Chapter 29
Sabine
Ellie's hand remained on my arm as she guided me toward the library doorway. The hallway stretched before me like a desert highway, each step requiring more concentration than it should have. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
When we reached the stairs, I stared down at them, calculating. My ankle throbbed with a dull, persistent pain that radiated up my calf. It had been healing before all this, before the days of lying in bed refusing meals, refusing everything.
I took the first step and faltered on the landing, my fingers instinctively gripping the banister. The wood felt cool and solid under my palm.
"I've got you," Ellie said, her hand firm on my elbow. Her touch was professional but gentle, like everything about her.
I wanted to pull away, to tell her I didn't need help from any of them. The words formed in my mind but died before reaching my lips. My body had betrayed me, and pride was a luxury I couldn't afford.
I descended one step at a time, each movement carefully measured, my good foot finding purchase before I dared shift my weight. Ellie matched my pace without comment, without rushing me.
When we finally reached the bottom, I had to stop. The foyer tilted around me, the walls breathing in and out like they couldn't decide on their proper dimensions. I closed my eyes, willing the world to stabilize.
That's when the kitchen smells hit me. Garlic sizzling in oil.
Tomato sauce, rich and acidic. The low murmur of voices.
My stomach clenched painfully, a hollow ache that reminded me I'd been ignoring its signals for days.
Saliva flooded my mouth, my body's automatic response to the promise of food, even as my mind rebelled against the idea of sitting at a table with these women, pretending at normalcy while Mark's body was still warm in the ground.
Kara sat at the kitchen table, a black spiral notebook open in front of her.
Her pen moved across the page in quick, efficient strokes.
Security logs, probably. Or maybe patrol schedules.
She looked up when we entered, her eyes scanning me from head to toe like I was a building with structural damage.
She didn't comment on what she saw, just nodded once and returned to her writing.
Cam stood at the stove with her back to us, broad shoulders shifting beneath her fitted black t-shirt as she worked.
The sizzle of breaded chicken hitting hot oil filled the kitchen.
She glanced over her shoulder, her dark eyes meeting mine for the briefest moment before turning back to the pan.
The motion was economical, almost military in its precision.
Ellie guided me toward a chair, her hand steady on my arm until I was seated. She released me then, moving around the kitchen with the same quiet efficiency I'd seen in the others. Plates appeared on the table. Silverware. Water glasses. A stack of napkins.
I sat with my hands in my lap, watching this domestic scene unfold around me. The normalcy of it twisted something inside me. Mark was dead. His body was probably still on some coroner’s slab, and here we were about to eat chicken parmigiana like it was any ordinary day.
The smell that had seemed so appealing in the hallway now turned my stomach. Tomato sauce bubbled on the stove. Garlic bread warmed in the oven.
Life continued its relentless forward motion while I remained frozen in the moment I'd heard the news.
Kara lifted the ice water pitcher, her eyebrows raising in silent question. I managed a small nod, watching as the clear liquid filled my glass. The condensation beaded and ran down the sides like tears.
Cam approached with three plates balanced along her forearm, setting mine down with surprising gentleness. Steam rose from the chicken parmigiana, the red sauce bleeding into white pasta. A small bowl of salad appeared next to it, green and vibrant against the wooden table.
I stared at the fork beside my plate. My fingers curled around it eventually, the metal cool and unfamiliar in my grip.
The weight of it felt wrong, like I was holding someone else's hand.
I speared a piece of chicken, brought it to my lips.
The first bite sat in my mouth, a tasteless mass that required concentration to chew.
I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat.
"The perimeter sensors on the east side need recalibrating," Kara said, cutting her chicken with precise movements.
"I can handle it tomorrow morning," Ellie replied, twirling pasta around her fork. "Weather report says clear skies, good visibility."
"We should check the generator too," Cam added, her voice so quiet I almost missed it.
Their words flowed around me like water around a stone.
I took another mechanical bite, then another.
The food might as well have been cardboard for all I tasted it.
My body accepted the nutrition while my mind remained elsewhere, trapped in memories of gunshots and sirens and Mark's terror when they cut off his hand.
I ate because Ellie had guided me downstairs.
I ate because my hollow stomach demanded it.
I ate because it was easier than explaining why I couldn't. But I wasn't really there with them.
I was a ghost at their table, present but not participating, watching life continue while mine remained frozen in grief.
Heavy footsteps crossed the foyer. Alex appeared in the doorway, her presence changing the air in the room like a shift in barometric pressure. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her normally perfect posture had given way to a slight slump.
"We've got a problem," she announced, then hesitated. "Maybe."
The casual conversation around the table died instantly. Kara set down her fork with a soft clink against porcelain. Cam's shoulders tensed visibly. Ellie stopped mid-motion, water pitcher suspended above her glass.
Alex ran a hand through her long hair. "Security system flagged something weird overnight. Three separate pings on the south perimeter."
She moved to the coffee pot, poured the remaining dregs into a mug without bothering to check if it was still hot. "Could be someone probing our defenses, testing response times." She took a sip and grimaced. "Or it's just another glitch in the hardware. Like before."
