Chapter 12 #3
The words were simple, but they warmed me more deeply than the coffee. I glanced toward him, aware of Daisy moving around the kitchen and Charlie supervising the pancakes, yet for one suspended moment the rest of the room seemed to soften around the quiet certainty in his eyes.
“I’m glad too,” I admitted.
His smile appeared slowly.
Then the emergency phone rang.
The shrill tone sliced through the kitchen with enough force to make Charlie stop stirring. Remedy’s expression changed before he even reached for the phone, the softness giving way to the focused calm I had watched settle over him countless times. He glanced at the screen.
Cipher.
He answered immediately.
“Remedy.”
The voice on the other end was too quiet for me to hear, but whatever Cipher said erased the last warmth from Remedy’s face.
“How recent?”
Charlie looked toward me.
I placed one hand over hers on the spoon.
Remedy turned slightly away from the stove.
“Where?”
Another pause.
His jaw tightened.
“No. Don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”
He ended the call.
Daisy had already lowered the heat beneath the griddle.
“What happened?” she asked.
Remedy looked first at Charlie, then at me.
“Cipher found something on the trail cameras.”
The rain suddenly sounded louder against the windows.
“What kind of something?” I asked.
His eyes held mine.
“Someone’s been watching Harbor House.”
The kitchen changed in an instant.
Nothing visible had altered. Rain still traced silver paths down the windows, the griddle continued hissing beneath the half-formed pancake, and Charlie’s wooden spoon remained suspended over the bowl with a ribbon of batter sliding slowly back into it.
Yet the warmth that had filled the room only moments earlier seemed to pull inward, replaced by a quiet tension that settled across every face except Charlie’s.
She looked from Remedy to Daisy, then toward me.
“Who’s watching?”
Remedy crouched beside her before answering, his voice gentle enough that the danger in the words never reached her.
“Probably someone who got lost.”
Charlie frowned. “Then we should help them.”
The answer was so entirely hers that something inside me ached. She had grown up believing unfamiliar people were simply friends who had not yet found the right door, while I had spent years learning that strangers near a boundary usually meant someone intended to cross it.
Remedy touched her knee lightly. “Uncle Cipher and I are going to make sure they know where they’re supposed to be.”
“Can I come?”
“Not this time.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to stay here and make sure Daisy doesn’t burn the pancakes.”
Daisy placed one hand against her chest. “I have never burned a pancake.”
Steel’s voice carried from the hallway before he appeared in the doorway, already wearing his cut over a black thermal shirt. “That’s because Mace handles all the burning.”
“I heard that,” Mace shouted from somewhere behind him.
The familiar teasing should have restored some of the warmth, but Steel’s expression remained too controlled. He had not wandered into the kitchen looking for breakfast. Someone had already called him, and the easy humor in his voice existed for Charlie’s benefit.
Remedy rose and looked toward me.
The question was there before he spoke.
“You don’t have to come.”
I should have expected the words. He offered choice even when urgency pressed against every second, leaving room for me to remain where it was warm and safe while the men handled whatever waited beyond Harbor House.
Months earlier, I might have accepted without hesitation.
I would have convinced myself that staying behind was sensible, that people with training should investigate danger while I helped with the children.
The problem was that this danger belonged to my past.
“I’m coming.”
His jaw tightened. “Sunshine.”
“I know the Order.”
“We don’t know that this is them.”
“No, but you think it might be.”
He glanced toward Charlie before answering. “I think Cipher wouldn’t call before seven in the morning unless he found something worth taking seriously.”
“Then I need to see it.”
Daisy stepped closer to Charlie and gently took the wooden spoon from her hand. “Why don’t you help me choose fruit for breakfast?”
Charlie looked suspiciously between the adults.
“Is everybody upset?”
“No,” I said before anyone else could answer.
It was not entirely true, but I would not give fear a larger shape inside her imagination. I crouched beside her and brushed flour from one curl.
“Remedy and I need to check something outside. We’ll be back soon.”
“You promise?”
The word tightened around my heart because she still believed promises created certainty.
I looked into her bright blue eyes and chose the truth carefully.
“I promise we’ll do everything we can to come back quickly.”
Charlie considered the difference, then nodded. “Okay.”
