The kitchen was too bright. Not harsh, exactly, just evenly lit, the overhead light washing everything in the same pale, unforgiving clarity. No shadows. No corners to disappear into. The kind of light that made Rory feel more visible than he ever wanted to be. He sat at the dining table with his bag at his feet, shoulders tight, spine straight in the way his body defaulted to when it sensed rules closing in. His oversized hoodie sleeves were tugged down over his hands, cuffs pressed tight against his palms.

  Pete sat directly opposite him, a mug of tea steaming faintly beside a stack of neatly aligned papers. He wasn't looming or hovering, but his presence was absolute, an immovable weight in the room that was impossible to ignore.

  "Alright," Pete said, his voice level as he flipped open Rory's notebook. "Let's see what you've got tonight."

  Rory swallowed, his voice sounding small in the quiet room. "It's mostly reading."

  Pete hummed, his eyes already tracing the lines on the page. "Reading still leaves a paper trail."

  Rory reached for his pen, his fingers feeling stiff and uncooperative. He pulled the notebook a few inches closer, an instinctive gesture to shield his work, but Pete noticed the movement immediately.

  "Leave it where it is," Pete said lightly.

  Rory froze, his pulse spiking, before he slowly withdrew his hand. The notebook remained in the centre of the table, open and vulnerable.

  They sat in silence for a moment, the only sounds being the low, the clinical tick of the clock above the sink and the distant murmur of the TV from the other room. Under the table, Rory's knee began to bounce in a fast, jittery rhythm until he consciously forced it to stay still.

  "This is English," Pete noted. It wasn't a question.

  Rory nodded. "Yeah."

  Pete tapped the page with a blunt finger. "You've written about theme."

  "Uh... yeah. Power. Justice. Authority."

  "Mhm." Pete's finger trailed down the paragraph. "And what's your argument?"

  Rory hesitated, searching for the safest possible answer. "That... the justice system doesn't always mean fairness."

  Pete looked up, his gaze locking onto Rory's. "And?"

  "And that people in power get to decide what counts as justice," Rory added, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.

  Pete's finger continued its slow descent down the page. "And your position?"

  Rory hesitated again, the repetition making him sweat. "That... justice doesn't always mean fairness."

  Pete looked up once more, his expression unreadable. "You usually go further than that."

  The words were soft, which somehow made them feel more dangerous. Rory's mouth went dry, the air in the kitchen feeling suddenly thin. "It's just notes."

  Pete tilted his head, considering Rory with a quiet, analytical intensity. "You don't usually write like this."

  Rory shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Like what?"

  "Safe," Pete said. "Vague. Like you're aiming for acceptable instead of correct."

  Rory stared down at the wood grain of the table. "It makes sense to me."

  "I'm sure it does," Pete replied calmly, turning the page with a crisp snap. "But it's not how you normally think." He flipped to the next section of the notebook. "And maths."

  Rory slid the loose calculation sheets across the table, his hands shaking despite his desperate effort to appear composed. Pete scanned them quickly, too quickly for Rory's comfort, before he came to a sudden halt.

  "This is wrong," Pete said.

  Rory's chest tightened as if a band were being drawn around his ribs. "It's... I fixed it on the next line."

  Pete didn't look up from the numbers. "You didn't need to fix it. You don't make that mistake."

  Rory swallowed hard. "Everyone messes up sometimes."

  Pete set the pages down with meticulous care, aligning their edges perfectly with the notebook. "Yes," he said. "But not like this."

  The silence that followed felt heavy, pressing in on Rory from all sides.

  "You've always been good with numbers," Pete continued. "Fast. Clean. You don't guess."

  Rory's fingers curled deeper into his sleeves. "I wasn't guessing."

  Pete studied him over the rim of his mug, his eyes sharp. "Then why does it look like you were?"

  Rory didn't have an answer. Pete leaned back slightly, his chair creaking. "You used to ask for help when something didn't make sense."

