Day 6 - Night 1/2

Lizzy stayed against Van after the final notification dissolved.

The lake moved behind him in dark folds, breaking the Ferris wheel into scattered bands of red and gold. Carnival music reached the end of the pier as a faint melody. Martin remained compressed between their bodies, his permanently concerned face peering over Lizzy’s forearm.

Van’s hand rested at the middle of her back. He held her loosely, uncertain whether to tighten his arms or release her. When she did not pull away, his fingers settled against the fabric at her back.

She had kissed him. It came from her, not the system. The knowledge returned with every beat of her heart. She hadn’t planned more than just grabbing him and pressing her lips to his. His mouth answered hers, his hand found her waist, and a bright rush of joy had moved through her after his surprise became something he chose as well.

Her blouse shifted against her skin as the wind picked up and she took one controlled breath.

Stay solid. Stay present. Don’t let what happened at the entrance happen again. She had tried desperately to hide that first failure. When Van took her hand at the carnival entrance, her power had lost its grip on her thin cotton underwear. She could only watch as the scrap of fabric slipped between the planks while he waited for her to follow.

She couldn’t have stopped the date and asked him to help retrieve her underwear from beneath the pier. The fear of him finding out had kept her moving until her excitement took over. She spent the evening pretending everything was normal, succeeding whenever she could forget the empty space beneath her skirt.

Now, with the echo of his lips fading on her own and the heat of his arms wrapped around her, she felt the missing weight beneath her skirt and remembered what lay somewhere under the pier.

The notifications had told everyone they had kissed. Cassie would ask questions. Claire would try not to ask questions and fail. Mara would ask whether Lizzy was all right in that gentle way that made it difficult to lie.

Thinking about explaining it all made her body begin to shimmer around the edges. She needed space. She stepped back quickly. Too quickly.

Van’s arms closed on nothing.

Lizzy passed through his hands in a brief flare of silver-white light. Martin dropped between them, falling to the wooden pier. His hands clenched in reflex, catching a falling object.

Something pale remained stretched across both of his hands. They stared at it together.

One lavender strap had caught over his thumb. The cups hung between his palms. The clasp rested against the heel of his other hand.

Van’s face emptied of every thought except alarm.

Lizzy’s hand flew to her chest. The blouse still covered her, but the support beneath it was gone.

“Oh no,” she crossed her arms over her chest and spun in place, keeping her back to him in panic.

“I didn’t—” Van lifted both hands and made the bra swing. He stopped moving them. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know.”

“I barely moved.”

“I know.”

“I ‘ll put it down.”

“No.” The word came out loud enough to carry across the water. Lizzy reached blindly backwards. “Give it to me.”

He did. She reached behind herself with one hand, missed empty air, reached farther, and caught a strap. She pulled the bra away without turning around.

Neither of them moved at first.

Lizzy couldn’t put the bra back on through the blouse. She could have tucked it beneath Martin and waited until they reached the suite. The missing support combined with the missing underwear to make her feel exposed and vulnerable. There was no way she could continue.

“I need to fix this,” she said.

Van turned toward the carnival. The end of the pier remained empty, but he widened his stance between Lizzy and the boardwalk behind them. “I’ll just block the view. Do what you need to do.”

His shoulders rose and became rigid with the effort of showing how hard he wasn’t looking.

Lizzy almost laughed. The sound caught behind her embarrassment and came out as a weak breath.

She set Martin on the bench beside the railing. Lizzy removed her blouse with her back toward Van, pressed it across her chest with one forearm, and tried to bring the bra around herself with the other hand.

The band twisted.

She corrected it. One strap caught against the blouse. She shifted her grip, and the first warning shimmer crossed her fingers.

“No, please.”

The bra slid through her hand. It struck the boards and kept going, the fabric still carrying enough of her phasing to pass between the planks.

Lizzy dropped to one knee. She clutched the blouse to her chest with one arm and thrust the other through the wood, reaching into the cold open air beneath the pier.

Her fingers closed on nothing.

