"GET THE HELL OF OUR MY HOUSE!!!"
Fin, who was sitting on the wooden bench in the backyard with a book half-open in his lap, jolted up. His heart jumped into his throat as the voice thundered through the garden. He turned toward the house—toward the tall glass doors that opened into the main hall.
They slid open roughly a second later.
Three men in suits stepped out onto the marble patio, stiff-backed and red-faced. One of them muttered something under his breath, another shook his head. None of them looked back. They walked quickly, past the trimmed hedges and sculpted fountains, disappearing down the gravel driveway where a black car waited silently.
Fin didn't move. He was frozen, one hand gripping the edge of the bench too tightly.
Then the doors slammed again.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of the breeze rustling the perfectly-cut grass.
Then came the footsteps—measured, heavy, deliberate—growing louder as they approached the doors again.
Fin swallowed hard.
His father appeared at the glass, tall and sharply dressed even now, with a presence that filled the space around him like smoke. His expression was unreadable—but his eyes flicked toward the backyard.
Toward Fin.
Fin looked down, pretending to fiddle with the pages of his book. His fingers were shaking slightly. It was impossible to relax under that man's gaze.
The door creaked open again. For a moment, Fin thought maybe he would come outside. Say something.
But then the door clicked shut once more.
No words.
Just the distant sound of footsteps fading down the hall.
Fin let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
The silence returned, but it wasn't peace. It was the kind of silence that pressed against your ears—waiting to break again.
And Fin stayed there, staring at his book but reading nothing at all.
He lingered on the bench for a while, pretending to be absorbed in his book until his fingers went numb from gripping the pages. Eventually, the cold edge of fear dulled enough for him to stand. He walked across the manicured grass, up the stone steps, and quietly slipped back inside the house through the side door.
The hall was quiet—eerily so. The kind of quiet that followed yelling in this house. His footsteps echoed against polished floors and high ceilings as he passed portraits of people he didn't really know, even though they shared his last name.
He climbed the stairs slowly, dragging his fingers along the ornate bannister, careful not to let it squeak.
The door to his room was already open.
He froze.
She was sitting on his bed.
Yasmin.
She didn't look up. Her legs were crossed neatly, hands resting on her lap, eyes fixed on the far wall. She wore that same expression she always did—blank, distant, unreadable.
Fin hesitated in the doorway. "Um... what are you doing here?"
Still, she didn't move.
He stepped in, slow and unsure. "Did you—uh—need something?"
Finally, she looked at him.
Just one glance but that was enough for him to break into cold sweats.
Yasmin was only three or four years older, but she might as well have been a hundred. She never yelled, never cried, never played. She rarely, if ever, spoke to Fin—and when she did, it was never cruel, never kind. Just... precise. Like everything else she did.
A peerless genius. Top of every class without trying, devouring university textbooks while Fin was still fumbling with long division. Fluent in three languages, correcting their tutors by age ten. Their parents called it "promise." Fin called it unreachable.
He worked hard. He studied. He could ace every test thrown at him—perfect marks across the board. But that was it. That was his ceiling.
Yasmin didn't have one.
So when she finally did speak—to him—it landed like a brick.
"They're going to sell the house," she said. Calm. Quiet. Like she was reading a line off a report card.
Fin blinked. "What?"
She turned her eyes back to the wall. "I heard them last night. In the study. Dad was yelling. The government's moving in—freezing the accounts, the properties, the company."
He took a few hesitant steps closer. "But why?"
"They want the company," she said simply. "Because he spoke out against the war. The fighting's getting close to the border, and his cement feeds most of the infrastructure here—military, construction, logistics. Too much power in one man's hands. And now they're going to take it."
"But... it's huge," Fin said. "The company. It's... massive."
"It doesn't matter," Yasmin replied. "They've already started. One permit revoked, one supplier gone quiet. They'll cut off his legs before he even realizes he's bleeding. And the house?" She finally looked at him, but her eyes held no comfort. "That's just another line item on a list."
Fin's hands curled into fists at his sides. "But it's ours. Where will we go if he sells the house?"
Yasmin stood, smoothing down her cardigan like someone closing a file. "Nothing's really yours when people with guns want it."
She walked past him like he wasn't there—silent, graceful, indifferent.
She always did that. Moved like a ghost that didn't care who it haunted.
And Fin just stood there in the center of his room, surrounded by walls taller than any he'd seen in his friends' houses—walls that suddenly felt too thin to protect anything.
He'd always thought Yasmin lived in a different world.
Now he realized she was just the only one who'd seen this one clearly all along. But most importantly, this was not the kind of invigoration he was searching for.
===
Kez woke to the faint crackle of static and the smell of something burnt.
He blinked up at the stained ceiling for a long moment before realizing what was wrong: it was quiet. No wind, no distant howling. Just silence and the soft hum of the heater. Allexis still seemed asleep, wrapped in her blanket.
Mace sat by the window, wrapped in a thick coat, nursing a chipped mug that probably hadn't seen soap in a decade. His eyes were fixed outside, unmoving.
Kez sat up slowly, the blanket sliding off his shoulders. "Morning"
Mace didn't turn. "You talk in your sleep."
Kez blinked. "What'd I say?"
"Mostly nonsense. Something about cats eating your friend and some personal vendetta against some soup company."
Kez rubbed his eyes. "Ah. The classics."
Silence settled again. The radio let out a gentle hiss.
Kez stood and shuffled over, glancing outside through the dirty window. Fog clung low to the ground, curling over the tracks like something alive. He wrapped the blanket around himself tighter.
"You always on watch?" he asked.
Mace finally took a sip from his mug. "Can't afford not to be."
Kez nodded slowly. "That kind of job, huh?"