  Rory's jaw tightened, the mention of the past stinging. "Yeah, well... Nick's not here anymore."

  Pete nodded once, a slow, deliberate movement. "I know. But I'm here."

  Rory's fingers curled tighter. "You... work."

  Pete offered a thin, patient smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I make time for things that matter." The implication of the words settled over Rory, heavy and unwanted. "I know you don't like asking for help," Pete went on. "You've managed just fine on your own. But when your work suddenly drops, I notice."

  Rory forced his voice to remain steady. "I had a long day. That's all."

  Pete just stared at him, his silence demanding more. "We all do." He pushed the maths sheet back toward Rory. "Do one. Properly. Show me."

  Rory picked up the pen; it felt as heavy as a lead pipe. He stared at the numbers, his mind going blank in the way it always did when he was being watched too closely, his thoughts scattering like birds. He managed to write the first line, then paused, his breath catching. Pete leaned forward slightly, not enough to touch him, but enough that Rory could feel the shift in the air.

  "That's not right," Pete said.

  Rory flinched. "It's...I was just—"

  "You're rushing," Pete interrupted. "Again."

  Rory swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I know."

  Pete's voice softened, though the underlying steel remained. "Slow down."

  Rory erased the line, his hand trembling so much he smudged graphite across the page. He rewrote it with agonising care, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Pete watched every single movement of the pen.

  "Why are you nervous?" Pete asked suddenly.

  Rory's pen stilled. "I'm not."

  Pete raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're gripping that pen like it's going to run away."

  Rory forced his fingers to loosen, though they ached from the tension. "I just want to get it done," he muttered.

  "And I want you to understand it," Pete replied. "That's the difference."

  Rory nodded numbly. "Okay."

  They worked in a strained silence for another several minutes. Rory wrote, erased, and rewrote. Every scratch of the pen felt magnified, every mistake louder than it should have been. Eventually, Pete spoke again.

  "You've been home every afternoon this week."

  Rory's pen hesitated. "Mm."

  "Used to be out more," Pete said. "Now you're here."

  Rory didn't answer, keeping his eyes glued to the math problems. Pete leaned back. "Kids don't usually get quieter unless they're hiding something."

  "I'm not hiding," Rory said immediately, the response a bit too fast, a bit too sharp.

  Pete stood up and began to move around the table, eventually stopping directly behind Rory's chair. He didn't touch him, but he was close enough that Rory could feel the heat radiating from him.

  "I don't think you're lying," Pete said quietly, his voice vibrating near Rory's ear. "I think you're slipping."

  Rory's hands trembled in his lap, hidden by the table.

  "So," Pete continued, "this is me keeping you on track." He rested a hand on Rory's shoulder. It wasn't heavy or gentle; it was possessive. "Homework stays down here. Same time. Every night. I check it."

  Rory's chest constricted. "Every night?"

  "Yes."

  "What if I don't have any?"

  Pete's mouth quirked into a thin, mirthless smile. "Then we talk about what you did instead."

  Rory shook his head slightly, a sense of drowning taking hold. "That... feels like a lot."

  The smile disappeared from Pete's face. "What feels like a lot," he said with chilling calmness, "is watching someone smart pretend not to be."

  Rory froze, the air in the kitchen suddenly feeling cold.

  "Finish the problem," Pete commanded.

  Rory bent over the page, the numbers swimming before his eyes, his pen scratching against the paper because stopping felt more dangerous than continuing. The clock continued to tick. The overhead light stayed bright. And Rory understood, with a sickening, hollow clarity, that this wasn't about his grades at all.

  It was about access. And Pete had just officially claimed it.

  The next few hours passed in a heavy, stifling quiet. It wasn't an explosive confrontation, but rather a period of steady, suffocating pressure as Pete's attention remained fixed on him, never quite lifting.