A gust snapped the blouse from beneath her elbow. Lizzy twisted after it, but the violet fabric cleared the railing and spun down toward the dark water. She caught the rail instead.

Lizzy crouched with her back to Van and wrapped both arms across her chest.

The Ferris wheel continued turning. A bell rang from the strength game where Van had won Martin. Somewhere on the midway, a group cheered.

Her vision blurred.

“I’m sorry,” Van said behind her.

That nearly broke what remained of her control. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I know, but—”

Fabric settled across her shoulders.

Van’s shirt was heavy from his body heat. He let it fall around her without touching her skin, then stepped away. The blue-gray tails reached past her hips. The sleeves covered her hands.

Lizzy caught the front closed. “Van.”

“I’m facing the other way.”

She looked over one shoulder.

He stood several feet away with his back to her. He was bare from the waist up. The false moonlight silvered the lines of his shoulders and the hard muscle across his back. Training had left a faint bruise near one side and a darker mark below his shoulder blade. He had not exaggerated how sore he was, but he had taken off the only shirt he had without a pause.

Lizzy dragged the sleeves up enough to free her hands. She buttoned the shirt from the collar downward, stopping only when the tails began to pull around her skirt. Then she gathered the bottom ends and tied them together at her waist. The result was clumsy, oversized, and far more secure than anything her own power had allowed for the last five minutes.

She lifted Martin from the bench and held him against the buttoned shirt.

“All right,” she said.

Van turned as she approached. Lizzy had taken one step toward him, stopping directly in front of his chest.

His shirt had concealed how broad he was. Without it, the difference between them became difficult to process. His chest rose with one uncertain breath. The strength Mirel had measured sat plainly across his shoulders and arms, not sculpted for show, but built through years of carrying, climbing, and surviving. Lizzy lifted her eyes too late to pretend she had not been staring.

Van folded his arms across himself. That made the muscles move in too-interesting ways and Lizzy’s face burned.

“Are you ok?” he asked. “Can you make it to the suite?”

“Yes.” Her voice failed on the single syllable. She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

“I can carry Martin,” Van offered.

Lizzy tightened her arm around the dragon. “I think I need him.”

Van nodded. “All right.”

A laugh escaped her before the tears could. She covered her mouth with one long sleeve.

Van relaxed by a fraction. “I’m glad you’re laughing.”

“I ruined it.”

His brow furrowed. “Ruined what?”

“Our first kiss.” The words came from behind the sleeve. “I kissed you, the Hotel announced it to everyone, then I phased through my bra and dropped half my clothes on the pier.”

Van considered the sequence with grave attention. “It was my first kiss too.”

Lizzy lowered her hand.

He rubbed the back of his neck and winced when the movement reached his sore shoulder. “I don’t know what they are normally supposed to be like.”

“You’ve never kissed anyone?”

“No.” His gaze moved toward the lake. “I think I would remember.”

Lizzy hugged Martin closer.

Van looked at her again. “I liked it before the screens showed up.”

She stopped breathing.

“And after,” he added quickly. “The kiss, I mean. Not the announcements.”

“I knew what you meant.”

They stood facing one another with the pier open behind them.

Van finally nodded toward Martin. “At least it was memorable.”

Lizzy’s smile arrived slowly. “That is one word for it.”

A distant chime sounded from the carnival clock. The music changed into a slower closing melody.

Van glanced over his shoulder. “We should go. Curfew.”

Lizzy reached for his hand before she could make another problem out of deciding. He accepted her at once. They left the pier with Martin tucked against Lizzy and their hands joined.

—------------------------

The kiss notification appeared in Claire and Evelyn’s room before Claire finished closing the door.

Pale-gold light opened above the writing desk.

ELIZA QUINN GAINED 6 VP

Kissing the Master +3 VP

First Time Bonus x2

Claire read the panel once. Her hair lifted from her shoulders in a bright red sweep.

“Who started it? Was it him? Was it her? How long do you have to kiss before it counts? Do you think—”

“Claire.”

Evelyn had removed her shoes and placed them neatly beneath the chair. She sat on the edge of the bed with one hand at her temple.

