Page 28 of Rook

“Because you can restart when you die?”

“Something like that,” I admit, nudging her playfully with my elbow. “Your turn again. Keep your eyes up, anticipate their moves.”

“Like chess?” She’s goading me now, but I let it slide.

“Exactly, except the pieces shoot back.” I watch her take down another virtual soldier, her movements growing more confident, fluid. “You’re picking this up fast for someone whose tech skills consist of turning on a flashlight.”

“Maybe I’ve found my calling.” She grins. “Ruling the digital battlefield from a sofa throne.”

“Long as you don’t overthrow me. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” I feign seriousness, but she just laughs, the sound cutting through the room’s static air.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Rook. Where would I be without my trusty gaming mentor?”

“Probably sleeping, like normal people.” I shrug, but neither of us wants normal. Not when the night holds possibilities like these—simple, uncomplicated moments where the past doesn’t exist and futures aren’t planned.

“Who needs normal?” Aisling says, echoing my thoughts, and something tightens in my chest—a coil wound too firm, ready to spring.

“Nobody I care about,” I reply.

We go quiet as she practices, taking on an easier level than she thinks. Still, I watch as she gets better by the second—which I guess I should have assumed she would, since I’ve seen her use a gun.

“Primitive tech’s all I had, you know?” Aisling says, thumbing the controller with a grace that belies her inexperience. “No screens, no virtual reality. Just the wind and the chessboard.”

“Who taught you?”

“My grandmother,” she says. “Bronwyn Faye, fearless leader of the Garden. She was more of a strategist than I ever realized when she was alive.”

“You feel like chess taught you about the city?”

“Something like that,” she replies, her grey eyes flickering with a challenge. “I’ve always seen it that way. Pieces moving across the board, the quiet threat of war—it was real enough for me, almost as real as now.”

“Real enough to beat me at it,” I recall with a smirk, remembering the tense lines of our bodies as we faced off over the chessboard. “That night before Dreamland—you outmaneuvered me with a damn knight.”

“Surprised you?” Her lips twist up in a half-smile, the memory etching itself across her features.

“Nothing about you doesn’t surprise me, Stargazer.” I drop the controller, the game forgotten, as I replay that evening in my mind—the prelude to chaos, when she was with Gunnar and things were just starting to look like change.

“Good,” she says, her voice softer now. “I hate being predictable.”

“Predictable’s the last thing you are.” Our eyes lock, and there’s a truth hanging between us, heavy and unspoken, a moment suspended in time as profound as any strategy laid out on a checkered battlefield.

The silence stretches between us, thick as the night outside. Aisling’s gaze doesn’t waver, something flitting behind those stormy eyes that I can’t quite catch. It’s like she’s daring me to dive in, to swim through whatever’s brewing inside her head. But neither of us moves. The air is static, charged with a current that neither of us has the guts to ground.

“Did you grow up playing this stuff?” Her voice cuts through the tension, a knife slicing clean and quick.

Thank fuck…because if someone hadn’t said something, I was going to kiss her.

And that would be…

I can’t think about that right now.

I chuckle, shaking my head. “Yeah. Me and the boys would huddle around a single screen, shoot at anything that moved.” My fingers itch for the controller I’ve set aside, but I don’t reach for it. “Wasn’t much else to do where I came from.”

“Sounds…normal.” She says the word like it’s foreign, rolling it around in her mouth before spitting it out.

“I had the full pre-Mutation experience. Suburban Ireland, family of betas, not a care in the world except for what game was hot that season. We weren’t rich by a long shot—that was reserved for European Authority alphas—but we were comfortable enough.”

“Suburban…” she trails off, rolling the concept around like it’s a relic from another life. “What was that like?”

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