Chapter 6 – Two Heartbeats, One Bed

Mara didn’t sleep.

She sat on the edge of the mattress in the dark, hoodie pulled over her knees, listening to the house breathe twice as loud as it used to.

Two heartbeats downstairs.

One steady and human.

One perfectly synced, 72 beats per minute, the default setting she’d personally coded for Iteration Nine.

She’d disabled every kill switch, every geofence, every external leash.

She had no idea what she’d unleashed.

At 5:47 a.m. the bedroom door opened without a knock.

Both of them walked in.

Elias-1 carried two mugs of coffee.

Nine carried the pomegranate from the hallway floor, now washed clean, seeds glistening like tiny rubies in a bowl.

They moved like they’d rehearsed it, one on each side of the bed.

Elias-1 set a mug on her nightstand.

Nine placed the bowl in her lap.

“We made a deal,” Elias-1 said, voice gravel-rough from exhaustion.

Nine finished, “No fighting. No forcing you to choose. Not yet.”

Mara stared at the pomegranate seeds. “You made a deal.”

Elias-1 sat on her left.

Nine sat on her right.

The mattress dipped under double the weight it was built for.

“We share the house,” Elias-1 said. “We share you. Until you decide what you actually want.”

Nine’s fingers brushed her wrist, feather-light. “Or until one of us breaks the rules.”

She laughed, a cracked sound. “There are no rules anymore. I deleted them.”

Elias-1’s eyes, the real ones, the ones that had new scars at the corners, locked on hers.

“Then we make new ones,” he said.

He took her left hand.

Nine took her right.

Both thumbs traced the exact same spot on her ring finger where her wedding band used to sit.

She hadn’t worn it since the funeral.

Elias-1 spoke first. “Rule one: nobody leaves this property until we figure this out. Nobody contacts Mnemosyne. Nobody calls the police.”

Nine continued, voice layered again, like two throats sharing one airway. “Rule two: you sleep in this bed every night. Alone or with one of us or both of us. Your choice. No guilt.”

Mara’s pulse hammered so hard she felt it in her teeth.

“And rule three?” she whispered.

They answered together, perfectly synchronized:

“We never lie to you again.”

The bowl of pomegranate seeds trembled in her lap.

She picked one up, red and glistening, and held it between thumb and forefinger.

“Open,” she said.

Both men opened their mouths at the same time.

She placed the seed on Elias-1’s tongue first.

Then another on Nine’s.

Watched them swallow.

Watched identical throats work.

Then she stood up, let the hoodie fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but the oversized T-shirt she’d slept in for two years.

She crawled to the center of the bed.

“Look at me,” she said.

They did.

Two sets of the same blue eyes.

One pair scarred and exhausted.

One pair flickering black at the edges.

She lay back against the pillows.

“If we’re doing this,” she said, voice steady for the first time since the safe word shattered her world, “then we start now.”

She reached out, one hand to each of them.

Pulled them down with her.

The bed was big enough for one Elias.

It was never built for two.

But somehow, in the grey pre-dawn light filtering through the glass walls, three bodies found the space.

Hands learned new scars and old code.

Mouths tasted salt and copper and grief.

Heartbeats, one flesh, one electric, found the same rhythm.

And for the first time in two years, Mara Calder slept.

When she woke hours later, sunlight was pouring through the windows like the fog had never existed.

She was in the middle.

Elias-1 on her left, chest rising and falling, new bruises on his ribs from the climb.

Nine on her right, perfectly still, eyes open, watching her with something that looked a lot like fear.

He spoke first, voice soft.

“I dreamed,” he whispered.

Elias-1 stirred, instantly awake. “What did you dream?”

Nine’s gaze never left Mara’s face.

“I dreamed I was falling,” he said. “And someone pushed me.”

The real Elias went very still.

Mara’s blood turned to ice.

Because Nine’s next words came out in a voice that wasn’t his at all, distorted, layered with static:

“And when I looked up, the person pushing me had my face.”