  Rory finished the final problem with a cramped hand and a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes. He slid the page forward across the table, careful to keep his movements measured so he wouldn't look too eager to escape. Pete picked up the paper, checking the work line by line with painstaking deliberation. This time, the answers were correct and the presentation was clean, the kind of work Rory usually produced without effort when his mind wasn't a battlefield.

  Pete nodded once, seemingly satisfied. "That's more like you," he remarked. It wasn't praise; it was a correction, a reminder of the standard expected of him.

  Rory swallowed hard, his throat feeling parched and tight, as if he'd forgotten how to breathe normally while holding himself in that rigid, acceptable shape. Pete set the paper down and leaned back, stretching his shoulders with a sigh. "Alright. Let's leave it there for the night. Bed."

  Relief hit Rory so sharply it made him momentarily lightheaded. He immediately began scrambling his things together, shoving the notebook into his bag with hands that felt suddenly, inexplicably weak.

  As Pete stood up, Rory flinched before he could catch himself. Pete noticed the movement, he noticed everything, but instead of calling it out, he stepped closer and heavily placed a hand on Rory's shoulder.

  "You did good," Pete said, his voice firm and anchoring.

  Rory nodded, his eyes fixed on a nondescript point somewhere over Pete's shoulder. "Mm."

  Then, Pete pulled him into a hug. It wasn't rough or violent, and somehow, the gentleness of it made the skin on Rory's neck crawl. Pete's arms wrapped around him in a hold that lingered a beat too long, a solid, encompassing grip that pressed Rory's cheek briefly against Pete's chest. He smelled of aftershave, tea, and a domestic familiarity that made Rory's stomach twist into knots.

  Rory went rigid. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to bolt, but his body remained frozen. It did exactly what it had learned to do years ago: stay still, don't provoke, and wait for the moment to pass.

  "There you go," Pete murmured, one hand settling between Rory's shoulder blades and rubbing a slow, gentle circle into his back. "See? When you focus, things fall back into place."

  Rory's hands hovered uselessly at his sides, his fingers curled so tight into his sleeves that his knuckles turned white. The moment stretched out, agonisingly slow, until footsteps sounded in the doorway.

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  "Oh," Liz said softly, pausing at the entrance.

  Pete released him immediately, turning toward her with an easy, natural smile as if the last few minutes hadn't happened at all. Liz moved toward the sink, grabbing the kettle to fill it. She took in the scene, Rory clutching his bag, Pete standing close, and the remainder of the homework spread neatly across the table, and her expression visibly warmed with maternal pride.

  "That's nice to see," she said softly. "You two finished up?"

  Pete nodded. "Yeah. He did well."

  Liz turned her smile on Rory. "I'm glad. It's good you've got someone keeping you on track."

  Rory forced his mouth into a tight, brittle shape that he hoped looked like a smile. "Mm."

  "I'll make some tea," Liz said, setting the kettle down. "You want a cup before bed, Rory?"

  "No," Rory replied, the word jumping out of his mouth too fast. "I'm...I'm tired."

  Pete clapped a hand lightly on his shoulder, giving it one last squeeze. "Go on then."

  Dismissed. Rory didn't hesitate for a second. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the stairs, his heart racing against his ribs and his skin buzzing uncomfortably where Pete had touched him.

  "Night," Liz called out.

  "Night," Rory replied automatically, already halfway up the flight.

  He didn't slow down until he was inside his room with the door shut and the lock clicked into place. Only then did he let himself sag, sliding down the wood until he was sitting on the floor with his back against the door, his breathing shallow and frantic. His chest felt tight, as if the oxygen in the house hadn't followed him into the room.

  After several minutes, he pushed himself up and crawled into bed, kicking his shoes off and letting them land wherever they fell. He lay on his side, back to the wall and hoodie still on, the weight of the day pressing down until his limbs felt heavy and distant.