Claire stopped before the second panel announced the hug. Then she made a small, delighted sound.

“Please don’t squeal.”

“I wasn’t going to squeal.”

Evelyn waited.

Claire’s hair remained floating around her head. “I was surprised,” she admitted. “And happy for her. I know the notifications don’t give us permission to interrogate her.”

“They do not.”

“I won’t.” Claire crossed to the desk and put the archive book down. “The kiss isn’t the only reason I’m excited.”

Evelyn studied her more closely. “You found something?”

“Maybe.” Claire opened the book near the marker her hair had placed before the movie. “I don’t have enough to call it data yet.”

“That qualification is encouraging.”

Claire ignored the dry note. She turned three pages, then another six. “One of the season indexes references an emergency antagonist intervention. Verena was the Host.”

Evelyn rose and joined her at the desk.

“The main record is restricted,” Claire continued. “The index lists the originating reality and the outcome. Local collapse prevented. Hostile entity escaped.”

“One of the earlier interventions Verena mentioned?”

“Maybe. The appendices are missing, but the surviving notes mention empowered contestants and a world threat.” Claire ran one finger beneath a narrow block of text. “It doesn’t name the Architect specifically.”

Evelyn leaned closer without touching the book.

Evelyn read the entry a second time. “They could also describe more than one threat the Producers have confronted.”

“I know,” she gave a bright smile. “But now we have a starting point.” Her hair drifted toward Evelyn’s shoulder, stopped short, and curled back towards her own neck.

Evelyn took the notebook from the desk. “Now you can direct your research more accurately.”

Evelyn opened to a clean page. “Tomorrow we compare the dates, follow whatever references the archive permits, and see whether we can discover anything about our own season by learning about this other one.”

Claire sat beside her. “And we do not ask Lizzy who kissed whom.”

“We do not.”

Claire held up a slender finger, “What if she tells us?” The question came with a note of excitement.

“Then we listen without behaving like adolescents outside a dormitory dance.”

Claire reached for the pen. “You are nowhere near old enough to behave like this.” Then she added, “Spoilsport.”

—----------------------------

Katherine had laid every map she possessed across the bed.

The pages overlapped from the pillows to the footboard: dormitory corridors, exterior paths, classroom wings, shop streets, service junctions, and three incomplete versions of the grounds beyond Riverstone Trail. Notes crowded the margins. Several routes had been crossed out. Others ended where doors had moved, halls had shortened, or a room had appeared after someone requested it.

Naomi came out of the bathroom toweling her hair. Her robe covered more than the clothing she had worn to dinner, but the drain beneath her skin stirred with renewed impatience. She kept one hand on the tie at her waist.

Katherine stood in her mission suit beside the bed. None of the maps had been folded for travel.

“You’re leaving those?” Naomi asked.

“Yes.”

Pale-gold light formed above the maps. Both women read the kiss notification.

Katherine gave one quiet nod. “I predicted this much, at least.”

Naomi stopped drying her hair. “What does ‘at least’ mean?”

“It means ‘at least’. Young people can get carried away easily.”

“Lizzy isn’t that kind of girl.”

Katherine gave her a flat look.

Naomi heard the sentence again and disliked it more the second time. “I mean she doesn’t rush into things. She worries about everything. She wouldn’t just—” Naomi gestured at the fading panel. “Do that because they were alone.”

“A kiss after dinner and several hours together does not strike me as a collapse of judgment.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know you believe Lizzy’s anxiety is a complete boundary to her actions.” Katherine picked up a narrow black pouch and secured it at her hip. “She is young and infatuated. I don’t think she is dancing on a table, but it would not shock me if she were to pursue more from him.”

Naomi folded the towel over the back of a chair. “Do you think she started it?”

“I have seen Van treat us like he is responsible for our imprisonment.” She thought carefully, “Yes. I believe she did. “In a way, I told her to.”

“You did not!” Naomi sat immediately. “Explain that. I need details.”

