Just in case.
Charm of Defiance:
Knot black ribbon; wear near heart. Words cannot cage you.
Iwake up in her bed.
It takes a second to place myself. The ceiling is unfamiliar, the light coming through the curtains is wrong, and there’s a warm body pressed against my left side.
Caroline. Her back is against my chest, her knees drawn up, her breathing deep and even.
Griffin is on her other side, one arm draped over her waist, his face half-buried in a pillow. And at the foot of the bed, wedged between the mattress and the wall, Damon is sprawled on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes.
We migrated here sometime after midnight. I remember the movie—something with a dog and a cross-country trip—playing on the laptop propped on the nightstand. I remember Caroline falling asleep against my shoulder and Damon muttering aboutcarrying her to bed. I remember all of us climbing in after her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it was. Maybe that’s the strangest part.
I slide out of bed carefully, inch by inch, testing the mattress with each movement. Caroline shifts but doesn’t wake. Griffin doesn’t stir at all. Damon’s arm stays over his eyes. The floor is cold under my bare feet, and I pad out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen.
The house is dark. The storm is gone completely now, replaced by a stillness that feels almost unnatural after days of rain and wind. I find a glass in the cabinet by touch and fill it at the sink, drinking half of it in one long pull.
My phone is on the counter where I left it yesterday. I tap the screen and the notifications pile up—emails, mostly, from accounts I’ve been ignoring since the night of the storm.
Seven from the Council’s regional office. Subject lines likeWeekly Status Report – OverdueandFollow-up: Willowbrook Assessment TimelineandURGENT: Response Required Regarding Rift Data.Three from Helena. Two from the office of High Chancellor Whitlock.
I scroll through them without reading. The words blur together—expectations, deadlines, protocol. All of it feels distant now, like it belongs to someone else. A man who showed up in this town with a clipboard and a mission and a carefully constructed idea of what he’d find.
That man is gone. I’m not sure who replaced him.
I tap Helena’s latest email. It’s short, clipped, written in the efficient tone she uses when she’s annoyed.
Silas. I’ve received inquiries from the Chancellor’s office regarding your silence. Your reports have stopped. If you’re compromised in any way, I need to know. This isn’t a game. Call me.
I stare at it for a long moment. Then I open my phone and dial her number.
It rings four times and goes to voicemail. Her voice is cool and professional on the recording—the same voice she uses in Council chambers, the one that’s performing rather than speaking.
I hang up without leaving a message.
What am I missing?
The question has been circling for days, growing louder with each piece of information we uncover. Victor Ash’s hidden wards. The sealed family records. The bonding failures that started years ago and haven’t stopped. Berrick’s findings, buried by the Council. My own mother’s death, locked behind a wall in my memory that I didn’t know existed until yesterday.
The Council sent me here to assess a problem. But the problem isn’t the Rift. The problem isn’t the unbonded Omegas. The problem is whatever created the Rift in the first place, whatever has been feeding it for decades, and whoever is working to keep it all hidden.
And the Council either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know.
My phone buzzes in my hand. Another email. I silence it without looking.
Footsteps in the hallway. Soft, tentative. I look up as Caroline appears in the kitchen doorway, wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt that hangs halfway to her knees. Her hair is a mess, her eyes half-open, and she’s pulling the hem of the shirt down in a way that’s more habitual than self-conscious.
“Silas?”
“Hey.”
She shuffles to the counter and leans against it beside me. “You okay?”
“Fine. Why are you up?”
