Chapter 88 88
Kaelen's POV:
Three days in and we'd fallen into something like a routine.
Marcus left every morning to patrol the perimeter, check for signs of the Order, do whatever else he did out there in the woods for hours at a time. Lucian had found a way to install his gaming system in the old TV in the living room, so he spent most of his time playing video games. Marlen read. She'd found a box of paperbacks in one of the closets, mostly thrillers and romance novels from the 90s, and worked through them at a pace that was honestly impressive.
And Annabeth trained.
Every afternoon, when Marcus got back from his patrol, they went out to a clearing about a hundred yards from the cabin. I wasn't invited. "You'd be a distraction," Marcus had said, which was probably true but still annoying.
Today I was sitting on the porch pretending to read a book I'd found in Lucian's room, some fantasy thing with a dragon on the cover that felt a little too on the nose. But I wasn't reading. I was watching the treeline, waiting for them to come back, trying not to think about how Annabeth had looked at me over breakfast this morning. Like she was counting down to something.
We all were.
Three days of brushing past each other in the hallway. Three days of sitting too close at meals, knees touching under the table, hands finding each other whenever nobody was looking. Three days of that fucking wall between my couch and her bedroom, thin enough that I could hear her breathing at night, thin enough that she probably heard me not sleeping.
The door opened behind me and Marlen came out with one of her paperbacks, some thing with a shirtless guy on the cover holding what looked like a sword. She sat in the chair next to mine and opened it without acknowledging my existence.
"Good book?" I asked.
"It's terrible. The protagonist makes bad decisions every chapter."
"Then why are you reading it?"
"Because I want to see if she dies at the end." She turned a page. "She probably won't. These books never kill the main character. It's annoying."
I went back to pretending to read. A few minutes passed. Then Marlen said, without looking up: "They're coming back."
I looked at the treeline. Nothing.
"How do you—"
And then I saw them. Marcus first, walking with that predator's gait he had, constantly scanning the trees. And behind him, Annabeth.
She was covered in sweat, her hair falling out of its ponytail, her t-shirt clinging to her in ways that made my brain short-circuit. But that wasn't what stopped me. It was the way she moved. Confident. Powerful. Like she finally understood what her body could do and wasn't afraid of it anymore.
She saw me on the porch and smiled, this tired, triumphant smile, and I forgot how to breathe for a second.
"You're staring."
Marlen's voice cut through my haze. I looked at her and she was watching me over the top of her book, one eyebrow raised.
"I'm not staring."
"Your mouth was literally open."
"It was not."
"It was. You looked like a fish." She went back to her book. "It's embarrassing, honestly. You're supposed to be the mature one."
"I am the mature one."
"Mature people don't drool over their girlfriends on the porch in front of their little sister."
"I wasn't drooling."
"You were drool-adjacent."
Annabeth and Marcus reached the cabin. She climbed the porch steps and stopped in front of me, still breathing hard from the training. Up close I could see the flush on her cheeks, the way her chest rose and fell, the sweat on her collarbone.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey."
"I set a tree on fire today."
"On purpose?"
"Mostly."
Marcus walked past us into the cabin without a word. Marlen turned another page of her book, very pointedly not looking at either of us.
"I'm gonna shower," Annabeth said. "Save me some hot water."
"There's only ten minutes of hot water."
"Then I guess I'll be fast."
She went inside and I sat there like an idiot, still holding my book upside down, which I hadn't noticed until Marlen reached over and flipped it right-side up for me.
"Pathetic," she said, but there was something in her voice that wasn't quite as sharp as usual. Almost like she was trying not to laugh.
Dinner was quiet. Marcus ate fast and disappeared to check something outside. Lucian inhaled his food and went back to the living room to fight the same boss he'd been stuck on for two days. That left me, Annabeth, and Marlen at the table, the silence heavy with things nobody was saying.
Annabeth's knee was pressed against mine under the table. It had been there the whole meal, this constant point of contact that made it hard to focus on anything else. She was talking to Marlen about something, asking about the book she was reading, and Marlen was answering in short sentences that weren't exactly friendly but weren't hostile either.
Progress. Slow, painful progress.
"I'm going to bed," Marlen announced, standing up with her plate. "Early morning tomorrow."
"It's eight-thirty," I said.
"I'm aware." She put her plate in the sink and headed for the stairs, then stopped. Turned back. Looked at Annabeth for a second, then at me.
"The walls are thin," she said. "Just so you both know. Like, really thin. Paper thin. I can hear everything."
And then she was gone, her footsteps on the stairs, her door closing with a pointed click.
Annabeth looked at me. I looked at her.
"Did she just—"
"Yeah."
"Was that her way of saying—"
"I think so."
We sat there in the quiet kitchen, her knee still against mine, the space between us charged with three days of not touching and wanting to and being interrupted every single time.
"Kaelen," she said.
"Yeah."
"This is killing me."
"I know. Me too."
"How much longer do we have to—"
"I don't know."
She stood up abruptly, grabbed her plate, took it to the sink. Stood there with her back to me, her hands gripping the edge of the counter.
"I'm going to bed," she said. "Alone. Because your sister can apparently hear through walls and your brother is near and Marcus could come back any second."
"Annabeth—"
"I know." She turned around and looked at me, and her eyes had that red ring. "I know, Kaelen. I just... I need this to be over. The waiting. The interruptions. All of it. We’re trapped in here. It’s suffocating."
"Soon."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
She walked toward her room, stopped at the door. Looked back at me one more time.
"Goodnight, Kaelen."
"Goodnight."
She closed the door and I sat at the kitchen table alone, listening to the river outside and Marcus's footsteps somewhere on the property and my own heartbeat, too fast, too loud.
Soon.
It had to be over soon.
I couldn't take much more of this.