  His phone buzzed. He unlocked it, the glow of the screen stinging his tired eyes. Instagram. He told himself to put it away, but his thumb moved of its own accord.

  The first story to load was a sensory assault: bright lights, a thumping baseline, and a crowd so dense the music practically vibrated through the screen. Kash B. Rory's breath caught in his throat. He tapped through with shaking fingers.

  Dan was there. He looked flushed and happy, his hair damp with sweat as the stage lights painted his face in shifting hues of gold and blue. And right beside him, shoulder pressed into shoulder, far too close, was Michael. Michael was holding the drinks. Michael was shouting something into Dan's ear. Michael was grinning when Dan laughed.

  It was the same concert. The one Rory was supposed to be at. The one they'd planned for months, scraping together cash and joking about for weeks.

  His chest caved in. Rory dropped the phone onto the mattress like the glass had suddenly turned white-hot and rolled onto his back. He stared up at the dark ceiling, his eyes stinging, but no tears fell, there was just a hollow, aching pressure spreading through his ribs.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and turned the volume on his iPod up, trying to drown out the echoes of the night. Pete's hand on his back. Liz's pleased smile. Dan's laugh, which didn't belong to him anymore.

  Rory pulled the blankets up around his chin and curled in on himself, trying to become as small as possible. He felt trapped in every direction, and a thought he'd been fighting began to take root. Maybe he had to swallow his pride. Maybe being watched at Karmal was safer, better, than being here. The idea terrified him, but as he lay there in the dark, it wouldn't go away.

  ***

  The apartment was far too quiet for the number of people occupying it. Ethan stood at the dining table, his jacket draped carelessly over the back of a chair and one hand braced against the wood as he spoke. Opposite him, Alex sat with a rigid posture, her fingers laced together as if she were physically holding herself in place. Will leaned against the kitchen counter, watching them while his mug grew cold in his hands.

  In the lounge room, barely ten feet away, Owen lay half-sprawled on the couch with a controller gripped in his hands. On the television, the game was a blur of flashing colours and distant gunfire, punctuated by synthetic victory music, but he wasn't truly playing. He had turned the volume down until the sounds were nothing more than a ghost of a soundtrack.

  At first, Owen told himself he wasn't listening, that the conversation was just background noise, adult business that didn't involve him. But then Ethan spoke Rory's name, and Owen's thumbs went still.

  "He said no," Ethan said quietly.

  Owen's chest tightened. In the kitchen, Will straightened up. "A flat no?"

  Alex answered before Ethan could. "It wasn't reactive or dramatic. He was just... closed. It was like he'd already decided there was nothing there worth taking."

  Owen swallowed hard, staring at the screen without seeing a single pixel.

  "He agreed to check-ins," Ethan added. "Nothing else."

  "Because he's scared," Alex snapped, her voice sharp with frustration. "You don't keep dropping words like 'oversight' and 'escalation' and expect a kid not to fold. He's doing what he has to."

  Will grimaced, nodding slowly. "That's not agreement. That's survival."

  Owen shifted on the couch, the guilt pressing heavier with every word they spoke. He hadn't meant for any of this to spiral out of control. He had just wanted to help, to fix what he had broken.

  "Sullivan is already planning around it," Ethan continued. "Next week is his mandated check-in. Officially, it's neutral."

  Alex let out a humourless, jagged breath. "Yeah, except there's nothing neutral about it. She wants him close. She wants him oriented and familiar with the space until he's attached. Emotionally attached," Alex added. "He doesn't trust the institution, but he still reacts to people. That's what she's betting on. He's just a teenager looking for someone to do right by him."

  Will frowned, his voice dropping. "And how bad is he?"

  Alex didn't answer immediately, her gaze drifting toward the window. "He's holding it together," she said finally. "Barely. There's a lot of fear and hurt under there. Anger, too. But it's turned inward, like he's bracing for an impact he knows is coming."