“She was confused about her emotions and whether or not it was ok to like Van considering the system we are in. I told her he would not respond to subtlety and if she wanted something from him she would have to be plain about it.”

Katherine drew on her gloves. “But enough gossip. I have to go.”

Naomi glanced at the maps. “What are you doing now?”

“Trying something less repetitive,” she declared. “I have finally realized that a reliable map is impossible when the facility creates rooms in response to conversation.” Katherine moved one page aside and uncovered a list of timed patrols. “I have spent several nights asking where a dossier could be hidden. That assumes location is the primary problem.”

“What is the primary problem?”

“Intent.” She piled the maps together and placed them on the desk. “Verena wants me to search. The system chose a reward that requires it, tells her when I fail, and can move the environment around me. If the dossier were merely concealed, I would eventually find it by coverage and elimination. Instead, each search teaches me what the facility allows me to see.”

Naomi’s fingers tightened around the robe tie. “So you think she wants you to find it.”

“I think she wants me to find something. The distinction may matter.” Katherine crossed to the door.

“Where will you look?” Naomi asked.

Katherine rested her hand on the latch. “Somewhere I would have dismissed yesterday. If Verena is directing the search, I need to follow the invitation instead of the floor plan.”

The door closed behind her.

—---------------------

Lizzy and Van crossed the resort street at a pace just short of running.

The carnival had begun closing behind them. Construct families moved toward the exits with sleeping children, unfinished food, and prizes tucked under their arms. Lizzy kept Martin pressed against her front. Van’s shirt covered her securely, but every cool movement beneath the long fabric reminded her how little remained underneath it.

They kept holding hands.

The eastern terminal recognized them before they reached it. A gold path opened across the floor and led through three corridors that neither remembered using earlier. The suite door waited at the end with a brass number plate that read 001.

Van pressed his palm to the plate and the door opened onto an apartment.

Lizzy stopped in the doorway.

The living room was smaller than the previous Suite arrangements Van had described. It was also more expensive than any apartment in Lizzy’s hometown. A deep couch occupied one wall beneath framed prints of old game art and exploded diagrams of computer hardware. Shelves held controllers, boxed figures, mechanical models, and enough stuffed animals to form an audience of their own. A compact kitchen opened behind a stone counter. Two mugs waited beside a coffee machine, one decorated with a purple ghost and the other with a cartoon wolf holding a wrench.

A narrow hall led toward a bedroom and bathroom. The door opposite them stood open on a dedicated gaming room.

Two computer stations faced adjacent walls.

Lizzy walked inside without remembering to release Van’s hand. Martin turned under her arm as she stared from the monitors to the shelves.

“This is…”

Van entered behind her, the door closing as he passed.

She crossed to a display case containing old processors mounted like museum pieces. Several were familiar. Others carried company marks she had never seen.

“Those aren’t from our market.” She leaned closer. “I don’t think those are from our world.”

Van followed her inside. “The Suite gave Mara a house full of family pictures and Cassie a wall of manga to read.”

“It built us an apartment.”

He followed her attention around the living room. A pair of shoes waited by the door in different sizes. Two blankets had been left tangled together on the couch. One desk in the gaming room held a small tool tray.

“It looks lived in,” he said.

“It looks like a first apartment.”

Lizzy imagined boxes stacked near the door. A grocery list on the refrigerator. Arguments about desk space and whose turn it was to make tea. Late nights at the two computers with Van complaining that she had trained him badly while losing every match.

She remembered what she was wearing and moved three steps away from him.

Van remained by the kitchen counter.

They explored the living room without crossing the space between them. Lizzy opened one cabinet and found tea, cocoa, and packaged snacks. Van examined the game cases and admitted he recognized none of them. Lizzy entered the gaming room, then circled back when he followed too closely.

He stopped near the couch. “Did I do something?”

“No.”

“You keep moving away from me.”

Lizzy pressed Martin over the tied front of his shirt. “You could put on another shirt. You are distracting me,” she admitted.

Van looked down at himself. His face colored from the neck upward. “Right! Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

He went down the hall at once.

