<h4>Chapter 1138: Chapter 1138</h4>


    Behind him, the others were slowly waking. Rose stretched like a cat beside the fire, her dress sliding dangerously up her thigh before she noticed Jude watching and offered a wink. Sophie stepped out of the treehouse barefoot, rubbing her eyes and smiling when she saw him. One by one, they joined the slow rhythm of morning, as if savoring the quiet while itsted.


    No new watchersigns. No false smiles. No second versions of themselves lingering near the trees.


    Yet.


    Still, Jude couldn’t shake the weight of thest sign, Yours. But not forever. It wasn’t a threat. It was a reminder. This moment, this fragile calm, it wouldn’tst.


    Natalie and Grace took to making breakfast, slicing through fruits and wild roots with ease. La and Susan wandered to the river to wash the y off their legs from the night before. Lucy took Jude’s arm and leaned against him, murmuring, "You look like you’re waiting for the sky to fall."


    "Not the sky," he said. "Her."


    Zoey joined them a secondter, hair still damp from a rinse. "Then maybe don’t spend the whole morning brooding. Kiss someone."


    Lucy grinned. "That’s always your answer."


    "And it works."


    She grabbed Jude’s face and kissed him before he could reply, her mouth confident and warm, her body pressing into his just enough to make his blood heat. He smiled as they parted, and even Zoey cracked a half-grin.


    That was the energy that carried them through the morning, touches, teasing, stolen kisses. Emma and Ste worked quietly with ropes and tools, reinforcing traps along the nearby perimeter while Scarlet and Sophie reviewed their crude map of the ind, marking spots where watchersigns had appeared and faded. But nothing felt urgent. The ind let them breathe. And they breathed each other in like it was sacred.


    By midday, they moved deeper into the forest to gather wood and berries. It was Jude, Rose, La, Sophie, and Zoey this time, an unspoken formation that always worked. They knew each other’s paces, moods, habits. Jude and Sophie led, des at their sides. Rose hummed quietly as she picked fruit, hips swaying. La followed just behind her, fingers asionally brushing Rose’s lower back, eyes lingering longer than usual.


    "You’re doing it again," Zoey said to La with a teasing edge.


    "Doing what?"


    "That thing. The ’I want her but I won’t admit it’ thing."


    La smirked. "What makes you think I haven’t had her already?"


    Zoey looked at Rose, who tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave no answer, just that slow, secret smile. Jude nced at Sophie, who arched a brow but said nothing. It was always like this:yers of flirtation hiding real feelings, and under that, the ache of what they’d all been through. The things Elyara had stirred up hadn’t vanished. They just shifted into a different form.


    As they made their way toward the bend of the river, Jude felt it.


    The air changed.


    Not colder. Not warmer. Just... charged.


    Sophie stopped walking.


    Rose’s body stiffened.


    They all felt it.


    Jude turned to the trees, no movement. No watchersign. Just that tingling sensation behind the eyes. That whisper in the blood. It passed quickly, leaving only silence.


    "She’s watching," Rose whispered.


    "She never stopped," Sophie said.


    Zoey pulled out her knife and muttered, "Well, she’s getting one hell of a show."


    Back at camp, things were calmer. Susan and Grace braided each other’s hair while Lucy and Emma traded foot massages, the two women perched across from each other on opposite ends of a nket. Scarlet had her head in Ste’sp, eyes closed, humming softly while Ste drewzy shapes on her arm.


    It should have felt peaceful.


    It didn’t.


    When the gathering group returned, the shift was immediate. Eyes met. Fingers tensed. Rose handed Natalie the gathered berries with a quiet nod, and La crouched beside the fire as if trying to warm hands that weren’t cold.


    Jude sat with Sophie in the dirt and held her hand. "You felt that too."


    She nodded.


    "Then we’re not imagining it."


    "No," she said softly. "But maybe we’re supposed to."


    He looked at her.


    "She’s not pushing anymore," Sophie continued. "She’s letting things happen. Letting us be confused."


    The sun was dipping lower now, and the heat of the day began to break. They lit the fire early, closer together than usual. And Jude noticed it again, Rose’s nce at La. Zoey watching them both. Emma scanning the group not like a soldier, but like a mother guarding something too sacred to name.


    Dinner was quiet.


    After, the fire burned down, and most of them drifted toward rest. But La lingered. She moved through the camp with a grace that made it impossible to look away. When she stood, the shadows curved around her. When sheughed, it sounded like water. Her eyes gleamed just a little too bright in the firelight.


    She approached Zoey while she was cleaning her de.


    "Need help?" La asked.


    Zoey nced up. "Since when do you care about weapons? You always acted like you hated them?"


    "I don’t." La leaned in, close enough to brush her lips against Zoey’s ear. "But I do care about who’s holding them. Isn’t that a good reason to help?"


    Zoey didn’t flinch. But she didn’t speak either.


    La’s fingers touched her cheek, traced her jaw.


    And kissed her.


    It was slow at first, curious. Familiar. Then it deepened, Zoey’s hands rising to pull La in, their bodies pressing together in the warm dark as thest firelight flickered out.


    From across the camp, Jude watched.


    Sophie watched too.


    They didn’t interrupt.


    But when Zoey pulled back, lips swollen, breath unsteady, there it was.


    That smile.


    The one Rose had worn after the river.


    The one La had picked up in the days after.


    Now Zoey wore it too.


    And neither Jude nor Sophie said a word.


    But inside, they both knew:


    She had taken another one.