Owned by my step uncles

Chapter four

The alarm was still chiming when I turned back toward the dining room.

Jarrah was already on his feet, chair shoved back hard enough that it nearly tipped. Reeve had the security tablet in his hand before I could take another step, thumb moving fast across the screen. The red light on the wall panel pulsed once more and then went steady.

“East gate,” Reeve said. His voice stayed even, almost casual, but the set of his shoulders wasn’t. “Single motion trigger and no vehicle signature.”

Jarrah’s eyes cut to me for half a second, dark and assessing, then back to his brother. “Camera.”

“Already pulling it.”

I stayed in the doorway because moving felt like it might break whatever thin control still held the room together. My pulse was too loud in my ears. The taste of coffee sat bitter at the back of my throat. Outside the tall windows the morning still looked ordinary, gray light, restless ocean, empty lawns but the air inside had changed. It felt tighter, Like the house itself was listening.

Reeve’s mouth curved, the same easy almost-smile he used when he wanted people to underestimate how closely he was paying attention. “False alarm, maybe”

Hed said it lightly, but his hazel-green eyes lifted from the tablet and found me. And this time he didn’t bother hiding what was in them.

They moved over me slowly. Not the quick, polite glance he’d always used before, this was deliberate, hungry and desperate.Starting from my bare feet on the cold floor, climbing the length of my legs, lingering at the soft drape of the oversized sweater I’d pulled on that morning, then higher to my throat, my lips and my eyes. I felt uncomfortable with the look but I just had to act as though I didn't know what was going through his mind.

Jarrah noticed, his jaw flexed once, but he didn’t look away from the tablet Reeve angled toward him.

“There,” Reeve said, still in that same laid-back tone. “Edge of the frame. Something moved along the outer wall. Too low for a person standing. Could be an animal.”

“Could be someone staying low,” Jarrah answered. His voice had gone rougher. “I’m going out.”

“I’ll come.”

“No.” Jarrah’s reply was immediate. “Stay with her.”

“ Stay with her”, he said, as if I were something that needed guarding because the danger outside the walls was already inside from the way they looked at me.

Reeve didn’t argue, He just nodded once and set the tablet on the table, and turned fully toward me. The charm was still there in the slight tilt of his mouth, the relaxed line of his shoulders, but his eyes kept tracing slowly and unapologetically. Like he’d decided the careful distance of the last few years no longer applied.

“Come on,” he said, softer now. “ let's go to the kitchen, you’re still shaking.”

I hadn’t noticed my fingers were cold against my own arms. I let him guide me out of the dining room with a light touch at the small of my back, gone almost as soon as I felt it and the place where his hand had rested burned longer than it should have.

Reeve poured a fresh cup and set it in front of me at the island without asking. Then he leaned back against the opposite counter, arms loosely crossed, and looked at me the way he had in the dining room. Like he was cataloguing every place the sweater touched my skin.

“You’re allowed to be scared,” he said. Quiet and almost gentle. “Doesn’t make you weak.”

I wrapped both hands around the cup. “I’m not scared of a motion sensor.” I said.

His mouth tilted. “Liar.”

The word landed soft, but it still made my stomach tighten. I stared at the dark surface of the coffee instead of his face and outside, somewhere beyond the high walls, Jarrah was walking the east perimeter alone. The thought sat heavy. I hated how quickly the house had shrunk to the three of us, I hated how much space they took up inside it. I hated the way my body kept noticing the exact distance between Reeve’s hip and the edge of the counter, the way his long fingers rested against his own bicep, the open hunger he no longer tried to mask when his eyes moved over me.

“Why are you both still here?” I asked. The question came out rougher than I meant. “You could be in Zurich with them Or anywhere else, you don’t have to stay.”

Reeve pushed off the counter and came around the island. He walked slowly, closing the space between us until I could smell the clean soap on his skin and feel the warmth of him without touching.

“You know why.” He said.

“We’ve been careful for a long time, Kirrily.” Almost a confession. “Careful doesn’t work anymore, Not with cars on the access road, Not with doors closing in empty wings, Not with you walking around this house looking like that.”

Heat flooded my face. I set the cup down harder than necessary. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” The charm was still there, but thinner now. Frayed at the edges. “Don’t look? Too late.”

The silence that followed was thick. I could hear the distant rush of the ocean. I could hear my own heartbeat. Somewhere outside, a gull cried once and went quiet. Reeve didn’t move back. He just stood there, close enough that the air between us felt charged, and let me see exactly how little he was trying to hide.

Then the tablet on the counter chimed.

Both of us turned.

A new alert flashed across the screen in hard white letters.

EAST PERIMETER – SECOND TRIGGER

CAMERA 7 OFFLINE

Reeve’s easy expression vanished as he snatched the tablet up, already moving toward the hall, voice sharp for the first time all morning.

“Jarrah.”

No answer came back through the open line.