Lizzy waited until the bedroom door closed. Then she carried Martin into the gaming room and set him in the center of the spare chair.

The nearest computer case had a seamless black side panel. Lizzy found the recessed release by touch and smiled when the panel lifted free.

“Oh,” she whispered.

—--------------------------------

Mara was brushing her hair when Lizzy’s kiss notification appeared over the empty half of the bed.

Her first reaction was delight.

“Good for you,” she said to the absent Lizzy.

The second panel announced the hug. Mara set the brush down and read both lines again before they faded.

Who had started it? Had Lizzy managed to ask for what she wanted? Had Van understood without making her explain every frightened pause? Were they somewhere private, or had the system caught them in the middle of a crowded restaurant?

Concern followed the questions. Lizzy’s power had been unstable before the date. A kiss could have made her phase through a wall, the floor, Van, or every stitch she wore.

Mara pictured them beneath hanging lights in a garden she had never seen. Lizzy stood on her toes with both hands at Van’s shoulders. Van bent toward her with the solemn concentration of a man attempting first aid.

A translucent image formed beside the bed.

The imagined garden changed while Mara watched. Hanging lights became candles along a restaurant balcony. The balcony became the front steps of a little theater. Lizzy’s dress shifted from violet to blue as Mara’s attention wandered. Van grew a jacket, lost it, and gained flowers he would never have thought to buy.

Mara blinked. The fantasy couple remained close enough to kiss while the scenery failed around them.

“Oh, honestly.”

She dismissed the illusion with a sweep of her hand. The garden, balcony, theater, flowers, and imaginary versions of her friends broke into pale ribbons and vanished.

Mara turned off the lamp and climbed into bed.

She stretched diagonally, placing one foot where Lizzy normally slept. The extra room was pleasant. She could roll over without negotiating blankets or waking someone. No one breathed against the other pillow.

The mattress supported her in perfect silence. She moved back to her usual side.

Mara had lived alone for a long time. She had called that independence when people praised it and practicality when they worried. Tonight the unused pillow carried no judgment. It simply remained there.

She closed her eyes.

Just before sleep reached her, she wondered when sharing a bed had become the strange option.

* * *

Cassie had one foot inside her sleep shorts when the kiss notification appeared.

She abandoned the shorts around one ankle and thrust both fists over her head. “Yes!”

Fiona, already in bed, lowered the book she had not been reading. “Put your clothes on before celebrating.”

“I told you.” Cassie kicked the shorts free, caught them, and pulled them on properly. “Lizzy was going to kiss him before the end of the night.”

“The panel says she kissed the Master. It does not say who started it.”

Cassie pointed at the gold text. “You are reaching. Lizzy made the move.”

“You decided that before they left.” Fiona set the book aside. “Maybe he finally decided to do something once he had one of the youngest of us alone.”

“I do not buy that.” Cassie climbed onto her side of the bed. “But you are coaching him tomorrow. Ask him.”

“I am not conducting an interrogation over breakfast.”

“You won’t need to. Spend an hour alone with Van and you will know whether he has transformed into a predatory mastermind.” Cassie bounced once on the mattress. “My prediction is that he is too shy to speak at breakfast.”

Fiona pulled the blanket higher over her legs. “Men become smug when a woman gives them something they wanted. Now the Hotel has handed him proof that this arrangement is working.”

“Van is going to apologize for the kiss until Lizzy orders him to stop.” Cassie was tempted to keep pushing, but tomorrow would make the argument for her. Fiona had resisted every description of Van that did not fit the title above his head. Time alone with him was likely to be more effective than another dorm-room debate.

She held up one finger. “Separate issue. I won. Drop and give me one hundred.”

Fiona gave her a flat look. “No.”

“We had terms,” Cassie protested. “You agreed to it.” Cassie leaned forward, and her shortened sleep shirt rode up at once. She pulled the hem down. “Why does Van get a forfeit and I do not?”

Fiona opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“You challenged him directly,” Cassie continued. “He won, and you decided that meant he earned something from you. I won the bet, and now the result doesn’t count?”

