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'strick 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.
30
Sabine
Kara refilled her waterglass and left without looking at me. I stood, gathering my plate, and carried it to the sink. The kitchen was too quiet now. I rinsed the dish methodically, letting the water run over my fingers until they pruned.
Time to retreat upstairs again. Hide in my gilded cage.
I padded across the tile toward the foyer, but stopped when I heard their voices from the command room.
"Alex won't like this plan. It’s too soon," Cam said, her usually quiet voice carrying through the partially open door.