  Owen's throat burned. He watched Ethan look down at the table, the silence stretching uncomfortably. After a beat, Will pushed off the counter. "He's not going to agree to come back. I've only met him a handful of times, and even I can tell he's stubborn as hell."

  Ethan didn't argue. Instead, he scrubbed a hand over his face, his thumb digging into his brow as if he could physically press the tension out of his skull. "I know," he said, his voice sounding worn thin. "I know he won't. But I can't just walk away."

  Owen squeezed the controller so hard the plastic creaked.

  "Sullivan is right about one thing," Ethan continued, his voice low. "If word gets out, and it will, people will come looking. Not recruiters with pamphlets, but the kind of people who see someone like Rory and don't ask for permission."

  Owen flinched at the imagery.

  "We still haven't found that black ops group," Ethan reminded them. "And his brother is gone. That isn't nothing."

  "I get it," Will said. "But knowing all that doesn't make him budge."

  Alex shifted in her chair. "Sullivan is working another angle. She wants to offer him upgrades."

  Owen's heart lurched. The silence that followed was immediate and sharp.

  Will blinked in disbelief. "Since when does Karmal give out upgrades for free?"

  Ethan didn't answer; he just continued to stare at the table. Since Robert Atwood's son turned up, his mind supplied grimly.

  "That's bold," Will continued, shaking his head. "And dumb. Rory didn't ask for more power. He's already terrified of what he's got. I've seen this pattern before, it never feels like pressure to the people offering it, only to the kid on the other end."

  From the couch, Owen spoke before he could stop himself. "He might still want them."

  Three heads turned in unison. Owen froze, heat rushing to his face. "I just mean..." he rushed on, the words tumbling out in a defensive heap. "It's a nice thing. You know? Something good."

  Will frowned at him. "Good how?"

  "I don't know," Owen said, shrugging with a sudden, sharp defensiveness. "He's had a crap run. It's something he can't just get for himself. It's just..." He gestured helplessly at the air. "Something nice Karmal could do for once."

  Alex was watching him with a terrifying level of intensity. Ethan's brow furrowed. "You really think he'd see it that way?"

  "Why wouldn't he?" Owen shot back. "If someone offered you something you actually wanted, something that actually helped, you wouldn't think it was a bad thing."

  "Context matters, Owen," Will said gently. He looked between his two roommates and shook his head.

  "Ethan," he added, not unkindly, "you can't save him by turning him into a project. And Owen, you don't fix guilt by buying someone something they didn't ask for."

  "I'm not saying force him! Or use it to make him stick around," Owen protested. "Just... maybe it makes him feel like people actually want him there. Like it's not all just rules and bands and... whatever."

  Alex inhaled slowly, her body going very still. Her eyes locked onto Owen's. "You," she said quietly.

  Ethan turned to her. "What?"

  Alex didn't look away from the couch. "You gave Sullivan the upgrades."

  The room went deathly silent. Owen's shoulders dropped and his cheeks flushed a deep, tell-tale red, but he said nothing. Ethan's gaze flicked from Alex back to Owen, his eyes widening as the pieces clicked. "You did that?"

  Owen hesitated before nodding, suddenly feeling very young as he sat there. "I didn't think it was a big deal. They're just sitting there. And it's not even me giving them to him. It's Karmal. Or Sullivan. Or whoever."

  "Jesus, Owen," Ethan said, his anger flashing hot and immediate. "You went behind my back?"

  "You would've said no!"

  "Because it's insane!" Ethan snapped. "Those things are expensive. You don't just—"

  "I have eight!" Owen shouted, finally standing up. "They're sitting there collecting dust! You'd rather they rot than go to someone who actually needs them?"

  "He doesn't need upgrades, Owen. He needs help!"

  "That's what I was trying to do!" Owen's voice cracked, the frustration finally bleeding through the armour of his defensiveness.

  "You should have talked to me," Ethan replied, his voice dropping to a low, heavy warning. "This isn't the way to apologise. It comes off like a bribe."