“That was a contest. This was guessing.” Fiona’s answer came quickly. “It’s not the same.” Her hand stayed on the lamp without switching it off.

Cassie smiled. “That feels personal enough.”

Fiona reached for the lamp. “Your victory is meaningless.”

“You owe me one hundred push-ups, damn it!”

“In your dreams, maybe.” Fiona turned off the light.

“I plan to exact revenge for this.” Cassie settled beneath the blanket with a victorious huff.

Fiona rolled onto her other side. Neither resumed the argument.

—-----------------------

Van returned to the gaming room wearing gray sleep pants and a plain black T-shirt.

The computer’s side panel rested against the desk. Martin occupied the second chair while Lizzy leaned into the open case.

Van stopped in the doorway. “Did you break it?”

“No.” Lizzy leaned farther into the open case. “I shut it down and disconnected the power first.”

“That was not the part worrying me.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “You can’t learn anything with the panel closed.”

Van approached the desk. “I usually learn whether something works by turning it on.”

“That only tells you the end result.” Lizzy pointed inside. “Look at this. The memory isn’t seated in normal slots. It’s built around the processor in a ring, and these channels look optical instead of conductive.”

Van leaned beside her. The black T-shirt helped. It didn’t fix everything, and the heat of his body made her remember the feeling of his mouth and arms.

Lizzy shifted her chair a few inches away, trying not to squirm, and continued. “I’ve never heard of any of these manufacturers. Red Crown Logic, Helix-Braid Systems, Kestrel Archive. The cooling assembly has no pump.”

“Should it?”

“Yes.” She looked at him. “Probably. Unless it moves heat somewhere else entirely.”

Van studied the unfamiliar components with respectful confusion. “You know a lot about this.”

“I like systems.” Lizzy turned the screwdriver between her fingers. “Hardware, network design, security, rescue infrastructure. My oldest brother used to bring home dead office machines from his job. My father said they were clutter. We rebuilt three into a local server.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“No one asked.” The answer came sharper than Lizzy intended. She added with a small shrug, “Hero training took most of my time after my Empowerment. Computers were something I was good at before that. Quietly good.”

Van nodded toward the open case. “I would have called someone.”

“For this?”

“For any computer problem.”

“What did you use?”

“Public terminals. Shelter computers. The library when I lived near one.” He touched the edge of the desk. “I never even owned a smartphone.”

Lizzy stared at him. “Never?”

“I never had anyone to call.”

“How did you do anything?”

“Slowly.”

She laughed once, then realized he was serious. “Van.”

“It wasn’t a problem most of the time. Everyone assumes you have one, so they leave instructions in places you can’t access. You learn which offices still have a person at the desk.”

Lizzy replaced the screwdriver in its slot. The empty chair beside her no longer looked decorative. Van had never owned one of the ordinary tools most people carried without thinking.

“If we ever had a place like this together, I’d build you a better one,” she said. “Not whatever multiverse showroom machine this is. I’d pick every part myself. Then I’d train you until you were at least a competent gamer, and we could actually play together without me carrying you all the time.”

Van did not answer.

Lizzy smiled into the computer case. “You would complain about the controls for the first week, but—”

“You want to live with me?”

Her hand stopped above the open case.

Van stood beside the second station. He had become motionless except for his breathing.

“I didn’t mean—” Lizzy turned toward him. “I mean, I did mean if we had a place. Not that we would. I’m not saying it would be bad to live with you. Someone could live with you. You would be good to live with. I only meant the computers and playing together and—”

“Lizzy.”

She closed her mouth.

He lowered himself onto the empty chair, displacing Martin to the desk. The stuffed dragon tipped against the monitor.

Van stared through the open doorway toward the living room. The couch, the blankets, the two mugs near the kitchen, and the shoes by the door waited in a convincing arrangement.

“I don’t know how to picture that,” he said.

“You don’t have to.”

“When I try to think about the future, I see broken doors.” His fingers curled around the edge of the chair. “I see shadows under moonlight. A hallway with blood on the floor.”

