Chapter 86 86
Annabeth's POV:
I woke up to silence.
Not the Emberdale kind of silence where you could still hear cars in the distance and the neighbor's dog and the hum of the refrigerator downstairs. This was different. This was the kind of silence that pressed against your ears, that made you aware of your own breathing, your own heartbeat.
The room was small. Smaller than I remembered from last night, which made sense because last night I'd been too busy being pressed against Kaelen to notice much of anything. A bed, a dresser, a window facing the river. The walls were wood paneling that had probably been stylish in 1970-something and now just looked like a cabin. Which it was. So I guess it worked.
I checked my phone. 7:48 AM and no signal. Of course no signal. We were in the middle of nowhere, that was literally the point.
The smell of coffee hit me when I opened the door. Real coffee, not the instant crap from the safe house. I followed it to the kitchen where Marcus was standing at the counter with a mug in his hand, looking out the window at the trees like he was calculating how many ways someone could approach from that direction.
"There's more in the pot," he said without turning around.
"Thanks."
I poured myself a cup. It was too hot and too strong and exactly what I needed. Marcus turned around and leaned against the counter, watching me drink with that expression he had, the one that gave nothing away.
"We need to talk about the plan," he said.
"Okay."
"This isn't a few days, Annabeth. We're looking at weeks. Maybe longer."
I set the mug down. "Weeks."
"The Order sent a full retrieval unit. Twelve operatives, military trained, anti-dragon weapons. They're not going to give up after one sweep of Emberdale. They'll search, regroup, expand the radius. We need to stay invisible until they either move on to another target or I can figure out a way to take them out permanently."
"And Sarah? She's supposed to just stay at Helen's for weeks?"
"She's safe there. The Order doesn't waste resources on humans who aren't actively harboring dragons. As long as she stays away from your house, she's not a target."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to say that weeks was too long, that I couldn't just disappear from my life for that long, that there had to be another way. But I'd seen what the Order could do. I'd been drugged in a hotel room and almost drained, and that was just their opening move.
"Fine," I said. "Weeks."
"I'm going to check the perimeter this morning. Set up some early warning systems, scout the roads in and out. I'll be gone a few hours." He finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. "Kaelen knows the property. Stay close to the cabin."
He grabbed a jacket from the back of a chair and left through the front door. No goodbye, no reassurances. Just gone, like he'd been doing this alone for so long he'd forgotten how to be around people.
I stood in the kitchen drinking my coffee and listening to the silence.
Footsteps on the stairs. I turned, expecting Kaelen, but it was Marlen. She was wearing the same hoodie from yesterday and her hair was a mess, sticking up on one side where she'd slept on it.
She stopped when she saw me. Just stopped, like she hadn't expected anyone else to be awake, and for a second we just looked at each other.
"There's coffee," I said.
"I don't drink coffee."
"Okay."
She walked past me to the fridge, opened it, stared at the contents like they had personally offended her. There wasn't much in there, Marcus must've stocked basics before we arrived. Milk, eggs, some cheese, a package of bacon.
"Is there tea?" she asked without looking at me.
"I don't know. I didn't check."
She closed the fridge and started opening cabinets. Found a box of generic black tea in the third one, pulled out a mug, filled it with water from the tap. The whole time she didn't look at me once, just moved around the kitchen like I wasn't there.
The silence was worse than the car. In the car I could pretend she was just being quiet because it was late and she was tired. Here, in the daylight, it was obvious. She didn't want to talk to me. Didn't want to be in the same room as me.
I should've said something. Tried to break the ice, make some kind of connection. But what was I supposed to say? Hey, sorry I broke your brother's heart and then he stopped eating for a month? Sorry my existence is the reason you're hiding in a cabin in the middle of nowhere?
Marlen found the microwave, put her mug in, pressed buttons. The machine hummed to life and she stood there watching it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
"The bathroom upstairs," she said suddenly. "It only has hot water for about ten minutes. So don't take long showers."
"Okay. Thanks."
She didn't respond. The microwave beeped, she took out her tea, and walked back toward the stairs without another word.
I stood there holding my coffee and thinking that weeks of this was going to be a special kind of hell.