Mira found Eli still awake with the family summary in front of him.
He had written three possible outcomes and spent longer on the space beneath them than on the words. Questions for the people affected. It looked generous until he asked who would decide which answers mattered. Then the blank became a confession.
“You’ve left out what happens if we do nothing,” she said.
“It’s in the first paragraph now.”
“I mean what it looks like.”
He put the pencil down. The bakery’s side room had been cleared for the injured scout. Tessa was still checking the clinic shifts. Only the two of them remained in this corner, with the private knowledge that neither of their fears began in the present crisis.
Mira sat opposite him. For a while she said nothing. When she began speaking, she did not describe a prophecy. She described waiting.
In the future she remembered, people had asked for one more verification, one more agreement, a better estimate before abandoning an established route. She remembered those who stayed with the work and those who never came back from it. Some details had blurred. Some she could only distinguish as things she had been told afterward. The part that remained sharp was the time spent persuading herself that another hour would produce the evidence everyone needed.