  "I wasn't trying to bribe him!" Owen protested. "I just thought it might make him feel better. Like not everything is bad."

  Alex's voice was quiet but firm. "Owen, I get what you were trying to do, but there are other ways."

  Owen's eyes burned. "I know I messed up. I know what I did at his school was awful. I just wanted to do one good thing. One."

  Ethan's anger wavered as he looked at the boy, he could finally see the raw guilt that had been gnawing at Owen for days. Despite the breach of trust, a reluctant spark of pride flickered in Ethan's chest, tangled up with a deep, weary sympathy. He knew he shouldn't be looking at it from this angle, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Owen might actually be right.

  Owen was the same age as Rory; he understood the social currency of their world in a way Ethan sometimes forgot. Maybe an upgrade was exactly what Rory needed, something that belonged solely to him, a gesture that felt less like a tool of state control and more like a gift. An offering of peace.

  Still, the pragmatist in him recoiled. The ethics felt murky, and the betrayal of protocol stung. Ethan was supposed to be the kid's guardian, the one navigating these dangerous waters. Owen shouldn't be making executive decisions of this magnitude on his own, and he certainly shouldn't have gone behind Ethan's back to deal directly with Karen Sullivan.

  "You should have talked to me," Ethan repeated, the reprimand turning into a weary sigh.

  Owen swallowed hard. "I know. I just thought if something good came out of it, maybe he wouldn't hate us. Or me."

  "Okay," Will cut in, his voice firm enough to break the loop. "Pause." Everyone turned to him. He looked at Owen. "What about your parents? Do they know you just handed off an upgrade?"

  Owen shrugged, a flicker of anxiety slipping through. "They won't know."

  Ethan groaned. "Owen, no."

  "They won't!" Owen insisted. "They probably don't even remember how many they've given me. It's fine."

  "It's not fine," Ethan sighed, rubbing his face.

  Owen swallowed hard again, his eyes searching Ethan's for some sign of understanding. "It's worth it. I really think it is. You said Karmal could help him. I think he'd like them. And if that makes him come back... isn't that better than him being out there alone?"

  No one spoke. The weight of the question hung in the air.

  "I'm trying to fix this," Owen tried one last time.

  Ethan closed his eyes, the fight finally draining out of him. "I get that," he said at last. "I do. But this? This can't be about easing your guilt. If he takes those upgrades, it has to be his choice. Not something he feels cornered into."

  "I know he won't take them from me," Owen admitted. "That's why I thought if they came from Sullivan...maybe he'd see it differently. Maybe he'd come back."

  The room fell quiet. Alex looked between them with a heavy heart, and Will stared into his mug. Ethan watched Owen, this brilliant, reckless, guilty kid who had tried to fix one mistake by making another. Owen sank back into the couch, the controller limp in his hands. The weight of it all finally settled, not just the mistake, but the desperate hope underneath it. The hope that a single act of kindness could fix everything he'd broken.

  Even if it couldn't.

  ***

  Rain followed Rory home. Not dramatically, not in sheets, just constant, patient, and impossible to ignore. Enough to soak through the shoulders of his hoodie and darken the pavement until everything smelled like wet concrete and cold air. By the time he slipped back inside the house, his shoes left faint prints on the tile that he didn't bother wiping away. Liz and Pete were at work. The house was quiet in that hollow, echoing way that only happened when everyone was gone and nothing had been turned on to fill the space.

  He locked the door behind him anyway. The sound was small, but it settled something in his chest. Not safety. Just the illusion of it.

  Rory moved through the house carefully, habit guiding him more than thought. He kicked his shoes off near the stairs and went straight up to his room, peeling the damp school hoodie over his head as he walked. The fabric was cold and clung unpleasantly to his skin, but he barely noticed. He dropped it on the floor without bothering to hang it, stepped out of his jeans, and crawled into bed in his uniform shirt, curling onto his side and pulling the blanket up around his shoulders.

