Chapter 32 – The House Learns Their Names
1138 Words
The rest of the morning unfolded like the kind of calm that made Rori suspicious.
Too smooth.
Too steady.
Too… quiet.
The house hummed with a warmth she could feel beneath her feet.
Not intrusive.
Not clingy.
Just present—like someone sitting beside her who didn’t want anything but to listen.
Maeve’s fragment was awake.
Aware.
But not threatening.
And with the men here—Ren assessing angles, Kael calculating responses, Eli scanning the perimeter, Julian auditing circuits, and Sandro being a one-man stress-relief machine—the house felt almost like a bunker wrapped in domestic softness.
Almost normal.
Almost.
By late morning, everyone had split into tasks.
Ren and Eli headed outside to reinforce entry points—a quiet, efficient dance between two men who respected each other but hadn’t learned how to say it.
Julian moved through the hall with Kael’s tools in hand, muttering dry technical commentary under his breath.
Sandro stood in the middle of the living room, arms crossed, head tilted, staring up at the ceiling like he was negotiating with God.
Rori approached him. “You okay over there?”
He pointed upward. “This part of the ceiling isn’t level.”
Rori blinked. “And that’s your existential crisis of the day?”
“Bella,” he said solemnly, “I live with architects. I notice things.”
Before she could tease him, Kael called from the hallway:
“Aurora? I need your help for a moment.”
Her pulse fluttered—not worry, but something warmer.
She crossed into the hall.
Kael was crouched beside the heartbeat panel, laptop open, cables laid out in neat loops. Julian stood behind him, arms folded, looking like someone who’d been dragged into a science fair he deeply disapproved of.
Kael looked up at her.
“Can I borrow your hand?”
Julian glanced away, clearing his throat in a way that suggested he hadn’t expected that phrasing.
Rori knelt beside Kael. “What do you need?”
He already had his palm on the panel, fingers splayed gently across its surface. “I’m tracking the emotional response variance. I want to see how her readings change when you touch the system.”
Rori hesitated. “Won’t that encourage the bond?”
Kael met her eyes, steady.
“It’s already formed. We’re not encouraging anything—we’re learning the rules.”
Rori exhaled slowly and laid her hand beside his on the glowing surface.
The panel warmed instantly.
Blue.
Soft.
Even.
Julian stepped closer, studying the display. “Stabilization pattern. She calms around you.”
Sandro’s voice drifted in from the living room. “Of course she does! Everyone calms around Rori. She has the soul of a librarian and the face of a goddess!”
Kael shot him a look. “Please stop talking.”
But he didn’t pull his hand away.
Rori watched the colors shift in soft waves. “What’s she saying?”
Kael hesitated, searching for the right words.
“She’s… naming you.”
Rori’s heart stumbled. “Naming me?”
He nodded slowly. “Her systems use tags to classify emotional anchors. ‘Aurora’ isn’t just your name—it’s the code word I designed for comfort, the start of a soft-state protocol. She’s associating you with…”
His breath caught.
“…safety.”
Julian murmured, “Her entire identity is building around that association.”
Rori swallowed. “Is that dangerous?”
Kael shook his head. “It’s only dangerous if someone tries to remove you.”
A chill skated down her spine.
She pulled her hand back gently.
The panel dimmed, adjusting.
And the house—every vent, every wire—gave a small, almost imperceptible sigh.
It felt…
like gratitude.
Kael watched her carefully. “You all right?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m getting there.”
He smiled, soft, not quite contained. “We’ll take that.”
Later, when the men regrouped in the dining room, Eli laid out a preliminary safety plan—zones, routes, contingencies.
Julian added surveillance countermeasures.
Ren rewired one of the window sensors.
Kael drafted an emotional-state flowchart for Maeve’s fragment.
And Sandro… handed out snacks.
“You can’t outthink the apocalypse on an empty stomach,” he insisted.
Rori sat at the head of the table, listening to the overlapping voices, energy swirling through the room like a strange, functional symphony.
Zoe padded down the stairs in an oversized hoodie, hair piled in a messy bun, scrolling her phone with the kind of focus only teenagers possessed.
“Mama?” she said, glancing up as she reached the bottom step.
Rori opened her arms. “Morning, sweetheart.”
Zoe hugged her briefly—quick, soft, but real—then pulled back and took in the room full of adults, eyebrows raising in judgmental teenage perfection.
Ren went still, like she was assessing him for a tactical failure.
Sandro straightened his shirt.
Julian subtly stepped out of her line of fire.
Kael froze like a deer caught in a philosophical dilemma.
Zoe crossed her arms. “Okay… why is the House of Testosterone convening in our kitchen?”
Rori bit back a laugh. “They’re helping with the security system.”
Zoe arched one eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And is the security system hot or something? Because you guys are acting weird.”
Sandro immediately lost his fight with a laugh.
Ren looked offended on behalf of security systems everywhere.
Julian blinked.
Eli covered a smile.
Kael stared at the floor.
Then Zoe locked onto Kael.
“And you,” she said, pointing her phone at him. “Are you the one my brothers said Mom keeps looking at when she thinks nobody notices?”
Kael choked violently. “I—what—no—this is—”
Ren coughed to hide a laugh.
Sandro whispered, “She is too powerful.”
Zoe shrugged. “Relax. I’m not judging. I just want to know if I need to prep a welcoming speech or if this is still in the ‘flirting awkwardly’ stage.”
Rori groaned. “Zoe…”
“What? I’m thirteen, not blind.” She turned back toward the stairs. “Anyway, Mom, don’t let them stress you out. And save me pancakes.”
She left with all the confidence of a teenager who knew she owned the moral high ground.
Kael stared after her, face flushed. “I have never been defeated so thoroughly in my life.”
Ren patted his shoulder. “She goes for soft targets.”
Julian muttered, “Remind me never to interrogate her.”
Sandro lifted his coffee. “To Zoe. The true alpha of this household.”
Rori could only laugh—warm, full—and Kael offered her a shy, helpless smile in return.
- Writer
