novelraw Chapter 194: The Breakfast Trap
Chapter 194: The Breakfast Trap
Noah slipped in from the service hall with his collar still up and his hands in his coat pockets.
The sedatives rode there, warm against his palm.
The metal cases were hidden two floors down where no one from the living room ever wandered before coffee. All the much better not to be caught.
He shut the door with a careful push so the latch wouldn’t click.
Zubair was already at the stove.
Steam rose in a steady ribbon from the kettle. A half filled big bowl of scrambled eggs sat on the counter, glossy and soft, the kind of careful heat that meant Zubair had stirred without stopping.
Bread lay in thick slices next to the hearth, toasting on a rack above the coals. Strips of seal meat rested under a towel to keep the warmth in.
A few months ago, Zubair had made the decision not to waste the generator on the toaster or the stove, not when they had the fireplace constantly burning.
Now, everything was cooked using that.
"Where were you?" Zubair didn’t look up from the pan. He slid his spatula under the second batch of eggs in the smaller skillet and folded once, exact and patient.
"Couldn’t sleep," Noah answered, voice even, bored with the truth he would never tell. "I thought I could help out by checking the perimeter. It’s quiet out there."
Zubair’s eyes lifted for a heartbeat. A measure, not a challenge. He returned to the skillet. "Wind’s wrong," he murmured. "The weather is coming in fast."
"Always is."
The living room felt soft around the edges, the way a room gets after a year of the same routine.
Lachlan leaned against the counter, hair a mess from sleep, grin already there even before jokes started.
Alexei sprawled at the table in the kind of lazy sprawl that always looked performative and somehow wasn’t, a deck of cards sliding under his fingers like they were made to live there.
Elias sat near the fire with his notebook and a pencil tucked behind one ear, eyes scanning the last lines he’d written before bed.
Sera wasn’t here yet.
Luci wasn’t either.
They would come together later.
Like they always did.
Noah moved to the far end of the counter and stood where he could watch the room and the bowl.
He didn’t need to look at the stove to know Zubair’s order.
It was always the same. Protein to plate first, bread next, eggs last so they stayed soft.
Coffee was poured but not passed out until Sera took her seat.
Nothing was touched before she lifted a fork. A rule made into a rhythm so old even the furniture knew it.
Lachlan scratched at the back of his neck and yawned. "If that storm hits this afternoon we’ll have to change the route," he told the air. "The flats will get a skin on them and I don’t want to pretend we know where the real cracks are."
Alexei cut a look over his cards. "We never know where the real cracks are. That is what makes it interesting."
"Interesting gets you killed," Zubair returned, finally looking at someone besides the pan.
"Everything nowadays gets you killed," Alexei countered, and flicked the top card back into the deck with a showman’s snap.
Elias underlined a word in his notebook and didn’t join in. He wasn’t avoiding the conversation. He simply had one of his own marching across the page in front of him and didn’t need competition.
Noah watched the big bowl.
Coffee hissed when Zubair pressed the plunger down.
He poured a cup and set it near Elias out of habit.
Elias would ignore it for two minutes and then drink it with both hands like a man who had been cold once and promised himself he wouldn’t be again. Zubair plated the meat. He turned the bread. He checked the kettle. He left the bowl alone.
Good.
Noah pulled one hand from his pocket and rested his knuckles on the counter like he belonged there.
He could feel the small glass body of the syringe against his other palm through the lining of his coat. He didn’t look at it. He didn’t need to. He had already counted doses, counted arms, counted the ways men like these could fall.
"Is the perimeter clean?" Lachlan asked without turning, the way a man asks about the weather while tying his boots.
"Clean."
"You always check the whole ring or just the close edge?" Alexei’s tone carried a lazy curl, but his eyes lifted to Noah’s face for the first time.
"The whole ring," Noah replied. "The southern facing windows swallows the drifts faster."
"True," Alexei hummed, and slid a card into an invisible opponent’s hand.
Zubair flicked his gaze once, a small thank you for a detail that matched reality.
He picked up the towel covering the meat and moved it to the side so the plates could be built. He reached for the water pitcher, turning his back to the counter for half a second.
Noah moved.
The syringe came out of his pocket and into his palm without a clink.
The cap rolled between his fingers, off with a small twist. He dipped the needle into the bowl, pressed the plunger, and watched the clear stream vanish into yellow with no mark, no cloud, no foam.
He drew the spoon on top a single figure eight. Slow. Ordinary. He set it down where Zubair had left it.
The cap found the needle again and clicked home. The syringe slid back into his pocket. His knuckles returned to the counter like nothing had happened at all.
Zubair turned with the pitcher, poured water into the kettle to top it up, and set the pot back. He never even glanced at the bowl.
Lachlan stretched until his spine popped and looked pleased with the world. "Movie tonight if we beat the storm?"
"Fuel’s tight," Zubair answered, already stacking plates by reach. "Two hours if we run it."
"Two hours is enough for fish with memory problems," Alexei drawled.
"Again?" Elias finally looked up. "We’ve seen it three times this month."
"It lowers blood pressure," Alexei replied. "Yours, specifically."
Elias fought down a smile he didn’t want Alexei to see. He failed, and Alexei clocked it, and the routine kept turning like a wheel with grooves too deep to jump.
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
Luci reached the doorway first, huge now, his shoulders level with the table, fur shining silver in the firelight where it wasn’t shadow.
He padded straight to Sera’s spot and sat, his chest high, and his ears forward. He didn’t look at Noah. He didn’t look anywhere but the place his person would be.
Sera entered a breath later. Her long silver hair was tied back in a knot. Skin appeared to be clean and a shade pink from something.
She was quiet, always quiet, but never unsure. She crossed to her chair with a light hand on Luci’s head as she passed.
Zubair slid the first plate to her place at the table.
The good one. The one that always had the least char on the meat and the thickest slice of bread. The rules lived here like they paid rent. No one reached for anything until she did.