Chapter 111: THE SPILL
KEISHA’S POV
The mansion dining room felt different with Lyra in it the next morning. We had ended up going for breakfast at the mansion instead.
Not like I hated it, it just felt fuller. Like a room that had been set for a certain number of people and someone had added a chair and it turned out the chair had always been missing.
Callum sat at the head of the table and talked to Lyra about the pack, about her plans, about the job application she had apparently submitted two weeks ago with the calm of a man who already knew about it, which I suspected he did because Callum knew most things that happened in his pack before they happened to him.
And he would never say anything about it before it happened.
I looked at Callum. "Isn’t Nadia supposed to be resting anyway? She went through a lot yesterday."
The room fell silent and everyone just looked around at each other.
Callum didn’t look away from me. "You know how she is. She was perfectly fine when she woke up this morning and seemed more intent on getting you both to come for breakfast than staying in bed."
Nadia smiled slightly at me. "I’m fine. It’s not like I was poisoned. Just unconscious. And besides she’s in a cell right now, so nothing else is going to happen to me."
Right.
Of course.
Lyra cleared her throat. "Well—"
"You’ll go through the standard process." Callum turned to her again. "Same as anyone else."
"I’d expect nothing less." Lyra nodded. She had her second helping of Becca’s eggs in front of her and was eating through it, clearly appreciating it more than normal.
"When did you last have a proper meal?" Nadia asked, watching her.
"Define proper." Lyra looked up.
"Cooked by a human who loves you." Nadia teased.
"Then—" Lyra thought about it. "Months." She said. "I’ve been living on whatever was near the office. Which was mostly things from machines and one very dedicated sandwich shop that I think genuinely saved my life on multiple occasions." She took another bite. "This is extraordinary. What is in this."
"Everything." Nadia said. "Becca puts everything in everything. It’s her whole philosophy."
Lyra made a sound of genuine appreciation that made Callum’s mouth pull at the corner and Nadia laugh while I sat beside my sister and watched the table, my stomach churning with dread.
Because across the table from Lyra, two seats down, there was an empty chair.
And then the door opened. And Dane walked in.
I felt Lyra go still beside me before I saw her do it.
Dane stopped in the doorway and looked at Callum. "Sorry to interrupt. I have a report on Orin—" He stopped.
He had seen her and Lyra had seen him.
The table went quiet immediately and I wasn’t sure what to focus on. The fact that Dane had a report on Orin. Or that my sister had just seen her ex.
"Dane." Callum said, his voice perfectly even. "Sit down. Report later."
Dane looked at Callum before he looked back at the table and at me briefly — something in that look that was asking a question I didn’t have time to answer — and then he sat in the empty chair across from Lyra and picked up a glass of water, looking at it.
Lyra went back to her eggs and I went back to my tea.
The conversation resumed. Callum asked Lyra about the fire and she told the story the way she always told difficult stories — factually, with dark humour at the edges, deflecting the worst of it before it could land too heavily.
Nadia looked like she hadn’t heard the story before, leaning in closer with gasps and questions that Lyra was more than happy to answer.
Callum listened properly and asked a few questions. "What were you working on?" Callum asked. "At the company. Before."
"Scriptwriting." Lyra said. "Mostly long form drama. I’d been on the same project for eight months and we were close to finishing and then—" She made a gesture with her fork. "Gone." She put it down. "Which is why I need to find something else. Working remotely was already the plan eventually. This just moved the timeline."
"The communications office would suit you." Callum said. "You have the background for documentation work. The writing experience translates."
"That’s what I thought." Lyra nodded.
"We’ll see what the panel says." He said.
I felt Lyra look at me sideways.
"Yeah, I’m on the panel." I said, before she could ask.
"Of course you are." Lyra said with a smile.
"I will be entirely objective." I told her.
"You are always entirely objective." She said. "That’s what makes you terrifying." She reached for her water and knocked it with the back of her hand.
But I wasn’t looking at the red liquid spreading across the table and pouring right down my side of the table.
Because I was too consumed in my thoughts and fear as I looked at Dane and Lyra.
Cold hit my lap and I looked down.
There was wine, dark and spreading across my dress, bringing cold to my skin immediately as it was already soaking through.
"I said move your chair." Nadia said, half laughing and half not. "I’ve been saying it for ten seconds. Keisha."
"I didn’t hear you." I muttered.
Callum was staring at me.
And Lyra looked confused. "Are you okay? What are you thinking about?"
About how she wasn’t supposed to be here. How my life was going to come crashing down if she found about it. She would want to live with me. Meaning she would know first. Callum and Dane weren’t the issue anymore. Lyra was. She didn’t realise how anxious I was about her presence here. I loved her, I really did — but I also knew it was potentially the end of my relationship with the only family I had if everything came out to the open.
Oh fuck.
"Keisha—" Diane warned in my head.
I stood up suddenly, my heart thudding in my chest. "I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back."
And then, I had scurried off before they could ask me anything else.