Word Count: 912
The car ride home is quiet in the way that thinks.
Not peaceful.
Not awkward.
Thinking.
Buildings slide past the windows, familiar but suddenly irrelevant, like props after the play has ended. The 2 hours ride didn't seem to be ending anytime soon.
Belle watches her reflection in the glass — her own eyes layered over the city — and wonders when she started looking like someone passing through instead of someone who belongs.
Her father drives with both hands steady on the wheel. No music. No sighing. The kind of silence that suggests this isn't the first time he's escorted something dangerous away from public view.
Liora sits beside Belle, knee bouncing once before she stills it deliberately. She keeps glancing at Belle's hands, as if expecting smoke to curl from her fingers again. Nothing does.
The car hums forward.
After the Marcello had said that he would talk to her parents, no one had said anything more.
Finally, Liora speaks.
"Okay," she says, too casual. "So… how far is far?"
Belle turns her head slightly. Liora isn't smiling. She's staring straight ahead, eyes bright with questions she's pretending are logistics.
Her father answers without looking back.
"Far enough."
Liora nods, absorbing it. "And… soon?"
A pause.
"Yes."
That lands heavier than shouting ever could.
Belle feels it settle in her chest — not panic, not grief. A quiet acceptance, like something she already knew but hadn't named yet. She doesn't interrupt. She doesn't argue.
Aurelis Academy already feels like a place she visited once, not somewhere she belongs.
Finally, they pull into the driveway as the sun dips lower, shadows stretching long across the yard. The house looks exactly the same. Too normal. Too intact.
Inside, her father sets down his keys and turns to them both.
"There are rules," he says calmly. "Temporary. Necessary."
He lists them without drama:
No contact with anyone from Aurelis.
No social media.
No explanations — not to friends, not to neighbors, not to anyone who suddenly decides to be curious.
"I'm not punishing you," he adds, eyes flicking briefly to Belle. "I'm narrowing the field."
Belle understands that instantly. Time isn't free. He's buying it.
Liora listens, hands folded tight in front of her. When he finishes, she nods once.
"Okay," she says. Just that.
Then she steps aside, phone already in her hand.
"I need to call my parents."
She moves into the hallway, not far enough to disappear. Belle stays where she is, pretending to busy herself with her jacket, but the house is small. Voices carry.
At first, it's low. Controlled. Careful.
Then it fractures.
"You were where?" her mother's voice snaps, sharp with fear.
"Do you hear yourself right now?"
Her father cuts in, slower but heavier: "You don't just disappear into another family's crisis."
Liora doesn't raise her voice. That's what makes it worse.
"Yes," she says evenly.
"I know."
"No, I'm not hurt."
Words spill out in fragments, overlapping, frantic:
"Suspended?"
"Fire?"
"Why is his father deciding this?"
"You're still a child."
Belle's fingers curl into her sleeve.
There's a long silence on the line — the kind that presses. Then Liora speaks again, quieter now, but steady.
"I know you're scared," she says. "I am too."
Her voice trembles, just slightly.
"But I'm not leaving her."
Another pause.
Belle imagines Liora's mother crying — not loudly, but in the way that sounds like something breaking privately. Her father sighs, the sound of control slipping.
They don't forbid her.
They don't agree either.
They ask for time.
Liora closes her eyes. Listens. Doesn't beg. Doesn't apologize.
"I need you to trust that I know what I'm choosing," she says.
The call ends.
For a moment, Liora rests her forehead against the wall, breath shallow. Her hand shakes — not from doubt, but from the cost. Then she straightens and walks back into the room.
"They're… hesitant," she says. "But they're listening."
Belle nods. That's more than most people give.
Marmalade sprawls across the arm of the couch like nothing in the world has changed. Tail flicking lazily. Golden eyes half-lidded.
Nyx's voice slips into Belle's mind, low and watchful.
"They noticed faster than expected."
Belle doesn't ask who they are.
She retreats to her room, door closing softly behind her. The quiet there feels heavier. She opens her closet, pulls out half a uniform she may never wear again. Old notebooks. A jacket with Aurelis stitched onto the sleeve.
She doesn't feel nostalgic. She feels… done.
The fire didn't take anything from her.
It clarified.
Downstairs, the evening news murmurs on. Normal headlines. Traffic. Weather. Nothing about fire. Nothing about screaming. Nothing about Jayce.
The world moves on, ignorant by design.
Later, Liora knocks once and steps in, carrying an armful of school things — notes, handouts, things Belle didn't even realize she'd missed.
"I figured," Liora says, setting them down. "Just in case."
"Thanks," Belle says.
They sit on the floor, backs against the bed, sorting papers they might never use. Marmalade curls between them, purring softly, an anchor.
Outside, the city glows. Unchanged. Unaware.
Liora leans her head back against the wall. "Do you think it'll be worse… or just different?"
Belle watches the streetlight flicker on outside her window.
"Different enough," she says.
Liora smiles faintly. "Good."
They sit there in shared silence — not afraid, not certain, but aligned.
The house holds its secrets well.
And tonight, only they know..... maybe not so much in the days to come.