Page 44 of Dose

“Forty-eight hours. We were considering a rescue team.” Darius points his spatula at him. “Not from the bunker. From each other.”

“No, we weren’t,” Damon says.

“I was.”

“You wanted to open the door and heckle them.”

“Rescue takes many forms.”

Theon’s hand presses more firmly against my back. Not steering. A claim made in full view of his family.

Darius sees it. Jenna sees it too. She sits at the table with her feet on the chair Nikolai has surrendered to them, watching over the rim of her tea. Her eyes meet mine, flick once toward Theon, and return. One corner of her mouth lifts.

Two people have inferred. The rest continue eating.

This is survivable.

“Sit,” Raphael says, setting a plate beside Jenna. “You’ve been living on whatever Theon calls food. Ration bars are not a cuisine.”

“They’re nutritionally complete,” Theon says.

“So is a person, if you’re sufficiently unwell. Sit.”

We sit.

Theon pulls his chair close enough that our shoulders touch and rests his arm along the back of mine. Nobody comments. Marcus does not open his eyes. Ezra does not look up from his tablets. Lucien may not have noticed we entered.

Darius notices enough for all of them.

I pick up my fork. The eggs are good. Everything Raphael makes is good, which I have decided to find reassuring rather than concerning, given the other uses to which he puts his hands.

Jenna leans toward me. “How are you?”

“Nutritionally complete.”

Her laugh turns several heads. “That bad?”

“Theon thinks seasoning compromises structural integrity.”

“Salt introduces variables,” Theon says.

“Salt introduces flavor,” Raphael replies.

Nikolai stands at the counter with his coffee, taking in the exchange. His attention moves to Theon’s arm behind me, then to my face. His expression changes by a fraction.

I cannot know what he thinks. But he looks at Jenna before he looks away, and I can make a reasonable hypothesis.

“Eat,” he says.

From Nikolai, it feels almost welcoming.

For nine minutes, breakfast is only breakfast. Forks, steam, and Darius finishing his story while Damon corrects dates and Ezra announces that the probability of an accurate ending has fallen below forty percent. Jenna steals bacon from Nikolai’s plate without breaking eye contact. He lets her.

I sit among them with Theon’s warmth against my shoulder and understand something the program never taught me: family is partly noise no one is punished for making.

Then Marcus opens his eyes.

“Incoming,” he says.