--: Author's POV: --
The London estate didn't feel like a sanctuary. It felt like a museum of things that no longer belonged to anyone.
The air inside was stagnant, smelling of expensive wood and the lingering chill of the fog that had followed them through the front door. As the members of Section E and the F4 filed in, they moved like trespassers, their voices reduced to whispers. Nobody wanted to be the first to make a sound that wasn't a sob.
In the center of the grand living room, the silence was different. It was heavy. It was the kind of silence that had weight, pressing down on the shoulders of the three people sitting on the long, velvet sofa.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
Home.
I looked around at the high ceilings and the elegant furniture. It was all so beautiful, and it was all so dead. Every corner of this house was a reminder that the person who made it a 'home' was currently lying in a cold room miles away, waiting for a flight he would never feel.
The fever was a physical weight behind my eyes, a rhythmic thumping that matched the frantic beating of my heart. My skin felt like it was shrinking, tight and scorched, but I didn't let my back touch the cushions. I couldn't. If I leaned back, I might never get up again.
I felt a small, cold hand slip into mine.
I turned my head slowly. Keiran was tucked into my side, his face pale and eyes wide, staring at the empty fireplace. He looked so small—too small to be carrying a grief this large.
"Ate Jay," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Is Kuya Keifer going to be okay in that car? It's raining... he didn't have his coat."
--: Author's POV: --
The room went deathly still. Aries, who was standing by the window, had to turn away to hide the fresh tears tracking down his face. Angelo squeezed his eyes shut, his hand gripping the back of a chair so hard the wood groaned.
But Jay-Jay didn't flinch. She didn't cry.
She turned fully toward Keiran, reaching out with her other hand to cup his cheek. Her palm was like a furnace against his skin, but her gaze was as steady as a mountain.
"He's okay, Keiran," she said. Her voice was raspy, stripped of its usual temper, but it was firm. "He's a Lion. A little rain doesn't bother him. And he's not alone. We're right here. Do you hear me? We aren't going anywhere."
She looked up, her fever-bright eyes locking onto Keigan.
Keigan was sitting on the other side of her, his bandaged hand resting on his knee. He wasn't looking at her; he was staring at his own boots, his jaw set in that terrifyingly rigid line. He looked like he was one second away from shattering into a thousand jagged pieces.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I reached out and grabbed Keigan's shoulder. I could feel him vibrating—a low, constant tremor of pure, unadulterated pain.
"Keigan. Look at me."
He didn't move.
"Keigan Watson, look at me right now," I commanded. It was the 'Boss' voice, the one I used when Section E was getting out of hand.
Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, the fire that usually defined him replaced by a dark, bottomless void. He looked at me, searching for the girl who had screamed in the hospital, but I didn't give her to him. I showed him a wall of iron.
"You are the Watsons," I whispered, loud enough only for the three of us. "You don't fall. Not today. Not when he's counting on us to bring him back. You're the strength now, Keigan. You and me. We have to be the home for Keiran."
--: Author's POV: --
Keigan stared at her for a long beat. He could see the sweat on her temples. He could see the way her hand was shaking as it gripped his shoulder. He knew she was burning. He knew she was falling apart internally.
But seeing her stand through the fire gave him something to hold onto.
Slowly, Keigan moved. He didn't say a word, but he leaned his forehead against Jay-Jay's shoulder, finally letting out a long, shuddering breath that sounded like a sob without the tears. He let himself be held.
The Pack watched in stunned silence. They had expected the Three to collapse. They had expected to be the ones providing the strength. But instead, they saw Jay-Jay—feverish, grieving, and broken—acting as the anchor for the two brothers who had lost their sun.
"She's doing it," Thyme whispered from the back, his eyes full of a somber, deep respect. "She's keeping the light on."
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I held them. One on each side. My body was a furnace, and my heart was a stone, but I didn't let go.
I looked at the fifteen members of Section E and the F4 scattered around the room. They were watching us like we were a miracle or a tragedy.
"Don't just stand there," I said, my voice cutting through the heavy air. "Can someone get Keiran and Keigan some juice? And find me a first aid kit for Keigan's hand? We aren't ghosts yet."
I felt Eman move toward the kitchen, his footsteps hurried, as if he were grateful for the orders. I felt the room shift from a funeral home back into a headquarters.
I leaned my head back, closing my eyes for just a second. The darkness behind my eyelids was full of fog, but I didn't get lost in it. I just imagined Keifer standing at the door, watching us.
"I'm doing it, Keifer," I thought. "I'm holding the house together. But God... Keifer please hurry up and come back, I can't hold it for a long time. The fire is getting really, really hot."
--: Author's POV: --
The London estate remained quiet, but it was no longer a museum. It was a fortress.