"This place?" Mace gestured vaguely toward the walls. "It forgets things. People. Schedules. You fall asleep too long out here, something remembers you."
Kez raised an eyebrow. "That was almost poetic."
"I'm tired."
More silence.
Then a soft rustle.
Allexis stirred, shifting under the blanket before slowly pushing herself upright. Her eyes were half-lidded, her bright green gaze scanning the room with sharp precision even in half-sleep. Her vivid red hair was a tangled mess, streaked with dried leaves and the grime of yesterday's chaos. Despite that, her posture was composed—deliberate, as always.
She blinked at the room, then at them.
"How long have you two been up?" she asked, voice scratchy from sleep.
Kez turned, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed beneath the blanket. His medium-length dark hair stuck out in disheveled angles, still damp at the ends and matted from the cold sweat of the night before. Dirt clung to the edges of his jaw, and there was a faint cut on his cheekbone that had gone unnoticed in the panic of the escape.
He turned, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed beneath the blanket. "Long enough to confirm I talk nonsense in my sleep."
"You didn't need sleep to confirm that," she muttered, standing and rolling her shoulders with a quiet wince. Her clothes were torn at the sleeve and stained with mud, but she moved with the same grim efficiency as always.
Mace nodded at her. "Morning."
"Is it?" she asked, eyeing the fog outside.
"Technically," he replied, then set his mug down and grabbed the flare gun from the counter. "Train should come through any time between now and midday. If they see the signal, they'll stop."
Allexis walked over, arms wrapped tight around herself. "And if they don't?"
Mace shrugged. "Then you two get to spend another night in scenic Station Eight."
Kez glanced at Allexis and offered a smile. "Maybe we can use that chance to explore the port again."
"Hell no." Allexis scowled, tugging her coat tighter around her like it could shield her from the memory.
Mace stepped outside, boots crunching over gravel. The fog swallowed his legs almost immediately, thick and still. He raised the flare gun without ceremony and fired.
The flare shot up into the sky with a loud hiss, breaking the silence like a gunshot. A second later, it exploded in a sharp red bloom above the trees, briefly painting the fog crimson.
They waited.
Minutes passed.
Kez tapped his fingers against the window frame, his knuckles still scraped raw. Allexis stood unmoving beside him, arms folded tight over her chest, her emerald eyes locked on the distant gray. She didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
Then, faint at first—so faint they almost didn't hear it—a low mechanical hum cut through the quiet.
Allexis straightened.
Kez leaned forward. "That's..."
Mace stepped back inside, already nodding. "Train."
A distant light emerged from the wall of fog, dim and flickering through the gray. The sound grew louder—metal on metal, steady, certain.
The train pushed through the mist like a ghost with purpose, engine chugging low and slow, slowing as it neared the platform.
It wasn't a freight hauler or a rundown maintenance train—it was a real passenger train. Weathered, reinforced, a bit worse for wear, but undeniably part of the main interregional line. A lifeline out.
The brakes hissed as the train pulled into the station, lights scanning the platform like wary eyes. One of the doors slid open, and an attendant stepped out with a clipboard and a practiced lack of patience.
"Limited boarding. Tickets ready. First-class to the left, standard to the right."
Mace stood with his arms crossed near the door. "You've got your tickets, right?"
Allexis reached into her coat, her brows furrowing. She checked her bag, her side pocket, even her boots—nothing.
Her jaw tightened. "I had it," she muttered, mostly to herself.
Next to her, Kez slowly reached into his jacket and handed a neatly folded first-class ticket to the attendant.
The man took it with a practiced hand, pulling out a small monocle and scanning the details. "Cabin 3," he confirmed. "But I'll have you board through first-class cabin 1. It's quieter right now."
Allexis's gaze snapped toward Kez.
"You," she said slowly, voice low and sharp, "were in the same cabin as me?"
Kez blinked, eyes wide with exaggerated surprise. "Oh, you were also in cabin 3?"
She just stared at him.
"That's... that's such a coincidence," he continued, backing away slightly. "I mean, what are the odds?"
Allexis folded her arms. "Roughly one in one."
Kez smiled innocently. "Then I guess I won."
She took a long breath, clearly weighing several very violent options in her head.
The attendant, already losing interest, turned to her. "No ticket?"
Allexis narrowed her eyes at Kez one last time, then muttered, "Lost it."
The attendant sighed. "Standard boarding, then. You can buy another one on board if you want an upgrade."
Without a word, she turned and stalked off toward the standard boarding line, her boots hitting the platform a little harder than necessary.
Kez hesitated a beat, then gave Mace a sheepish glance.
Mace raised an eyebrow. "You're lucky she didn't throw you under that train."
"For what?" Kez asked innocently, then scurried toward the first-class car.
He boarded quickly, tucking himself into the plush corner seat of Cabin 1, exhaling with exaggerated relief as if fleeing a crime scene. The soft lighting and warm upholstery wrapped around him like a smug reward.
A few cars back, Allexis shoved her bag under her bench seat and sat down between a window and a tired man who smelled faintly of fish. Her arms were crossed. Her jaw was tight.
The train gave a gentle lurch, the whistle echoing once, and then they were moving—smooth and steady, pulling away from Station Eight.
Passengers leaned back, eyes shut. Most stayed silent. The weight of the night still clung to everyone, especially the small group that had disembarked back at the port. Some of them glanced around occasionally—uneasy. A few looked like they were trying to place something. Or someone.
Kez pulled his coat up around his neck and casually turned his face toward the window, avoiding eye contact.
One of the older passengers squinted in his direction.
Kez smiled at the glass, to no one in particular. "Nothing to see here," he whispered.
The train pushed forward into the fog.