Page 95 of Pocket Wife

Lucy stays.

I remain beside her until the last transport light fades from the ridge and the only sound is water moving beneath sealed stone.

“You should eat,” I say.

“I am not hungry.”

“You should rest.”

“I am not tired.”

“Lucy.”

She turns toward me, and the exhaustion I see in her face makes everything else irrelevant. The bond carries no fear, no anger, no sharp-edged readiness. Only a hollow that has been opened by too many battles and too little time to close them.

“Can we go somewhere?” she asks. “Just for an hour. Somewhere no one needs me.”

I glance toward the schoolhouse. “The records room is quiet.”

“Too close.”

“The cistern shed?”

“Too cold.”

I consider. “The irrigation tower. It has a storage alcove above the pump housing. Private.”

She almost smiles. “You know all the hiding places.”

“I studied the region before travel.”

“Of course you did.”

The tower stands dark against the fading light, its control panel repaired but still bearing the marks of Helix sabotage. I lead her up the narrow ladder to the alcove above the pump housing, where old tools hang on hooks and a single small window lets in the last amber light.

Lucy sits on the wooden platform without waiting for permission. Her hands rest in her lap, still dusty from the cistern.

“Tell me what you are thinking,” I say.

“I am thinking Helix is going to use your own preservation laws against us.”

“Yes.”

“And I am thinking you already know how to fight that.”

I crouch before her. “I do. But fighting it will take more than legal analysis.”

“Then give me something else.”

She reaches for me.

The touch is not urgent. It is asking. Her fingers find my collar, and I catch them before they can undo the fastening.

“You are exhausted,” I say.

“Rethan.”

“You have not slept. You have not eaten. You have been threatened, manipulated, and forced to watch your mother’s name used as a weapon.”