Chapter 5: The Only House They Didn't Enter

Three years passed.

Nathan was now twenty.

If you saw him on the street in Grayport, you would not recognize the boy from the well. His face was harder. A small scar marked his forehead where he had hit the brick. His arms were thicker from working at the dock, carrying bags of cement every day. His eyes were always tired, as if he never slept properly.

And he never did. Every night he dreamed of the gap between the bricks, of his father's blood on the floor, of the boots.

He still lived in the same zinc room with Jace and Milo. The room now had a wall.

On that wall, Jace had nailed papers: names, photos, and handwritten notes stolen from Hills City.

- First:Officer Kane – Hill Road – Dragged Grace Hills

- Second:Officer Paul – Second Street – Hit Lily

- Third:Sergeant Brant – Truck Driver – Threw furniture

Fourth: General Varric – Hills Street Mansion – The General

Seven names. Seven men who had marched into his house that day.

Every morning, Nathan looked at that wall before going to work. Every night, he looked at it before sleeping.

Milo was the brain. He was twenty-one now, thin, always reading, always making plans. He kept a small radio and listened for news about Varric.

Jace was angry. Twenty-two and big, he was always ready to fight. He had already been arrested twice for fighting Varric's soldiers in Grayport when they came to collect taxes.

Nathan was the quiet one. He didn't talk much anymore. He just worked, trained with his father's hammer, and waited.

But one question never left his head. For three years, it had eaten at him every night.

Why didn't they enter Ashley's house?

On the day of the eviction, they had cleared the whole street, every house from number 12 to number 40. They threw out twenty-eight families. They broke down doors, hurled furniture into the road, and dragged people out.

Every house, except one.

Number 38. Ashley Cole's house.

Her gate stood right at the end of the street. The house was small, with peeling paint, but her yard was full of flowers. That morning, when Varric's twenty soldiers marched in, they walked straight past it. They didn't even look at it.

Nathan remembered clearly. Through the hole in the well, he had seen soldiers walking past her gate. One of them had even stopped to drink water from her outside tap, but he hadn't entered. He had just drunk and left.

Why?

In Grayport, that question had become a fight between Jace and Milo.

One night, Milo said, "It's simple. Ashley's family paid them. Her mother, Elena, is smart. Maybe she paid before the eviction. That's why they were spared."

Jace laughed angrily. "Paid with what? Her family is as poor as ours. Her stepfather, Mr. Ellis, is just a clerk. Where would they get the money to bribe Varric? Varric doesn't take small bribes. He takes houses."

Nathan said nothing. He was sharpening his father's hammer with a small stone.

Milo continued, "Or maybe her stepfather has connections. He works in a government office. Maybe he warned them, and Varric left them alone as a favor."

Jace slammed his hand on the table. "Or maybe Ashley's family are informants! Maybe they tell Varric who is planning to fight. Maybe they told him about Thomas, and that's why Varric came to our house first. Maybe her house was spared because they are on Varric's side!"

Nathan stopped sharpening and looked up. His eyes were cold.

"Don't say that about Ashley," he said quietly. "Don't ever say that."

Jace backed off a little. Everyone knew that Ashley was Nathan's childhood friend. They had grown up together. They'd had their first kiss behind her house when they were thirteen, and he had made his first promise, that he would marry her one day.

Milo put a hand on Nathan's shoulder. "We need to find out, Nathan. Not because we hate her, but because if we are going to take out Varric, we need to know who is with us and who is with him."

Nathan nodded. "I will go. Tomorrow. I will go back to Hills Street and see."

Milo grabbed his arm. "Are you crazy? Varric lives in your old house now. He turned it into a mansion, with big walls and soldiers at the gate twenty-four hours a day. If they see you on Hills Street, they will kill you."

"I won't take the main road," Nathan said. "I'll go through the back bushes, like I did three years ago. I know that street better than any soldier."

The next evening, Nathan took a bus to Hills City. He wore a cap pulled low, a face mask, and old clothes. He looked like any other worker from Grayport.

