Raven’s POV Peace was not a silence. It had a sound that symbolized it,a texture and a weight that was heavy.The house creaked differently these days. Not like it was bracing for something, but like it had exhaled. The kind of breath you didn’t notice until it was gone. Doors no longer slammed in warning they just closed. Brio no longer patrolled at night; he curled himself around Elias’s feet, snored, and occasionally let out a bark in his dreams.I should’ve been relieved but I was still tense in a way I couldn't really explain. I tried to fix the garden fence.Matteo had pointed it out gently, just a comment over coffee. “Might want to reinforce the back slats. We’ve had deer lately.” He didn’t mean anything by it.But twenty minutes later, I was in the yard with a toolbox, sleeves rolled up, every movement a little too forceful. I hammered until the nails split the wood. Then Re-nailed them,I tore the panel off again then fixed it slower. My hands shook by the time I stopped.“Y
Raven’s POV The mornings were different now,they weren't quieter or safer but just more honest. There was no pretending the world outside had changed, but inside we knew we had. The air in the house felt denser, not with fear but with something that almost resembled purpose. I started waking before the sun and not because I expected danger. That was new.I started building a shelf,a small one for books. The wood was uneven, the brackets didn’t align, and Elias said it was crooked. Matteo inspected it like it was an architectural marvel then declared it had “character.” Brio jumped on it the second it was stable enough to hold a loaf of bread, curled up in the sun patch like he’d commissioned the damn thing. I left it as it was as it didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to be ours.On Tuesdays, Matteo and Elias walked to the town’s library. They brought back books on history, woodworking, and something Elias called “space poetry,” which seemed to be about moons feeling things. “You
Raven’s POV It rained for four days straight,it wasn't a soft drizzle or the cinematic kind. Just sky-emptying, bone-saturating rain that made the walls weep and the pipes hum like dying monks.Brio hated it as he refused to go outside. He stared at the door like it had betrayed him.Elias loved it,he said the sky was finally being honest.Matteo tolerated it, saying it was good for the basil.I watched the water crawl down the window and wondered if healing had a sound. Maybe it was this.Maybe it was thunder that didn’t feel like a warning. Franca was still here,kind of. She’d taken the upstairs room the one we never painted. Claimed it helped her stay unattached.We let her because attachment was something we’d learned to ask for, not assume.She never said why she came back.But every time Elias asked her a question, she answered like someone who’d never left.We started eating dinner later,more laughsin between,more interruptions,more hands reaching for salt and stories.And El
Raven’s POV It rained for four days straight,it wasn't a soft drizzle or the cinematic kind. Just sky-emptying, bone-saturating rain that made the walls weep and the pipes hum like dying monks.Brio hated it as he refused to go outside. He stared at the door like it had betrayed him.Elias loved it,he said the sky was finally being honest.Matteo tolerated it, saying it was good for the basil.I watched the water crawl down the window and wondered if healing had a sound. Maybe it was this.Maybe it was thunder that didn’t feel like a warning. Franca was still here,kind of. She’d taken the upstairs room the one we never painted. Claimed it helped her stay unattached.We let her because attachment was something we’d learned to ask for, not assume.She never said why she came back.But every time Elias asked her a question, she answered like someone who’d never left.We started eating dinner later,more laughsin between,more interruptions,more hands reaching for salt and stories.And El
Matteo’s POV There’s a rhythm to quiet lives a gentle beat between routines. You wake, you breathe, you eat. You pretend your hands never touched triggers or dossiers or the last breath of someone who didn’t duck fast enough.You pick herbs, you fix chairs while also teaching a kid how to make pancakes without weaponizing the stove.And if you’re lucky very lucky you tend to forget how heavy doors used to feel.I used to count exits in every room,now I forget to lock the front door.Progress?....maybe.Or maybe I just trust the kid to bark loud enough for both of us.Raven says I mumble more now which she likes, saying it makes me sound like a farmer.Elias calls me “The Whisperer.” Claims it’s mysterious while I call it peace although I still keep a hammer by the fridge, not for intruders but for repairs.Elias started a new project, A map….not of cities or roads but of us. One dot for where Raven found himOne dot for where Brio was nearly arrested for barking at a politician, anot
Raven’s POV There are moments you can’t prepare for.Like the first time a kid you’re raising walks into the room with a split lip and says, “I didn’t hit him back.” Or the second time.Elias had been at the new school for five days.We chose it because it was small. Because it didn’t have uniforms and because the principal didn’t ask about guardianship documents and instead told us to bring cookies on Thursdays which made me like her.So when Elias came home with blood on his shirt and silence in his throat, I didn’t react like I used to. I didn't reach for the guns or made any threats. I Just got a chair pulled out and a bottle of antiseptic.Matteo hovered nearby. He was better at the soft questions.“What happened?”“Someone said I looked like a terrorist.”My fingers curled without permission.“And?” Matteo asked.“I didn’t hit him. I just looked at him until he stopped talking.”“Good,” I said. “Fear is a better teacher than violence.”Elias smirked. “You would know.”We made