Page 52 of Created in Chaos
“I…I guess I do.” Her eyes move from left to right, scanning the floor for some unseen vision. “There were at least four—no, five, I think, and they did wear the stupid cloaks.” She gets surer with every word.
“The study rooms aren’t that big,” I confirm. I remember opening the door to look for her and finding the couple fucking. It would be impossible to cram that many people in there with the desk and chairs.
“Maybe they brought more the second time because she fought back,” Nox offers.
“I didn’t fight anything. I reacted and got lucky, that’s all,” Nova replies, diminishing getting away.
“Do you remember the date? It would be helpful.” I don’t think Morozov would enjoy countless hours of watching a bunch of kids sneaking off to fuck, but I could be wrong.
“It was a few days before I started class. I could figure it out easily enough.” Nova seems confident.
“I’ll let him know.”
“Him who?”
“Morozov. He’s been around.”
“He’s our tech guy,” Nox adds.
“Do you think they’ll actually still have footage from that long ago? It’s been a while.” Nova rubs her thumbnail across her lip as she thinks.
“We’ll know soon enough. Let’s see if we can pin down the date within a day or two.”
“Okay.” Nova nods with purpose and pulls the phone we gave her out of her back pocket. She had to create a completely new user ID, since the old one could have been compromised, so I’m thinking she’s just looking at the calendar for reference.
“Between the seventeenth and the twenty-first, but probably toward the end of that week.” She looks up at me. “Sorry, I don’t remember what day it was.”
“That’s more than I had to go on.”
“What is this? You’re not eating my food?” Gertrude slinks into the room like a phantom.
“No, we are.” Nox moves to keep her from clearing the table.
“This has been out for too long. Why’d you not tell me you’d be late? Wasteful ????????.” Gertrude’s accent always gets thicker when she’s aggravated.
“We had business.” I thwart her interference with a simple explanation I know she will understand.
“Fine, eat. Get sick.” She throws her hands in the air and floats out of the room in her long-ass dress.
“It’s still good, Gertie, we won’t get sick,” Nox tells her disappearing back.
“I would be dead if eating food that’s been out an hour went bad.” Nova huffs. “My mom would leave stuff out all the time and pass out. I still ate it.”
It’s one of the first times she’s mentioned her mom casually, and the “pass out” comment doesn’t seem encouraging. I had Morozov dig up what he could about Nova and her family’s past, and it was a total shitshow—several evictions, a horrible job history for her dad, and two DUIs for her mom. Thinking about what she had to deal with while we were here having our every whim catered to makes me want to rip her grandmother’s fingernails out and shove them down her fucking throat.
“She made that soup you like,” Nox says, pulling the lid off the pot in the center of the table.
“With the potatoes?” That draws her closer.
“And mushrooms,” Nox adds enticingly as our eyes meet over her head, and there’s a silent exchange between us. He didn’t like the comment about her mother either. We both already assumed she was a drunk, since the news articles about the accident stated alcohol played a role in the crash, but it seems like her mom might have been smashed most of the time. It makes me wonder if her dad was a drinker too. Why else did he lose so many jobs? I don’t know how to bring it up though, or if there’s even a reason to. It’s not like we can do anything about it now by dragging up ancient history.
“It’s still warm,” Nova comments, ladling the soup into a bowl to set in front of Nox. “Want me to put it in the microwave?” Her hand is still on his bowl.
“You can do yours first.”
“This is fine for me,” she replies, looking at me and holding the second bowl she just filled. “Want it warmed?”
“Eat, I’ll get mine. You don’t need to serve us.”