Lizzy pushed her chair back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“You didn’t do anything.”

She stood.

Van looked toward the apartment again. “What happens if I have this?”

His voice had lost its ordinary rhythm. The hidden pressures of the night piling together now. The lights and the noise rearranged in his mind. The swooping shadow of the ferris wheel became the movement of dark wings above him. The sounds of running feet on the boardwalk became the scuttle of something unseen lurking behind every tent.

“A home. Someone there. What happens when one of those things comes through the door?”

Lizzy moved closer. “Van.”

“What if it takes you?”

Lizzy’s hand stopped halfway toward him.

“What if it takes anyone?” His breathing quickened. “What if I start believing this is real and it finds us? They found everyone before. My parents. People in the shelters. Every place was safe until it wasn’t.”

He stood too quickly, struck the chair with the back of his leg, and caught the desk before he fell. The contact rattled the tool tray against the desk.

Van stared down at his hand. “I hid,” he said. “I stayed under the bed while it tore them apart.”

Lizzy had heard pieces from Evelyn. The words carried a different weight in Van’s voice.

He backed away from the desk and lowered himself to the floor before his legs decided for him. Both hands covered his head. His elbows pressed against his knees.

“Maybe that is what it was waiting for.”

Lizzy knelt in front of him.

“Not for me to be older.” His next breath came short and high. “For me to have a house. A family. Something it can take and leave me there again.”

“Van, give me your hands.”

He didn’t respond.

She reached between his arms and took his wrists. His pulse struck rapidly under her thumbs. She drew his hands away from his head and held them between them.

“Look at me.”

His eyes found her and lost focus.

“Breathe first,” she said.

He dragged in air too quickly.

“Then move. That is what my coach tells me. We’re not moving yet. We’re breathing.”

It would come back.

The thought moved through Van with every heartbeat. It would come back. It would know where to look. It would lower itself to the floor. It would smell the blood and find the child who had grown larger but was still powerless to stop it.

“In for four,” Lizzy said.

She breathed with him. One. Two. Three. Four.

Van lost the count and pulled in another ragged breath.

“That’s okay. Again.”

It would come back.

“In for four.”

Lizzy’s hands remained solid around his.

“Hold.”

His breath shuddered in his chest.

“Out for four.”

It would come back.

“Breathe first.”

She began again.

Van followed for two counts, failed, and tried a third time. Lizzy kept the count steady. When his eyes closed, she continued. When his grip hurt, she adjusted without letting go.

It would come back.

“Then move.”

They remained on the carpet through several cycles. The low lights beneath the desks cast narrow reflections across the floor. Martin leaned against the monitor above them.

Van’s breaths lengthened. The trembling in his hands became intermittent instead of constant. His shoulders lowered enough that he could sit without holding himself together by force.

Lizzy switched from counting aloud to tapping each number against his knuckles.

One. Two. Three. Four.

Hold.

One. Two. Three. Four.

Van swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“I ruined your night.”

“Don’t ever say that.”

He tried to pull one hand away. Lizzy held it.

“I kissed you,” she said. “Then my clothes fell off. You had a panic attack. This has been a complicated evening. You did not ruin it.”

“I scared you.” He couldn’t look at her.

“I understand anxiety.” Her reply was steady and even.

“Not like this.”

“No,” she agreed. “Mine is different.” Lizzy eased her grip when she felt him stop retreating. “It’s still not your fault.”

Van pressed his lips together. “I’m—”

“Stop apologizing.”

He obeyed with visible effort.

Lizzy stood and kept one hand around his until he was upright. His face was damp. Cold sweat had darkened the collar of his T-shirt.

She guided him to the kitchen counter and filled the wolf mug with water.

“Drink.”

Van accepted it in both hands.

“All of it.”

He drank while Lizzy watched. Halfway through, he lowered the mug.

“All of it,” she repeated.

He finished.

“Now shower.”

Van looked toward the hall.

“You smell like carnival food, lake air, and panic sweat.”

“That is very specific.”

“It is meant to be motivating.” She took the empty mug. “Go wash. Cool water near the end.”