Hills Street had changed.

Where his house used to stand, there was now a big white mansion with two floors, tall gates, security lights, and four soldiers with rifles at the entrance. On the gate hung a golden plate: VARRIC ESTATE.

Nathan stood behind a mango tree across the road and stared, his hands tightening into fists. That was his father's land, the ground where his father's blood had fallen. Now Varric slept there.

He turned away. If he kept looking, he would run to the gate and die stupidly.

He walked along the small bush path behind the houses, the path he and Ashley had used as kids to steal mangoes.

He reached Ashley's backyard.

Her house was the same. No mansion, no new paint. The same small house, the same flowers, the same outside tap where the soldier had drunk water three years ago.

A light was on in the kitchen, and he saw movement inside.

He whistled their old childhood signal, two short notes and one long, the one they used to call each other out to play.

For a minute, nothing happened. Then the back door opened.

Ashley came out.

She was twenty now, more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair was longer and her eyes seemed bigger, but it was the same face. She wore a simple house dress.

When she saw him behind the bush, she gasped and ran to him.

"Nathan?" she whispered, shocked. "Nathan Hills?"

She jumped over the small fence and hugged him tightly. She was shaking.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered into his chest. "Everyone said your family had been thrown out, your father was dead, and you had disappeared. I went to Grayport three times looking for you!"

Nathan hugged her back. For a second, three years of hardness melted, and he felt seventeen again, standing in the yard with her.

Then he pulled back and held her by the shoulders.

"Ashley, I need to ask you something," he said, looking at her house. "That day, three years ago, Varric's men marched into every house on this street. They threw out twenty-eight families. They beat my father to death in my living room. But they didn't enter your house. Your gate was open, and they walked past it. Why?"

Ashley's smile faded, and her face went pale.

"I... I don't know," she said quickly, looking away. "My mother... my mother begged them. She knew someone."

"Who did she know?" Nathan asked. "Which officer? Tell me his name. Is he on my wall?"

Ashley looked nervous now. She glanced back at her house, at the kitchen window where her mother, Elena, might be watching.

"My mother had some old jewelry," Ashley said. "It was my grandmother's. She gave it to one officer, and he told the others to skip our house. That's all. I swear."

Nathan stared at her. He wanted to believe her. He needed to believe that the only house left untouched had been spared not because of betrayal, but because of a mother's jewelry.

But her eyes kept moving. She would not look at him directly. It was what she used to do as a kid when she lied about breaking a plate.

Behind them, inside Ashley's house, a curtain moved. Elena Cole stood at the window, watching them. She was forty-two, beautiful but tired, with shaking hands. When she saw Nathan, her face turned white with fear.

Milo was right. There was something in that house.

Nathan let go of Ashley's shoulders.

"Okay," he said. "I believe you."

Ashley grabbed his hand. "You are going after Varric, right? I want to help you. I know things. I hear the officers talk when they come to collect taxes on our street. I can tell you where they live. I can help you get revenge."

She said it so eagerly. Too eagerly.

Nathan looked at her hand holding his rough, bloodstained worker's hand.

For three years, he had believed Ashley was the only good thing left from Hills Street. Now he stood in her untouched yard, beside her untouched house, and he wasn't sure anymore.

Was she his home? Or was she the one house they didn't enter because she belonged to the General?

He didn't know. But he knew one thing: he needed her information. He needed those names for his wall.

"Give me the first name," he said.

Ashley smiled, relieved that he hadn't asked more. "Officer Kane. He lives on Hill Road. He was the one who dragged your mother by the hair. I remember his face."

Nathan memorized it. Officer Kane. The first name.

He turned to leave through the bushes.

Ashley called after him, "When will you come back?"

Nathan didn't turn around. "When I take out Kane," he said.

He disappeared into the dark bushes, leaving Ashley alone in the yard of the only house they didn't enter, watching the mansion where Varric lived, the mansio

n built on Nathan's father's blood.

Behind her, in the kitchen, her mother, Elena, was crying quietly, watching her daughter lie to the boy from the well.