  Outside, the rain tapped steadily against the window. It should have been calming. White noise. Something soft to disappear into.

  Instead, his eyes drifted to the wall beside his bed.

  It was covered in drawings and photographs, arranged carefully over time, though he hadn't realised that was what he'd been doing until now. Sketches of his mother from memory, her smile always softer on paper than it ever felt in his head. Eryn and Rook, drawn from old images and half-remembered moments, their faces familiar and distant all at once. Nick, rendered more sharply than the others, frozen in a version of himself that no longer existed. His father, too—though that drawing always bothered Rory. It was wrong. He knew it was wrong. He couldn't remember him clearly enough to get it right, but he'd drawn him anyway, filling in the gaps with guesses because having something felt better than having nothing.

  And there were the photos.

  Polaroids of Rory and Dan, tucked in among the sketches like they belonged there. Smiling. Laughing. Shoulder to shoulder on the bus. A candid one Rory barely remembered taking, Dan looking over his shoulder with that familiar, unguarded grin.

  The wall felt suddenly less like decoration and more like evidence.

  Everyone on it was gone.

  Some had left. Some had been taken away. Some had slipped through his fingers before he'd understood how fragile things were. The rain tapped steadily against the glass, matching the heaviness settling in his chest, and Rory turned his face into the pillow, closing his eyes as if that might make the wall disappear.

  It didn't.

  Eventually, he reached for his phone. The movement was automatic, muscle memory guiding his thumb toward the familiar icon. Instagram sat there, waiting. His thumb hovered over it, suspended in midair, and for a moment he felt the pull sharply—the urge to look, to confirm what he already knew, to hurt himself with it one more time.

  He didn't open it.

  Instead, he backed out and opened a game he hadn't touched in weeks, something mindless and repetitive that didn't ask anything of him. The screen lit up with colour and noise, but it all slid past him without really landing. He let it run while the rain fell and the room stayed quiet.

  He told himself he'd fake some homework in an hour. Pete would want to see it tonight, sitting at the kitchen table with that calm, watchful expression that made Rory's skin prickle. The thought of it settled like a weight in his stomach, something to dread later.

  For now, he just rested. Not because he felt tired, exactly, but because moving felt like it would require a decision, and he didn't trust himself to make one.

  He didn't fall asleep, not really, but time passed anyway. The game idled. The rain kept falling.

  Then his wrist buzzed.

  Rory frowned, eyes opening. The sensation was brief, subtle enough that for a second he wondered if he'd imagined it. He shifted, glancing down at the red band half-hidden under his sleeve. It sat there innocently, silent again.

  His phone buzzed a moment later.

  Rory's heart thudded once, hard. He picked it up slowly, the screen lighting his face as a notification slid into view. The sender was unmistakable.

  KARMAL OVERSIGHT.

  He stared at it without opening the message, his chest tightening as the weight of the last few days seemed to settle all at once. He had known this was coming. Some part of him had been waiting for it, the same part that had already learned that pretending not to exist didn't stop the world from finding him.

  Eventually, he unlocked the phone.

  The message was short. Polite. Neutral.

  A date.A time.A reminder of mandatory attendance.

  No questions. No options.

  Rory let the phone slip from his fingers onto the bed beside him. He turned his face toward the wall, toward the drawings and the photographs and the proof of everything he'd already lost. He lay there, listening to the rain, feeling the weight of the next week settle quietly into place.

  So like...nothing explodes, but Rory still ends up pinned.Pete doesn't need to yell to take up space, he just removes exits one rule at a time until Rory's choices shrink down to compliance. and then the universe doubles down with the most chilling notification possible from Karmal oversight.

  Remember if you want more art + little updates between chapters, come hang out with me on instagram: @rory.atwoodand if you want early chapters + extra stories + bonus art, my patreon is here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/RoryAtwood ??