And at the center of it, a girl with a killing fever stood guard over the brothers of the Lion, refusing to let the "Real World" take anything else.
---
As the night deepened, the fortress began to feel like a cage.
One by one, the members of Section E drifted off to their respective rooms, their bodies finally giving out under the weight of the day's trauma. The F4 remained in the study, talking in hushed, urgent tones about the logistics of the transport, their voices muffled by the thick mahogany doors.
The hallways were dimly lit, the shadows stretching across the expensive wallpaper like long, reaching fingers. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like a name being whispered. Every draft of cold air felt like a touch.
Jay-Jay stood at the top of the grand staircase. She was alone.
She turned her head toward the end of the hall, toward the master suite. The room she was supposed to go to. The room where his scent would be on the pillows. The room where his book would still be sitting on the nightstand, with the page marked halfway through.
She took one step toward it and stopped.
Her breath hitched. Her heart, already racing from the fever, began to hammer against her ribs with a violence that made her dizzy. She couldn't do it. She couldn't open that door and see the empty half of the bed. She couldn't walk into a space that was so full of him, only to find it silent.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I stared at the door of our room. It looked like a mouth ready to swallow me whole.
The fever was playing tricks on me. I thought I could see the faint glow of his laptop light under the crack of the door. I thought I could hear the sound of him turning a page. But I knew better. I knew if I opened that door, the silence would be so loud it would kill me.
"I can't," I whispered to the empty hallway.
My knees finally buckled, and I had to lean my burning forehead against the cold plaster of the wall. The heat was unbearable now. My brain felt like it was boiling in my skull, and the memories were the steam—hot, blinding, and everywhere.
"Jay, stay with me."
"Jay, don't go into the fog."
I turned away from the master suite. I couldn't be in there. I didn't want to be 'Jay-Jay' in that room. I wanted to be a sister. I wanted to be with the only other people who understood that the world had ended.
I walked down the hall, my hand sliding along the wall for support, until I reached the door to the room Keigan and Keiran were sharing.
I didn't knock at first. I just leaned my head against the wood, listening. It was quiet, but it wasn't the dead silence of the master suite. It was a living, breathing silence.
Knock. Knock. Knock
--: Author's POV: --
Inside the room, Keigan was wide awake.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his bandaged hand resting on his lap, watching Keiran sleep. Keiran was curled into a tight ball, his breathing hitching every few seconds in a post-sob reflex.
When the knock came, Keigan's head snapped up. His eyes were hard, ready for a threat, but when the door creaked open, his expression softened into something fragile.
Jay-Jay stood in the doorway. She looked tiny. The oversized black sweater she was wearing swallowed her frame, and her face was flushed a deep, terrifying crimson from the fever. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, and brimming with a grief she had spent all day hiding.
"Ate Jay?" Keigan whispered, his voice cracking.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I looked at him. I looked at Keiran.
The wall of iron I had built in the living room was gone. The 'Boss' was gone. I was just a girl who was scared of the dark and even more scared of the empty bed at the end of the hall.
"Can I..." My voice broke, and a single, hot tear finally escaped, trailing down my burning cheek. "Can I sleep here? I don't... I don't want to go to the other room. I don't want to be alone, Keigan."
I saw the way Keigan's face twisted. He didn't ask questions. He didn't tell me I was being weak. He just shifted back, creating a space in the middle of the large bed between him and Keiran.
"Come here," he said, his voice a rough, broken command.
--: Author's POV: --
Jay-Jay moved toward the bed, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. She climbed under the heavy duvet, her body radiating a heat that Keigan could feel even through the layers of fabric.
She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, while Keigan lay down on one side of her and Keiran remained curled up on the other.
In the dark, the three of them were a tiny island of life in a house full of ghosts.
"He's really gone, isn't he, Jay?" Keigan whispered into the shadows. He wasn't acting like the fierce fighter anymore. He was just a brother who had lost his hero.
Jay-Jay didn't answer right away. She reached out, her fingers finding Keigan's unbandaged hand and Keiran's small shoulder at the same time. She pulled them closer, forming a circle that nothing—not the fog, not the "Real World," not even Death—could break.
"He's not here," Jay-Jay finally whispered, her voice thick with the fever and the truth. "But we are. And as long as we're together, he's not completely in the dark."
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I closed my eyes.
The fire was still there, burning behind my lids, but for the first time since the hospital, the thumping in my head didn't feel like a countdown. It felt like a heartbeat.
I wasn't in the master suite. I wasn't looking at an empty pillow. I was surrounded by the only things that still made sense.
"I'm sorry, Keifer," I thought as I felt Keigan's hand tighten around mine. "I couldn't stay in our room. It was too quiet. But I'm taking care of them. I promise. I'm keeping them warm."