She slipped her arms around my neck before I could stand.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Her hug lasted only a few seconds, but the weight of it followed me when I rose. Remedy watched us with an expression I could not entirely read, though the gratitude in his eyes was unmistakable.
Steel stepped fully into the room. “Cipher’s waiting near the east trail.”
“What did he find?” Remedy asked.
“Tracks by the second camera and three photographs from around two this morning. Toxic’s already heading over.”
Remedy reached for his rain jacket. “Any vehicle?”
“Nothing on the road cameras.”
“So they came through the woods.”
Steel nodded. “Looks that way.”
The Order had always preferred boundaries other people considered impassable. Fences, forests, darkness, isolation—none of those things discouraged men who believed every place beyond their control existed only until they claimed it. My stomach turned cold despite the warm kitchen.
Remedy noticed.
He crossed the narrow space between us and lowered his voice. “You can still stay.”
“I know.”
His gaze held mine for another moment, searching for uncertainty I did not intend to hide if it existed.
Fear was there, tightening beneath my ribs and sharpening every sound outside, but fear did not always mean retreat.
Sometimes it meant walking toward the truth before it had another chance to grow in the dark.
“I’m coming,” I repeated.
He gave one reluctant nod before handing me my raincoat from the peg beside the door.
Steel looked toward Daisy. “Keep everyone inside until we call.”
Daisy’s expression hardened in a way I rarely saw. “I will.”
“Mace is checking the back entrances. Bishop’s with the veterans.”
“And Lark?” Remedy asked.
“Moving the children away from the windows.”
Charlie had already begun arranging strawberries into groups beside the pancake batter, unaware that adults throughout Harbor House were quietly closing curtains and checking locks. The sight made the fear inside me turn into something steadier.
Anger.
No one had the right to bring danger here.
Not to these children.
Not to this family.
Remedy opened the back door, and cold rain immediately swept against us.
The morning that had looked soft and peaceful from my bedroom now felt entirely different.
Low clouds pressed against the tree line, and mist clung between the gardens and woods in pale sheets that blurred the property’s edges.
Water collected along the paths, turning the red Carolina soil dark beneath our boots as we followed Steel toward the eastern boundary.
Remedy kept pace beside me rather than walking ahead.
He did not reach for my hand or tell me to remain behind him, but his body shifted subtly whenever the path narrowed, placing himself between me and the thickest part of the woods.
The protective movement might have bothered me from another man.
From Remedy, it felt less like an assumption that I was weak and more like an instinct he could not silence.
“You don’t have to shield me,” I said.
“I know.”
“You’re doing it anyway.”
“I know.”
Despite everything, a faint smile almost reached me.
We continued in silence while rain drummed against our hoods.
The gardens disappeared behind us, replaced by towering pines, tangled undergrowth, and the narrow trail Harbor House residents sometimes used when they needed solitude.
I had walked it dozens of times in daylight, often with children searching for feathers or wildflowers.
This morning every branch looked capable of hiding someone.
My body remembered before my mind did.
The careful placement of each footstep.
The constant awareness of every sound behind me.
The need to identify escape routes without turning my head too obviously.
I hated how easily the old instincts returned.
Remedy’s voice reached me through the rain.
“Tell me what you need.”
The question interrupted the panic before it could fully form.
I drew a careful breath. “I don’t know yet.”
“That’s alright.”
He did not tell me to calm down or promise there was nothing to fear. He simply stayed close enough that I could hear his boots moving beside mine, steady and unhurried against the wet ground.
Ahead, several dark figures stood near the trail camera mounted high on an oak.
Toxic wore his cut beneath a waterproof jacket, his expression carved into the hard focus that reminded everyone he had become president for reasons extending far beyond charisma.
Cipher crouched near the base of the tree with a tablet protected beneath a clear cover, while Bishop examined the muddy ground without disturbing the prints.
Toxic looked at me first.
“You sure about being here?”
“No,” I admitted.
The honesty seemed to satisfy him more than false confidence would have.
“Stay where we can see you.”
I nodded.
Cipher turned the tablet so Remedy and I could view the first image.
The photograph was grainy and gray beneath the infrared lighting, but the figure standing near the tree line was unmistakably human. A man in a dark jacket faced the farmhouse from a distance, his features obscured beneath a cap pulled low across his forehead.