Free Web NovelChapter 307: Chapter 307 What We Allow
Ezra
By the time the crowd thins and the cameras pivot to interviews, I’ve already slipped through the service corridor and raided the clinic supply drawer for a small kit with saline, gauze, steri-strips, a packet of antibacterial and two flexible wraps. I tuck everything into a plain black pouch so it doesn’t look like I robbed the med bay.
’Find her and fix it. Then say what you didn’t say out there,’ Damon says, steady and close.
I move faster.
Daniel texted a minute ago, Library side door. She needed quiet. I take the back stairs, cross the dim hall that always smells faintly like old paper and lemon polish, and push into the staff kitchen beside the stacks. Fluorescents hum and the big kettle is already on. Allison sits at the small table, elbow up, sleeve rolled, a tidy line of dried blood on her forearm and Ruby is still close enough to warm the pitch of her voice when she says, "Hi."
"I come bearing contraband," I say, lifting the pouch. "And tea."
She huffs a laugh that drains some tension out of her shoulders. "You’re good at appearing where there are bandages."
"I’m good at overpacking," I say, and set the kit down. "And at making tea that fixes nothing but makes people stay still for long enough to tell me if they’re okay."
I wash my hands, set water to boil again, and pull two mugs from the rack. Honey, ginger, lemon. The scent cuts through the metallic trace of blood and the faint tang of cleaning fluid, and I put both mugs in front of her and open the pouch.
"May I?" I ask.
She extends her arm without flinching. Up close, the scratches are clean, shallow, already knitting. I rinse with saline, blot, and smooth the antibacterial. She watches my hands like I’m doing a trick and she’s trying to learn it but her breathing stays even. The only giveaway is the flash of orange at the edge of her eye when the disinfectant stings.
’You could say it now,’ Damon says. ’She earned it on that field twice.’
"Sorry," I say instead, because it’s where I have to start. "I should have been there faster. I should have said more when Ethan clipped at you. I didn’t, and that’s on me." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
She watches my mouth for a second, then nods. "You were there when it mattered."
"I should have been there when it mattered in front of everyone," I say, and tap a steri-strip into place. "Not only here."
"Here counts," she says. It’s soft, but it doesn’t get me off the hook.
I wrap the flexible band once to keep the strips from catching on anything and trim the tail. "You’ll be good in an hour," I say. "But keep it covered until the after-party is over. No one needs a close-up."
Her mouth tilts. "My splashy debut as ’Fox Princess of the Clean Bandage.’"
I look up. "You know the word is out, right? Not the princess part, but enough."
"I know," she says, and looks past me at the window that gives nothing back but our reflection. "I can hear it in the way the room breathes when I enter."
I tape the last edge down and lean back. "I filmed your footwork at training last week," I say, pivoting because it’s what I know how to offer. "Body-cam. If you want the clip, I’ll send it. You did a mirror-pivot off a sweep I haven’t seen you use before."
She stills. "You film me?" freeweɓnøvel.com
"I film everyone," I say, not defensive, just factual. "We use it to fix our angles. I didn’t share yours because I didn’t ask."
"Send it," she says. "I want to break down the slip on the rock. I was lucky that it was only his paw."
"You didn’t get lucky," I say. "You set him up."
She doesn’t answer, but the way her mouth softens tells me the praise lands where she needs it. I pour tea and slide one mug to her, and wrap my hands around the other. For a minute we sit with heat and quiet.
"Thank you," she says finally, looking at the strip, then at me. "For this, for the tea and for not performing around it."
"I’m good at not performing," I say, then wince at how true that is.
’And that’s the problem,’ Damon says. ’Not performing becomes hiding.’
Allison traces the rim of her mug. "You almost spoke," she says, eyes on the water. "I saw it."
"I almost did," I say. "And then I saw our father in the front row, and Lizzy beside him, and five different elders ready to decide what any word means, and I folded it in for later."
"And later looks like what?" she asks, lifting her gaze. No heat, no accusation, just a request for terms.
"Later it looks like me standing there and choosing you in a room where it costs something," I say. "But I’m not claiming ’strategic delay’ when the truth is simpler; I’m practiced at keeping the peace. It’s a bad habit."
She takes a small sip. "Habits can change."
"I know," I say, and Damon pushes against my ribs like he wants out.
’Say it,’ he says. ’Stop using almost.’
I put my mug down and meet her eyes. "You were right to set rules," I say. "You were right to call the terms and run the fight. And for the record, if anyone asks, I will say you saved us time and blood."
Her eyes flash warm again. Ruby is close enough that the color sits a shade brighter. "Thank you."
My phone buzzes, and my mother’s name lights the screen with a photo of the three of us hilariously small and muddy on a training day years ago. Photos on the lawn in five, she writes. Please be on time. I breathe out through my nose and tuck the phone away.
"I have to pull you back to the circus," I say. "Are you coming out there or heading home?"
"I’ll take the treeline and find the last row," she says. "I told Elijah I’d stand with him later. Not now."
I nod. I want to say Luna. The word is already at the tip of my tongue even though it will complicate everything when the wrong ear hears it. I reach for my phone again and open a message thread with her name. My thumbs move.
Me; You were perfect out there, Lu..
I stare at the letters.
’Send it,’ Damon says. ’Mean it and send it.’
I erased four characters, out there.
I don’t hit send. I lock the screen. My chest tightens in the honest way it does when I choose the smaller thing because it feels safer in the moment.
