Eli asked Bram to stay after the equipment meeting.
The request changed the room before anyone moved. Kellan put down the lamp he had been about to return. Sera looked toward the door. Juno closed the report folder without fastening it, keeping one finger between the pages as if she expected whatever came next to concern a missing figure.
Tessa knew what Eli meant to say. She had asked him whether he wanted her to begin, and he had said no. The choice had seemed clear in the quiet before the others arrived. Now he wanted desperately to let her find the first words.
He checked that the borrowed room was private. No shelter patients were waiting outside, no volunteer was treating the meeting as an overflow desk. Their current duties had been handed over. The clinical stop remained in effect; he was not going anywhere afterward to demonstrate the claim.
“I remember a life before this one,” he said.
Nobody answered.
“I lived through years that haven’t happened here. I died in a raid. Then I woke earlier, before the gates opened publicly. I’ve been making decisions using what I remembered.”
Kellan looked at Tessa. She did not nod as though her agreement could establish the event.
