Chapter 221

#88

The gym is nearly empty by the time Elias gets there, the afternoon session already wrapped, a handful of stragglers finishing up on the far side of the room.

He finds Lucia and Zeke crowded around the bench near the smaller ring, the same bench where he spent weeks teaching her hip throws and watching her get progressively less terrible at falling without hurting herself, and something about the location settles wrong in his chest before he’s even close enough to hear what they’re saying.

“Show me again,” Zeke says, and Lucia holds the phone out toward him, her jaw tight in a way Elias recognizes from months of watching her manage fear by refusing to look afraid.

Elias crosses the last few feet and leans in over Zeke’s shoulder without asking permission. Zeke doesn’t tell him to back off, which is its own small data point.