A tired smile crossed his face. “All right.”

The bathroom door closed behind him.

Lizzy returned the side panel to the computer and pressed it into place until the recessed latch clicked. Then she went to the bedroom.

Her panties were beneath the carnival entrance, her bra somewhere under the far end of the pier, and her blouse on the lake. Van knew about the last two losses. He still believed the handholding failure at the entrance had ended with her hand.

The bedroom dresser had six drawers. Van’s sleep clothes occupied two. Another held shirts in his size. The bottom right bore a small brass plaque.

GUEST COMFORT

Lizzy opened it then closed it again. After several seconds, she opened it.

The Hotel had interpreted comfort through the interests of an adventurous couple. Silk, lace, narrow straps, decorative ties, and several items whose method of use was not immediately apparent filled divided sections. Everything was new, immaculate, and arranged by color.

Lizzy searched beneath the first layer for ordinary cotton. There was none.

A pale lavender set offered the most coverage available. The bra was silk with demi cups. The matching panties were a thong so narrow Lizzy held them up twice to decide if they actually counted as underwear. For one dizzying second she considered wearing nothing instead, wondering if she would feel more or less exposed in the silk.

The memory of Van’s bare chest returned. So did the bed looming behind her.

“Better than nothing,” she whispered.

She tucked the set inside her makeshift blouse and shut the drawer.

Lizzy couldn’t wear her skirt and Van’s shirt to bed. She rejected the Suite’s collection of sleepwear after one look at how little fabric most of it involved.

Van’s drawer offered safer options.

She pulled on one of his dark T-shirts. It reached halfway down her thighs. A pair of his sleep pants required the drawstring tightened nearly to its limit and two rolls at each ankle.

* * *

Van came out of the bathroom with wet hair. He had taken enough time that the skin around his eyes no longer looked strained, though exhaustion had settled heavily over him.

Lizzy met him in the hall still wearing his buttoned shirt and her skirt, a set of his sleeping clothes held against her ribs.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “Better.”

“Good.”

He moved aside to let her pass. “Lizzy.”

She paused.

“Thank you.”

Her grip tightened around the borrowed clothes before she answered. “You’re welcome.”

She entered the bathroom and closed the door.

The shower removed sugar, lake air, and the faint smell of pizza from her hair. It did nothing to quiet the evening. The kiss returned under the water. Van’s hands holding her carefully. His stunned confusion when her bra landed in his hands. His shirt settling across her shoulders. His fingers locked around hers on the floor.

Afterward she dried herself and put on the silk set.

The bra fit perfectly. The thong did too, which felt like an accusation. Silk slid against places her usual underwear ignored. The narrow strip at the back shifted with every movement, impossible to forget.

Lizzy returned to the bedroom.

Van sat on the far edge of the bed. He had turned down both sides and placed Martin on the dresser beside the lamp.

His gaze traveled over the borrowed clothes. “Those are mine.”

“Yes.”

“They fit you better than my shirt did.”

“That is not true, but thank you.”

Van moved beneath the blanket on his side. Lizzy crossed to hers and climbed in.

The mattress adjusted under their combined weight. A wide strip of empty bedding remained between them.

She wanted to ask whether he still liked the kiss after everything that followed. She wanted to tell him that she had meant part of what she said about the apartment. She did not expect promises, but the idea of playing games beside him and building something together had not been an accident.

The thong pressed against her in unfamiliar ways when she moved one leg. Her courage vanished into immediate physical awareness of silk against sensitive skin.

Beside her, Van drew breath to speak.

Lizzy turned her head, but he closed his mouth without saying anything.

She nearly asked anyway. The panic on the gaming-room floor remained too recent. Her blouse and bra were somewhere beyond the pier, lost to the dark water. The Hotel had spent the evening turning every private feeling into evidence.

“Good night,” Van said.

“Good night.”

The lights dimmed. Neither of them moved closer.

Through the open bedroom door, two standby lights glowed beneath the gaming-room desks. Lizzy watched them until her eyes closed.