it’s going to actually combust.
Rane is shaking with it. I can feel it — he’s laughing into my hair and trying not to and failing, his arms tightening around me, and —
“Pants,” I manage. “Someone needs to—”
Locke’s thumb moves against my jaw.
I forget what I was saying.
He’s looking at me the way he gets sometimes — like he wants to pad my entire body with pillows while devouring me — I don’t hate it.
He leans closer and he says, quiet, “You were terrifying.”
“You said that already—”
“I mean it more than when I said it.” His hand moves to the side of my neck. “You stood against him. For the Hollow. For us.”
I open my mouth.
Vaelor gets there first — his hand coming to the back of my head, warm and certain, fingers gentle in my hair, and his voice too steady. “I always knew you had it in you, sweetheart.”
“I—” My chest is doing something. “Thank you, I—”
“She’s flustered,” Rane announces.
“I’m not—”
“You are. You’re blushing.” He sounds like he’s just received a gift. “Kyron, she’s blushing.”
“I can see that,” Kyron says. His hand finds my arm, thumb pressing in — too firm, like he needs to know I’m really here— and his voice is even but his grip isn’t. “Just how I like you.”
Bastard.
“I just—” I try to get my brain working. “Bad lighting. That’s all.”
“Pretty sure it’s how we all like her,” Trey says. Low. Something in it that isn’t quite joking anymore.
“That’s— I mean, guys—”
“Nova,” Beckett says quiet. He hasn’t touched me yet. He’s right there, close enough that I can feel the warmth off him, and he still hasn’t touched me, and somehow that is the loudest thing in the road. “We almost lost you.”
We all stop moving.
It never occurred to me… I didn’t think…
But to them, it was.
Everywhere they’re touching me tightens.
And that’s when I realize, they’re shaking too.
All of them.
I can feel it now — the tight grips, the hovering, the way nobody is more than six inches away from me. Beckett’s hands curled at his sides because he doesn’t trust what they’d do. Kyron’s fingers pressing in.
Holy shit, I think. We’re alive. All of us. Together.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m here.”
Locke exhales, his body relaxing.
“Yeah,” he says. “You are.”
Thirty minutes, I think. Minerva gave us thirty minutes and the Hollow has dispersed and the road is empty and they are all right here and still shaking and so am I and —
“Thirty minutes,” Rane says against my hair. Like he read it off my face. “That’s enough time.”
“For what?” I say.
They all look at me.
Oh.
I see it a second before it happens. Beckett grins and then I’m over his shoulder.
“Beckett!” I yell as he moves.
“Tree line,” Beckett calls back.
“We’re supposed to be at—” I start.
“In thirty minutes,” Kyron says, loud as his footsteps get closer.
“Someone could see—”
Beckett puts me on my feet, still grinning.
“Nova.” Locke, stepping in behind me, hand at the small of my back. “Look at me.” He smirks. Waits.
I turn to face him. All of them.
My eyes drop.
Dammit.
When they meet Locke’s again, he’s smirking.
“Do you actually care if they see?”
Nope. I do not.
Rane’s had enough. “Thirty minutes,” he says again, pulling, grinning, completely unabashed and completely naked and moving me back until I hit Beckett’s chest — and I laugh, actually laugh, out loud, in the middle of everything, because we’re alive and I’m shaking and Rane is ridiculous and Beckett’s hand is on my waist now and Locke is looking at me like—
“I’m trying to maintain some dignity here,” I say.
“No you’re not,” Rane says.
He’s not wrong.