Chapter 2 DINNER WITH THE ENEMY

POV: Wren

His name is Callum Voss.

I have been standing outside this front door for four minutes,s saying that name in my head, as if I repeat it enough time, so it will stop feeling like a punch to the stomach.

Callum Voss. The boy from the hallway. The one who saw the sign on my back looked me dead in the eyes and walked away like I was a pothole he decided to step around.

And my mother is inside his house right now, probably laughing at something his father said, completely unaware that she has handed me directly to the enemy.

I could leave. I could turn around, walk back to our old apartment, sleep on the bare floor, and eat cereal for the rest of my life. That sounds genuinely better than what is behind this door.

Mom opens it before I can move.

"Wren." She is glowing. Actually glowing, the way she used to look in old photos before life got heavy and dad left,t and the double shifts started. She pulls me inside by my arm. "Come in, come in, dinner is almost ready."

The house smells like garlic and money.

I step in.

Gerard Voss is exactly what I expected. Tall. Expensive watch. Handshake like a job interview. He calls me a young lady and means it as a compliment. He has the smile of someone who is used to people being grateful for his attention.

I smile back. I have a whole collection of smiles that mean nothing. I use my best one.

"Callum should be down in a minute," Gerard says, already turning back to the kitchen. "He had practice."

And then a small missile hits me in the stomach.

Not literally. But close.

A little boy, maybe eight or nine, has wrapped both arms around my waist and is squeezing with the strength of someone three times his size. He has Callum's golden hair,r but his eyes are different. Warmer. Less guarded. Like he has not yet learned that the world requires armor.

"You're Wren," he announces into my hoodie. "I'm Theo. I asked Dad what your name was and he said Wre,n and I said that's a bir,d and he said ye,s and I said cool."

I look down at him. Something in my chest does a strange soft thing.

"It is a bird," I confirm. "Small and loud and hard to catch."

He looks up at me with enormous eyes. "I like birds," he says seriously. "And space. Do you like space?"

"Space is the best thing that exists."

His entire face opens up like a window. "Okay," he says. "You're my favourite person here. Don't tell Dad."

I laugh. An actual one. The first real laugh I have had all day.

Then I hear footsteps on the stairs.

He stops on the third step from the bottom.

I know the exact moment he sees me because his whole body goes still. Not surprised-still. Horrified-still. The kind of still that happens when something you were not prepared for walks into your living room and sits down.

I watch him work through it. The recognition. The confusion. The quick calculation behind his eyes.

He looks at his father. Then at my mother. Then at me.

I give him my best no-smile.

He comes down the last three steps slowly, like someone walking toward something they cannot escape.

"Callum," Gerard says without looking up from the stove. "This is Nora's daughter, Wren. She'll be at Hartfield with you."

Callum looks at me.

I look at him.

Neither of us says what we are both thinking, which is that we have already met, in the worst possible way.

"Hey," he says. His voice is flat. Careful.

"Hey," I say back. Equally flat. Equally careful.

Theo grabs my hand. "She likes space, Callum. She can sit next to me."

Callum's jaw tightens. He says nothing. He sits at the opposite end of the table.

Dinner is its own kind of torture.

Gerard talks about his work. Mom asks questions that show she has been listening to him, really listening, and I can see how much that means to her, and I hate that I cannot just be happy about it. Theo tells me seven facts about Saturn in between bites of garlic bread. I listen to every single one.

Callum doesn't speak to me. Not once. He passes the salad without being asked. He cuts Theo's chicken without Theo asking. He answers his father's questions in full sentences and never rolls his eyes,s even when Gerard says something that makes me want to.

He is performing. I recognize it because I do it too.

But every few minutes, I feel it. His eyes were on the side of my face. Quick. Like he is trying to figure something out and cannot.

I don't give him the satisfaction of turning.

After dinner, Gerard suggests we clear the table together. Mom and Gerard disappear to the kitchen, leaving me and Callum stacking plates in the kind of silence that has weight.

Theo has fallen asleep on the sofa. Just like that. Out cold, one hand still holding a bread roll.

Callum picks up a stack of plates. I pick up the glasses. We move toward the kitchen at the same time and nearly collide in the doorway.

We both stop.

He is closer than I expected. I can see that his eyes are not just blue. They are blue-grey. Like a sky that cannot decide what kind of day it wants to be.

He looks down at me.

I look up at him.

"I didn't know," he says quietly. Low enough that only I can hear. "About you moving in. I didn't know."

"I know," I say.

"I just want to make sure we're clear on how this works." His voice is still low, but something in it has shifted. Harder. More careful. "School and home are separate. What happens at Hartfield stays at Hartfield. You don't know me there. I don't know you."

I stare at him for a long moment.

Then I smile. Not my nothing-smile. My real one. The dangerous one that my mother says means I have already won an argument, the other person doesn't know we're having.

"Sure, Callum," I say sweetly. "We don't know each other."

I walk past him into the kitchen.

I am almost asleep when my phone lights up.

A notification. Someone has tagged me in something.

I sit up. Open the app.

It is a video.

Eleven seconds long. Shaky. Shot from a phone in a hallway.

It is me. This morning. Walking down the corridor with the sign on my back.

The caption reads: New girl really said WIDE LOAD and dressed accordingly. Hartfield's welcome committee is doing the Lord's work.

Four hundred and twelve likes.

The comments are already loading.

My hands are shaking so badly that I nearly drop my phone.

And then I see who posted it.

The account name is SableV.

I don't know who that is yet.

But below the video, someone has commented with three laughing emojis and the words lol, did she really not notice.

The comment is from an account called CVoss18.

Callum Voss.

He didn't just walk past this morning.

He laughed about it after.