The fever finally pulled me down into a dark, heavy sleep. It wasn't a peaceful sleep—it was full of rain and mahogany boxes—but I wasn't alone in it.
Outside, the London wind howled against the glass, trying to get in. But inside the room, the three survivors held onto each other, refusing to let the shadows take anything else.
The Lion was gone, but the Pack was still breathing. And in the heart of the ghost house, that was the only miracle left.
--: Author's POV: --
The clock on the mantelpiece struck three in the morning, the sound muffled by the heavy velvet curtains and the thick, suffocating layers of the duvet.
In the master bedroom down the hall, the silence was absolute. But here, in the dim glow of the moonlight filtering through the gaps in the blinds, the room was full of the heavy, jagged rhythm of three hearts trying to beat in sync.
Jay-Jay lay in the center, a pillar of heat between the two Watson brothers. On her right, Keigan had finally succumbed to exhaustion, his breathing shallow and uneven, his hand still locked with hers. Even in sleep, his grip was like a vise, as if he were afraid that if he let go, the room would dissolve into fog.
On her left, Keiran was a tight knot of silent agony. He was curled into Jay-Jay's side, his small arms wrapped around her waist so tightly that it was hard for her to breathe.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I couldn't sleep.
The fever was still there, a dull, throbbing ache behind my eyes, but it was the silence that was keeping me awake. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the *thud* of the casket lid. I saw the way the London rain sat on the polished wood.
I stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the tree branches dance across the plaster. They looked like reaching hands.
Beside me, I felt Keiran stir. His small body began to tremble, a low, rhythmic shaking that made my heart ache. Then, the silence was broken by a sound that was sharper than any scream.
"Kuya..."
It was a whisper, raw and broken, coming from the depths of a nightmare.
"Kuya, please... don't leave me," Keiran mumbled, his face pressing harder into my sweater. His voice was thick with sleep and the kind of fear no child should ever know. "Mom also left me... after Mom, we only had you and Ate... please don't leave us alone..."
--: Author's POV: --
Jay-Jay felt her chest tighten until it hurt. Each word out of Keiran's mouth was like a needle pressing into her skin.
She looked down at him. In the moonlight, Keiran looked even younger, his face pale and wet with tears he didn't even know he was shedding. He tightened his grip on Jay-Jay's waist, his knuckles turning white as he fought to keep his "Kuya" from drifting away in his dreams.
The air in the room felt heavy with the ghosts Keiran was calling out to. The loss of a mother, the loss of a brother—the weight of it was all resting on the small shoulders of the boy clutching a girl who was barely holding herself together.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I felt the hot sting of tears finally breaking through. They blurred my vision, turning the ceiling into a grey, watery mess.
"Shh... Keiran," I whispered, my voice sounding like it was being dragged over broken glass.
I couldn't move my hand from Keigan's—he was holding on too tight—so I used my other arm to pull Keiran even closer. I tucked his head under my chin, feeling the frantic, rapid beat of his heart against my own.
"I'm here, Keiran," I murmured, my lips brushing the top of his hair. "I'm right here. No one is leaving you. I promise. Ate is here."
He let out a jagged, hitching sob in his sleep, his small fingers digging into the fabric of my sweater. "Don't go into the dark... Kuya, it's too cold..."
"It's not cold anymore," I lied, my voice trembling as I fought to keep the sob in my own throat from escaping. I began to rub his back in slow, rhythmic circles, the way I used to do when Section E was stressed, or the way I wished someone would do for me right now. "The light is on. Ate is keeping the light on. Just sleep, Keiran. I've got you."
--: Author's POV: --
Jay-Jay lay there, trapped between the sleeping grip of the older brother and the desperate clinging of the younger.
She was the bridge. She was the only thing standing between them and the crushing realization that their world had been halved. Every time Keiran whimpered, Jay-Jay tightened her hold, whispering promises into the dark that she wasn't sure she could keep.
She looked over at Keigan. His eyes were still closed, but a single tear had escaped his lid and was tracking slowly down into his hair.
He was awake. Or at least, he was listening.
In that moment, in that bed, the "Real World" didn't exist. There was no London, no hospital, and no mahogany box. There was only the three of them—three broken survivors holding onto each other so hard that it was a wonder they didn't bruise.
Jay-Jay stared back at the ceiling, her eyes burning and her body on fire with fever.
"I'm holding them, Keifer," she thought, the tears finally falling freely now, soaking into the pillow. "I'm holding them so tight. But please... if you can hear me... tell Keiran you're okay. Because I don't think he believes me."
The rain continued to lash against the window, but inside the room, the only sound was the low, heartbroken murmur of a girl trying to convince two brothers that they weren't alone in the world.
The night was long, and the morning was coming, but for now, they were an island. And Jay-Jay was the shore.