Page 27 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The morning light in this house is different.

It doesn’t just fill the rooms. It spreads like a rumor, bleeding across the floorboards, stretching shadows out until they don’t quite look like they belong to the things that cast them.

The silence here isn’t quiet. It’s alert.

A listening kind of stillness. Like the walls are waiting for something to break.

Elias is gone a while now.

The sheets still carry the heat of him, but barely. His pillow smells like sleep and salt and sweat. The good kind. The kind I only learned to crave when I realized how rare it was to feel safe in someone’s arms and not wonder when it would turn on you.

I sit up slowly, dragging his hoodie tighter around my frame. The room looks the same, but feels different now that he’s not in it. It feels like he took something with him that I didn’t realize I needed until it was missing.

I swing my legs off the edge of the bed and let them hang. My toes brush the cold floor.

I don't want to be paranoid.

But something itches in the back of my head. A prickle that doesn’t feel like nerves or instinct. It feels like knowing. Like when you step into a room and realize the air’s changed, even if everything looks the same.

I move through the house without turning on lights. It doesn’t need them. Elias designed it that way—full of half-lit corners and quiet tech that hums like it's thinking. The kind of place that feels like it has a heartbeat.

In the kitchen, I find my mug on the counter.

It’s clean. Dry. Placed deliberately, rim facing east. That’s not how I left it. Which means he touched it. Probably stared at it too long, probably told himself it meant something. Because that’s the kind of man he is.

And now he’s gone.

I pour tea anyway. I need something to do with my hands.

The wall panel blinks at me.

It’s not a full alert. Not a breach. Just a nudge. A thread of static.

I step closer. The interface reads local sync disruption. Minor. A flicker on the clinic’s server, time-stamped just after nine.

I frown. I haven’t touched the system today.

I tap into the clinic feed. It loads slow—like it’s hesitant. The data buffer crawls through the standard sweeps. Nothing red-flagged. No spike in patient files. But I can feel it, crawling under my skin.

Something brushed the edge of my world.

Something not quite clean.

I pull up the inbound attempts. There it is.

Two failed access pings.

Remote.

IP scrambled through three dead nodes and a proxy that bounces back to an old biomedical research hub in Lyon.

That’s not random.

That’s surgical.

The mug in my hand goes cold before I realize I’m not drinking from it. I set it down and take a breath that doesn’t settle right in my chest.

Whoever it is, they’re close enough to know what I’ve touched.

And if they’re going after my files, they’re not looking for my patients.

They’re looking for me.

I back out of the interface and close the panel like nothing happened.

Because if someone’s watching, they’ll see nothing.

And that’s exactly what I want them to see.

I go to Elias’s office. Not to touch anything. Just to sit.

The chair still remembers the shape of him. There’s a jacket draped over the back, collar bent from where he always grips it in one hand before he puts it on. I drag it over my lap like armor and pull my knees up into the seat.

I stare at the dark screens until the air settles around me again. Until my thoughts stop racing and start organizing.

I don’t know who’s reaching.

But I know one thing.

Elias won’t let them reach far.

And until then, I’ll be ready to meet them at the edge of the wire.

I don’t know how long I sit there.

The screens stay black. The hum of the house, constant. Comforting in that strange way only Elias’s tech can be—like it’s keeping secrets on my behalf. Outside, the light shifts. Warmer now. Later. I should eat. I should shower. Maybe even head to the clinic. I should pretend things are normal.

But I don’t.

Instead, I scan.

I retrace the intrusion paths from the clinic node. I look for logic threads. Someone’s watching the data like a pulse—probing the edges, waiting for the moment it spikes.

They want me to react.

But I won’t.

Not yet.

I close the terminal and finally move. Shower. Clothes. Something neutral. Comfortable but inconspicuous. Layers I can shed if I need to. Something Elias taught me without ever saying a word: always dress like you might have to run, or fight.

I tie my hair back. Loose but firm. A low knot. Practical.

Then I walk the house.

I check the locks, even though I know Elias already has. I trace the line of windows, noting the slight fingerprint on the sill near the back office. Mine. From yesterday. Still, I wipe it clean.

Habit. Or maybe defiance.

I reach the bedroom Elias gave me. The one he quietly made mine without asking, without needing to. I don’t usually treat it like a place I belong. But today, I need to. I need to remind myself who I’ve been—what I’ve survived.

