NOVA
Drax announced the next exercise, and the ground went quiet.
One partner is blindfolded. The other hides among thirty volunteers pulled from the second and third years. Ninety seconds. Find your partner by touch and scent alone. Both cross the line or both run laps.
Nova stood very still.
Touch and scent.
Her scent mask was holding. It had been holding all morning. But touch was different. Touch was Caden's hands on her in the clinic and on her back in the dorm room and the half-second of contact on the blanket handoff, and every single time, something in her body registered it as different from everyone else.
She looked at Zion.
He was already looking at her. He'd done the same math.
"I'll search," she said. "You hide."
He nodded immediately. No argument. He understood witho
