Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 27: Aftermath
The safehouse smelled like wet wool and old coffee.
Noah stood in the kitchen under a flickering ceiling light with his hands braced on the counter, breathing through the aftertaste of the Gate.
Not just the cold. Not just the pressure.
Gideon’s voice, warm as a teacher, promising ruin like it was mercy.
Behind him, the beacon casing sat on the table wrapped in a towel like that would make it less dangerous.
Mara moved through the room with the clipped efficiency of someone who refused to let panic have oxygen.
“Keep that Masking on,” she said without looking up.
Noah drew a careful breath. “It’s not a mask.”
Mara’s ring tapped once against her knuckle. “It’s survival.”
Jules sat on the couch with Cal, who looked like he’d aged ten years in an hour. Imani hovered near the window, phone in her hand but not using it, eyes darting like she expected headlights to cut across the blinds.
Sienna was in the spare room down the hall.
Her absence sat in Noah like a pulled stitch.
Mara took out a metal case and snapped it open. Gloves. Foil packets. A vacuum bag. A burner phone.
“We have a leak,” she said.
Noah swallowed hard.
“We have evidence,” Noah corrected.
Mara’s gaze cut to him. “We have a narrative waiting for a pen,” she said. “And if someone writes it first, you’re dead.”
Noah breathed in through his nose. He could feel the Trait in him like a bruise.
Plausible Deniability.
Like the world had granted him one clean lie and billed him for it in pain.
The sigiled keycard in his pocket pulsed warm once.
The Interface flashed, sharp and sudden.
ANNEX ACCESS LOG: UPDATED SOURCE: REMOTE
Then the overlay went quiet again.
“I’m not lying to them,” Noah said, nodding toward Jules and Imani.
“Good,” Mara said. “Then pick your words like they’re ammunition.”
Noah exhaled slow and kept his voice low.
“Gideon Rusk is Null Choir,” he said.
Imani made a small sound.
Jules went still.
Cal stared at the carpet.
“He was waiting at the beacon,” Noah continued. “He wanted me.”
Mara’s mouth tightened. “Not surprising.”
Noah looked at her. “You knew.”
“I suspected,” Mara corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Anger flared, quick and bright.
Mara cut it off with a look. “If you want to yell, yell later,” she said. “Right now you help me bury what needs burying without burying your people.”
Noah nodded once. “Okay.”
Mara pulled on gloves and lifted the towel-wrapped casing.
“Noah,” Jules said.
Noah turned.
Jules’s face was pale, but his eyes were steady. “You crossed your line?”
Noah heard the question under the question.
Did you push somebody.
Did you become the thing you fear.
Noah shook his head once. “No,” he said. “I kept it. I used what I had to protect people. I didn’t steer anyone.”
Jules watched Noah’s face for a long moment.
Then he nodded. “Good.”
Imani swallowed. “So what now?” she asked, voice too light.
Mara answered. “Now we contain the leak.”
Contain.
The word landed like a hand over a mouth.
Noah held Mara’s gaze. “And what do you lose for that?”
Mara’s ring tapped again. “Everything I can afford,” she said.
The admission hit harder than the threats.
Mara sealed the casing in the vacuum bag, then slid the burner phone across the counter.
“If anyone calls you,” she said, “you don’t pick up. You let me pick up.”
Noah’s jaw worked. “You want me invisible.”
“I want you alive,” Mara replied.
He didn’t argue. Not now.
Mara’s gaze flicked toward the hallway. “Go check on her,” she said.
Noah swallowed hard. “Sienna?”
“Yes,” Mara said. “Before you crash.”
Noah wanted to stay in the kitchen where the problems were procedural.
He didn’t.
He walked down the hall.
The spare room was small. One bed. One lamp. A dresser that smelled like old wood.
Sienna sat on the edge of the bed with her shoes off and her hair down, braid undone. She looked more tired than Noah had ever seen her, but the line of her shoulders said she was still holding the pieces together.
Noah stopped in the doorway.
“Hey,” he said.
Sienna lifted her gaze. “Hey.”
Noah stepped in and closed the door. The latch clicked.
“Mara’s containing it,” he said. “The evidence. Not lying to the others, but ... shaping what gets written.”
Sienna nodded once. “She’s choosing the version that keeps you alive.”
Noah exhaled. “And you?”
Sienna’s eyes stayed on him. “I’m choosing what I do with my access,” she said. “And I’m choosing what I do with you.”
Heat moved low in Noah’s body, unexpected in how steady it was.
“I’m still shaking,” he admitted. “Like the adrenaline’s ripping out of me.”
Sienna watched him a moment, then held out a hand.
“Come here,” she said.
Noah crossed the room and sat beside her, close enough that their thighs touched.
Sienna’s fingers brushed his jaw, then paused like she was reading the tension there.
“We survived,” she said. The words were simple; the meaning wasn’t. “That changes what they can do to us.”
Noah let out a slow breath. “It also changes what they can do with us.”
Sienna’s mouth tightened. “Yes.”
Noah’s pulse picked up.
“I want you,” Sienna said, precise as always. No games. No ambiguity. “Here. Now. And not as a distraction.”
Noah’s breath caught.
He needed to hear it said that way. He needed it to be a choice, not an accident, not a pressure leak.
“Tell me what this is,” he said.
Sienna’s hand slid to the back of his neck. Warm. Steady. “It’s me choosing,” she said. “It’s me getting to want something that isn’t leverage first.”
Noah swallowed hard.
“Door closed,” he said.
“Locked,” she agreed.
“No risks,” he said.
“No public anything,” she corrected, and the edge of a smile tried to show.
“And no Presence,” Noah said.
Sienna’s gaze sharpened. “Not on me,” she said. “Not between us. Not without asking first.”
“Always,” Noah echoed.
She leaned in.
The kiss was careful, like they were testing the floor after a tremor. Sienna tasted like salt and mint and the thin metallic edge of adrenaline. Noah felt her exhale against his mouth and realized, with a jolt, that the shaking eased when he focused on her.
Sienna pulled back just enough to breathe. “Eyes on me?”
“Yes,” Noah said.
“Good,” she murmured. “Then slow.”
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