Chapter 20 – The Still Point
1010 Words
Morning – Breakfast
Steam rose from the mugs like breath. The kitchen smelled of coffee, toasted bread, and rain-damp air drifting in through the open window. For once the hum of machines felt ordinary, not ominous.
Rori moved between stove and counter, sleeves pushed up, hair still wet from the shower. The men had fallen into the rhythm of her house as if they’d been born knowing it. Ren sat at the table, mending Zoe’s cracked bike light with a patience that looked borrowed from another life. Sandro was leaning against the doorway, teasing Mateo about eating cereal without milk—claiming it was a crime in at least two countries. Kael had his laptop open beside the fruit bowl, but he wasn’t really working; he was showing Luca how to map the drone’s flight path onto a tablet.
The sound of laughter crept back into the walls like a timid guest finding its chair again.
“Feels weird,” Sandro said, stretching. “No alarms, no gunfire, no evil genius whispering through the air vents.”
Ren didn’t look up. “You could just call that a Saturday.”
Kael glanced at Rori over his mug, the faintest hint of amusement there. “He’s joking. Mostly.”
Rori set a plate down between them. “If this is what peace looks like, I’ll take it.”
Ren met her eyes briefly. “You earned it.”
Sandro’s smile softened. “We all did, bella. Even him.” He tipped his chin toward Kael.
Kael only replied, “Eat before it gets cold,” but the line of his shoulders eased.
Outside, sunlight caught the dew on the porch railing. For the first time in months, the morning didn’t feel like a countdown.
Afternoon – Training
The backyard had become their sanctuary and their gym. Wet grass brushed their ankles as they moved in slow patterns—Ren guiding Rori through evasive steps, Sandro setting up targets made from old cans, Kael timing reaction drills with quiet precision.
“Again,” Ren said. His tone was patient but exacting.
Rori blocked, turned, countered. The rhythm steadied her breathing. When Ren’s hand caught her wrist mid-move, she felt the ghost of every fear she’d lived through—then watched it dissolve in the firmness of his grip. He let go first.
“Better,” he said simply.
Sandro clapped once. “Better? That was poetry! If she keeps this up, I’m out of a job.”
Rori laughed. “You don’t have a job.”
“I have charm. That’s full-time employment.”
Kael, seated on the deck steps with his tablet, looked up at her. “You have balance now. Not just speed.”
Rori tilted her head. “Coming from you, that’s practically a compliment.”
He smiled, slow and real. “Then take it.”
The afternoon light turned the air honey-warm. The training faded into conversation, and the conversation into quiet. When Rori sank onto the steps beside Kael, Ren and Sandro argued over whether strength came from muscle or rhythm. She let the sound of them wash through her—three voices, three kinds of gravity holding her steady in different ways.
Kael’s voice dropped low enough for only her to hear. “You keep them centered.”
Rori shook her head. “They do that for me.”
He studied her for a moment, as if memorizing the shape of the truth between them.
Night – Quiet Connection
Power flickered once, then held. Candles glowed on the dining table anyway—Sandro’s idea, he said, because food deserved ceremony. The meal was simple: pasta, wine, the kind of comfort that doesn’t need apology.
They lingered after the plates were cleared, talking in half-sentences and laughter. When Zoe called goodnight from the hallway, Ren’s face softened in a way that caught Rori off guard. He looked almost young.
Later, the four of them drifted onto the porch. The night air was cool, the lake wind carrying the faintest salt. Rori sat on the railing, wineglass in hand. Kael leaned beside her; Ren stood at the edge of the steps, scanning the dark out of habit; Sandro sprawled in the old wicker chair, tapping the rhythm of a song only he seemed to hear.
Silence stretched—not empty, just full. The kind of silence that says we survived.
Ren broke it first. “You ever think about what comes after this?”
Sandro laughed softly. “After what? The world ending or us pretending it didn’t?”
Kael answered instead. “There’s always an after. Whether we’re ready or not.”
Rori looked at each of them in turn. “And if we’re not?”
Kael’s gaze found hers. “Then we hold the still point as long as we can.”
She didn’t realize she’d moved until her hand brushed his. The contact was small, almost nothing, but it drew every sense to the surface. Ren’s eyes flicked toward them, unreadable. Sandro’s smile faded into something quieter—understanding without jealousy, warmth without pretense.
For a heartbeat they were all caught there: four people suspended between the pull of the past and whatever waited beyond the porch. The world felt balanced on a single breath.
Then Rori said the thing none of them were ready for.
“I can’t choose between you.”
The words landed like a spark in dry grass—soft at first, then burning through the air around them.
No one spoke. Ren’s jaw set, Sandro exhaled through a broken laugh, and Kael’s fingers tightened around hers—not possessive, not demanding, just there.
The heartbeat pulse of the house flickered once inside the window, echoing the rhythm none of them could name.
Rori’s voice trembled, honest and unguarded. “I don’t want to.”
The wind shifted, carrying the smell of rain and lake salt. Somewhere in the distance, thunder murmured.
And for the first time since the fire, the quiet wasn’t peace anymore—
it was possibility.
- Writer