The kitchen felt suddenly colder. I gripped my fork tighter, my appetite vanishing completely.
"Well, which is it?" Kara asked, her voice flat, professional.
Alex leaned against the counter, eyes briefly closing. When she opened them again, they were bloodshot and unfocused. "Can't tell yet. Need to run full diagnostics." She set the mug down with a thud. "I've been up for thirty-six hours straight. Need sleep first, then I'll figure it out."
Her gaze swept across all of us, lingering on me for a moment too long. I looked away, unable to meet those eyes that seemed to see too much.
"Should we be concerned?" Ellie asked, her voice steady but her fingers tightening around her water glass.
Alex shook her head. The movement was loose, almost sloppy with exhaustion. "It's probably nothing. System's been solid for months." She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, smearing what looked like mascara residue across her cheekbone.
"But if it's not nothing?" Cam's voice was so quiet I had to lean forward to catch it. Her question hung in the air like smoke.
Alex's shoulders slumped further. "Four hours," she muttered, more to herself than to us.
"Give me four hours of sleep and I'll take it all apart. Then we’ll know if we need to worry.
" She abandoned her coffee mug on the counter and shuffled toward the doorway.
Her footsteps grew fainter as she climbed the stairs, each one heavier than the last.
No one spoke after she left. The kitchen felt like a vacuum, all the air sucked out by her departure.
Kara stared at her notebook, but her pen remained motionless.
Cam pushed a piece of chicken around her plate without lifting it to her mouth.
Ellie folded and refolded her napkin into increasingly smaller squares.
I sat frozen between them, my fork suspended halfway to my mouth.
The bite of pasta slid off and landed with a wet plop back onto my plate.
Another threat? Or nothing? I couldn't tell anymore.
The line between real danger and paranoia had blurred weeks ago, when I'd first been shuttled to this house in the middle of nowhere.
My mind cycled through possibilities: gunmen storming through the trees, snipers on distant ridgelines, bombs under vehicles.
Or maybe just a deer triggering a motion sensor.
A squirrel. The wind. I couldn't distinguish between the probable and the catastrophic anymore.
Everything felt equally likely, equally terrifying.
I pushed another forkful of pasta into my mouth, chewing mechanically. The food sat like clay on my tongue. Half my dinner remained on the plate, congealing in its own cooling sauce.
Across the table, Kara caught Ellie's eye, then glanced at Cam. Something unspoken passed between them, a language of subtle nods and raised eyebrows I wasn't meant to understand.
"Sabine, we'll be right back," Kara said, her voice deliberately casual. "Just need to check something."
Their chairs scraped against the floor as they rose in unison, moving with the coordinated precision that still unnerved me.
I watched them stride across the foyer and disappear into the command room. Not upstairs where Alex had gone. The door stood open behind them.
I should have dragged myself back to my room. Instead, I sat motionless, my limbs too heavy with exhaustion and grief to move. The voices filtered through the open door, clear enough that I could make out every word.
I knew I shouldn't listen. I knew it was wrong. I listened anyway.
The clack of keyboard keys punctuated their conversation.
"Show me the logs," Ellie said, her voice tight with the same tension I'd seen in her shoulders.
Papers rustled. "Here," Kara replied. "Three separate pings on the south perimeter."
"Could be deer," Cam murmured, barely audible. "We've had false alarms before."
Ellie made a sound like air escaping through teeth. "At 2 AM? Three times in pattern?"
A chair creaked. Someone paced across the floor. "Alex said it was probably nothing," Kara said, but her tone lacked conviction.
"Alex is overconfident." Ellie's voice dropped lower. "Has been since her cousin died."
Silence stretched between them. I pictured Cam's face, the way her eyes always narrowed when she was thinking. "So what do we do?" she finally asked.
Kara's response came without hesitation. "We prep bug-out bags. Go over the exit plan, just in case."
"Tonight?" Ellie asked.
"Tonight." The firmness in Kara's voice sent a chill through me. "If it's real, we need to be ready to move fast."
I slumped in my chair. Another safe house. Another midnight escape. The pasta on my plate had congealed into a cold, unappetizing mass while my future dissolved just as quickly.
I felt nothing but bone-deep exhaustion. My body had forgotten how to manufacture fear, like a factory that had run out of raw materials.
These women were risking their lives for me.
The realization settled in my stomach alongside the half-digested dinner.
They planned escape routes while I refused to speak to them, plotted our survival while I sulked.
They were professionals doing their jobs, but there was something more there.
Something that looked like actual concern.
I hated being here. I resented the way my life had been stripped away, leaving me with nothing but four walls and four guardians I never asked for. But now the anger felt tangled up with something else, something uncomfortable that I couldn't name.
Footsteps approached from the command room.
I quickly lowered my eyes to my plate, pushing pasta around with my fork.
My heartbeat quickened as Kara entered the kitchen.
I kept my expression carefully blank, a journalist's trick for hiding that you've overheard something important.
I'd perfected it years ago in war zones and political back rooms. Now I was using it at a dinner table in a safe house.