Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 254

A Plate Without Payment

Cage

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I wake up because my ribs hurt, not horribly but enough to remind me I’m still ia body and that body has been through hell. My eye socket throbs. The

surrounding skin feels tight and slightly on fire. I breathe through it, stare at the ceiling I don’t recognise, and wait for the instinct to move to catch up with the pain. It takes longer than usual, but eventually I sit up slowly, teeth clenched, testing what still works. My ribs protest and pull where Rhaziel stitched me like he was closing a sack instead of a man. I don’t bother checking my face. I know what it looks like, and I know why it looks like that. I swing

my legs off the bed and stand… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. There’s no alarm. There are no orders. There’s no next objective shoved down my throat. No voice telling me where to go or who to hurt or how long I have before something explodes. I pull on the clothes that are folded at the foot of the bed, and then I leave the room because I don’t know what else to do. The coridor outside is quiet, so I follow the smell of food. It doesn’t make sense, but my body doesn’t care. My feet turn before I can overthink it. I step inside the kitchen and freeze. Evander is at the counter, shirtless, barefoot and standing between Allison’s legs. She’s sitting on the bench, wrapped in someone’s shirt. Her hair is a mess, her eyes are half-lidded, and she’s chewing something slowly, like she’s not fully awake yet. I take in the scene in half a second, and my brain immediately files it under not mine.

“Sorry,” I say, already turning. “Didn’t realise-”

“Wait.” Allison’s voice stops me cold.

I don’t turn right away. It’s an old habit. You don’t expose your face until you know what you’re dealing with. When I do look back, Evander is watching me with an expression I don’t have a category for. He slides another plate across the counter in my direction with no explanation.

“Sit,” he says. I have to assess the moment for longer than I would like because think… he’s simply offering.

Allison shifts on the bench, making space without looking at me like she’s waiting to see what I’ll do.

“Kinda looks like you two were having a moment,” I say instead, keeping my voice flat. “I can go.”

Evander shakes his head once. “We can all have moments,” he says. “Alone or together. It doesn’t matter.”

It absolutely matters, but I don’t say that. I sit because leaving now would probably be worse, and I’m trying hard not to fuck more things up. The chair scrapes softly against the stone floor. I lower myself carefully, ribs pulling tight, and ignore it. The plate in front of me is warm and smells good enough that my stomach clenches hard. Allison watches me out of the corner of her eye like she’s pretending not to.

“You sleep?” she asks.

“Enough,” I say.

“How’s the eye?”

I shrug. “Still missing.”

She snorts quietly, then winces as the sound pulls at something tender. Evander hand comes up automatically to steady her at the waist. It shouldn’t bother me… but it does because I want to be the one to check on her… even if Ion’t deserve it. I want to.

“You hungry?” Evander asks.

I look at the plate again. Then at him.

“Yeah, thanks,” I say.

He turns back to the stove, flips something with one hand, and leaves it at that. eat because my body demands it. Because refusing would be stupid. Because I’m not going to pretend I don’t need fuel after everything. Allison eats more slowly than I do. She keeps stopping, like her body forgets what it’s

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A Plate Without Payment

doing or something hurts. Evander adjusts without comment, nudging her plate doser when she leans, cutting pieces smaller without asking.

“You should still be in bed,” he mutters.

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She hums. “Then I would miss this delicious breakfast my mate has provided for me.”

My grip tightens on my fork without permission. Would I ever be able to provide something for her? What do I bring to her table? She slides off the bench and into the chair beside me instead. Close enough that I can smell the soap she used last.

“You don’t have to sit there,” I tell her.

She tilts her head. “I want to.”

We eat in silence for a bit after that. I have no idea if it’s awkward silence or uncomfortable silence. My brain scrambles through a billion scenarios in the

quiet.

Eventually, Allison nudges my arm lightly with her elbow. “You okay?”

I consider lying…, but for some reason I can’t yet understand, I don’t.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” I say.

Evander glances at me but doesn’t interrupt, and Allison doesn’t rush to fill the space. She just watches me like she’s waiting for me to finish a thought I

didn’t realise I started.

“I’ve always had orders,” I continue. “Or punishment. Or something to earn. Sitting around eating breakfast wasn’t part of the plan.”

She smiles faintly. “We’re rewriting the plan.”

I scoff. “That sounds dangerous.”

She shrugs. “Seems to be working.”

I snort despite myself.

Evander slides a cup across the counter toward me. “You don’t have to earn a place here, you know”, he says quietly.

I stiffen. “I wasn’t asking for one.”

“I know, but if you haven’t come to realise yet, fate doesn’t really care. You get a place here, with us, for her. It’s just as simple as that. The rest of that existential life crisis stuff? You’ll figure that out before you even know it has happened.

I take the cup and drink, mostly so I have something to do with my hands. Evander continues moving around the kitchen like this is just… a morning. Like, there wasn’t a war yesterday, or the world didn’t almost end. I watch him for a sond too long before I can stop myself.

“Huh,” I mutter.

He glances over his shoulder. “What?”

I nod at the stove, the food, the calm, the way Allison leans back in her chair, wm and alive and smiling like this is normal. “Looks like the golden boy’s

still shining through.”

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