At the far end, tucked under the window like an afterthought, is a low chest. Plain. Wide. The kind of thing you’d expect to find spare blankets in.

I open it to take another look at the things I packed quietly the last time I visited my apartment. Things I hoped I’d never need again, but still packed anyway. Things that made sense to bring once it became clear I wasn’t just staying here for a night or two.

Inside, wrapped in black cloth: a small burner, untouched, still switched off, but charged.

A syringe—sterile but emptied. A ghost of something I walked away from but never quite forgot.

And a photo. Bent at the edges, the colors faded. A woman with kind eyes. The only person who ever taught me how to vanish in plain sight without losing myself in the process.

I touch her face. Just for a second. Just long enough to remember who I used to be—and who she helped me not to become.

Then I fold the cloth back. Reset everything exactly as it was.

Because next time I reach for this chest, I won’t be uncertain.

And I may not be alone.

I close the chest slowly, pressing my palms against the lid like it might still be warm from old ghosts.

It isn’t.

The latch clicks shut with a softness that feels final, but I know better. Nothing is final in this world. Everything is just paused—waiting for permission to haunt again.

The air in the room holds a stillness I don’t trust.

Too quiet.

Too calm.

Like the quiet that settles over a body just before it convulses.

I get up and move to the window. The view looks the same—Elias’s outer perimeter, clean stone, glass angles, the faint glint of embedded sensors catching the light. Past that, a stretch of brushland. Untamed and wild. A built-in buffer between this house and the world.

And yet I swear something’s breathing on the glass.

Not literally. Not fog. Not prints.

But a feeling. A presence.

The kind of thing you feel first in your spine before you realize it’s nowhere your eyes can see.

I step back.

Then I move away from the window, toward the chest.

I pull it open and bring out the burner.

Not to switch it on, not yet.

Just to feel the weight of it in my hand. Cool. Slim. I don’t power it up—don’t even press the screen. I check the charge level through the edge-light strip. Full. Routing light stays dark. Beacon shows no pulse. Inactive. Safe. But ready.

Then I tuck it into my pocket.

It changes something in my posture immediately. Like I’ve just loaded a different version of myself under my skin. One I don’t wear often. One I hoped I’d never have to bring back here.

But if someone’s testing the lines, I need to know how far they’re willing to reach.

And I need to know it before Elias walks into the fire thinking he’s the only target.

I leave the bedroom and walk straight to the garage. It’s dim inside, smell of oil and steel and recent movement. Elias’s car is gone, of course. But the other one—the backup—sits quiet under the sensor lights. Covered in dust, like it’s been waiting.

I pop the trunk.

Not weapons. Not gear.

Clothes. Old ones. Scrubbed of identity.

It’s not my bag—but it’s one Elias must’ve kept ready.

Inside is a dark duffel, three neutral changes, a worn cap, even a badge that isn’t mine but could pass for me.

Close enough to be useful. Close enough that it makes me wonder just how much of this he expected.

I stare at it for too long.

Then close it again.

Because I’m not leaving.

Not yet.

But I need to look like I could.

Just in case someone’s watching for that too.

I’m halfway up the stairs when I feel it again.

Not a sound. Not a shadow. But a shift. Like the house just exhaled and took something with it. My pulse skips. Not panic. Not fear. Just recognition.

Someone has pinged the house perimeter. Brief. Indirect. Just enough to touch the outer mesh.

I pause at the landing. Turn toward the wall panel near the upstairs overlook.

I press two fingers against the glass. The interface hums awake, soft and muted.

There it is.

A brush across the northwest edge. Could be wildlife. Could be a false flag. But it’s too consistent. Too deliberate.

Whoever it is, they didn’t push.

They just wanted to know if anyone was listening.

I let the screen go dark and walk slowly back to the bedroom.

I don’t go in yet.

I lean in the doorway and listen.

For what, I’m not sure. But the silence still hums like it’s been asked a question it hasn’t answered yet.

I turn and head down to the lower level. Not the garage this time.

The basement isn’t finished. Not in the way the rest of the house is. It’s functional. Clean. But raw. Concrete floor. Steel racks. A sink that looks like it came out of a morgue.

Elias keeps it clear. Not sterile. Just organized. It’s where he stores the things too dangerous or too honest to leave inside the house.

I open the utility cabinet on the far wall. It smells faintly of gun oil and solvent.