Chapter Five : The Results

Lena's pov

The results took five days.

Five days of Axel bringing me food I didn't ask for and sitting beside me while I ate it like he was scared I'd disappear if he looked away. Five days of Rook showing up in whatever room I was in without explanation, quiet and steady like a wall nobody had asked him to build but everyone was grateful for. Five days of Ghost watching everything from a distance with those grey green eyes that gave nothing away but missed absolutely nothing.

Five days of me pressing my hand flat against my stomach in the dark and trying not to think about things I wasn't ready to think about.

The envelope arrived Friday morning.

Ghost took it from the courier himself. Carried it to the kitchen where the rest of us were already gathered like we'd all felt it coming without anyone saying a word. He set it on the table and nobody reached for it.

Axel broke first. "Just open it Ghost."

"Give me a second."

"You've had five days."

"Axel." Rook's voice. One word. Axel closed his mouth.

Ghost looked at me across the table. "Whatever this says," he said quietly. "Nothing changes. You're here. Those babies are here. That's already decided."

I nodded. My hands were cold in my lap and my heart was doing something loud and uneven against my ribs.

He picked up the envelope.

Opened it slowly.

His eyes moved across the page and I watched his face the way you watch the sky before a storm. Waiting for the first sign of what's coming.

It came fast.

Something shifted behind his eyes. Small and devastating. There and gone before anyone else caught it.

He looked at Axel.

Axel sat up straight immediately. "What."

Ghost looked at Rook.

Rook went completely still.

Ghost set the paper flat on the table and turned it around slowly.

Nobody spoke.

The clock on the wall ticked. Once. Twice.

"None of us," Ghost said. His voice came out low and careful like a man who was holding something together through sheer will. "None of us is the father."

Axel stood up so fast his chair scraped back hard against the floor.

"That's not possible," he said. "That is not possible."

"The results don't lie," Rook said. He was still looking at the paper. Jaw tight. Hands flat on the table.

"Then something is wrong with the test." Axel turned to me and his eyes were wild and confused and something else underneath that I didn't have a name for. "Lena you've been here six weeks. You haven't gone anywhere without one of us. How does this make any sense?"

"Axel," Ghost said.

"No Ghost tell me how this makes sense. Tell me..."

"AXEL."

Axel stopped.

Ran both hands through his hair.

Turned away from the table.

Rook still hadn't moved. He was looking at the paper with those steady green eyes and something working quietly behind them. Then he looked up at me.

Just me.

I felt my breath catch.

There was something in his expression that I couldn't read. Not accusation. Not anger. Something more careful than that. Like a man who was putting something together slowly and didn't want to get it wrong.

I looked away first.

Ghost was watching me too now.

I stared at the paper on the table. At the results that made no sense to any of them. At the three names printed neatly across the top with three clear negatives beside them.

My ears were ringing.

In the back of my mind something cold and quiet was pushing its way to the surface. Something I had folded up as small as it would go three months ago and buried under everything else. Something I had told myself wasn't relevant. Wasn't important. Wasn't something I ever needed to say out loud.

I pushed it back down.

Not here. Not now. Not yet.

"We run it again," Ghost said finally. Controlled. Certain. "Different lab. We run it again and we get a different result."

"And if we don't," Axel said from the window. His back still turned.

Ghost didn't answer that.

Because there was no good answer. And Ghost never spoke unless he had something worth saying.

Rook stood up quietly and walked to the counter. Poured three cups of coffee without asking and set them down in front of each of us. Then he sat back down and wrapped both hands around his own cup and said nothing.

I stared at mine.

The kitchen was so quiet.

Outside I could hear the compound. Engines. Voices. The ordinary sounds of a world that had no idea what was sitting in this room right now.

Ghost reached across the table and picked the paper up and folded it slowly and put it in his pocket. Like putting it away would put the information away with it.

"Nobody talks about this outside this room," he said. "Not until we know what we're dealing with."

Axel turned around. His eyes were red at the edges. "And what are we dealing with Ghost? Because from where I'm standing..."

"We're dealing with our family," Ghost said. Simple. Final. "That's what we're dealing with. Nothing else changes until I say it does."

Axel looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded once and sat back down.

Rook looked at me over the rim of his cup. His eyes were steady and warm and asking something he wasn't going to say out loud. Not here. Not in front of everyone.

I looked back at him and felt the thing in the back of my mind push harder against everything I was using to hold it down.

I smiled at him. Small and thin and nowhere near convincing.

He didn't look convinced.

But he let it go. For now.

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach under the table where nobody could see it.

Three babies. Three men who would burn the world down to protect them. And a secret sitting in my chest that was getting heavier by the hour.

I told myself I'd find the right moment.

I told myself I'd explain everything when I was ready.

But somewhere deep down underneath all of it one thought sat cold and still and wouldn't move no matter how hard I pushed.

Oh God, I thought. Please don't let it be who I think it is.

Please....