I do not know it is a test when it begins.
At first, it feels like an inconvenience layered onto an already strained morning, the kind that happens when people stop communicating cleanly and start assuming availability instead. I am halfway through reorganising a stack of training requisitions in the side office when a runner appears at the door and tells me I am needed outside, now, tone polite but firm in the way that leaves no room for questions.
“For what,” I ask, already setting the papers down.
“They need a call,” the runner replies, eyes flicking away for a fraction of a second. “You.”
That alone is enough to make Layla stir, not with alarm, but with alert focus, and as I follow the runner toward the central yard, I catalogue the details automatically, the lack of explanation, t
