They didn’t stay in the corridor.

  Father Mallory made the decision without announcing it, the way people did when they’d already spent their courage elsewhere. He turned, touched the doorframe once like it was something solid enough to lean on, and gestured them toward the hall with a tilt of his head.

  “Come through,” he said. Not kindly. Not sharply. Just practical.

  The parish hall smelled warmer than the vestry. Old heating pipes ticking into life. Tea that had gone untouched long enough to sour. Someone had left a plate of biscuits half-covered with foil, the edge curled back like it had been forgotten mid-thought.

  Chairs were stacked badly along one wall. A few still stood in uneven rows, as if the meeting had stopped rather than ended.

  Skye hesitated at the threshold.

  No one noticed except Alice — which was its own kind of noticing.

  Skye could still feel the corridor behind her: voices, phones, the weight of being seen. Here, the ceiling was lower. The light softer. The world smaller in a way that didn’t feel like hiding so much as containment.

  She stepped in on her own.

  That was the difference. No hand at her wrist. No pressure at her back. Just her, choosing the floor beneath her feet.

  Dad followed a half-step behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him without touching. He kept his eyes on the room like it might change shape if he looked away.

  A few people drifted in after them — not the whole crowd. Just the ones who didn’t know where else to go yet. Someone murmured about it being late. Someone else checked their watch and didn’t leave anyway.

  Father Mallory moved to the radio on the counter near the sink. It was old enough to hum when it was turned on, the sound of effort before sound of speech.

  Skye noticed the way his hand paused on the dial.

  The radio crackled, then settled into a voice already mid-sentence.

  “...—ongoing situation in central London. Armed units have established a perimeter around the French Embassy following reports of—”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Someone scoffed softly. Not disbelief. Just fatigue.

  “London’s always on fire,” a man muttered near the chairs. “That or Paris.”

  The voice on the radio kept going, calm in that precise way that meant trained.

  “...hostages are believed to be inside the building. Police have urged the public to avoid the area while specialist officers—”

  For half a second, the radio warbled—not static, not signal loss, something softer, like the voice was speaking through water—then it snapped back as if nothing had happened.

  The kettle clicked off behind it. Too loud. Someone poured water anyway, missed the cup slightly, swore under their breath.

  Skye listened without leaning into it. It sounded far away. Another country. Another scale of disaster that didn’t know her name and didn’t care.

  She was tired in a way that went past fear.

  Father Mallory reached out and turned the volume down — not off, just low enough that it became texture instead of information.

  “I think,” he said quietly, “we have enough dread for one evening.”

  No one argued.

  The radio kept murmuring — clipped phrases, acronyms, places Skye had been to once on a school trip and never thought about again.

  CTSFO. Armed response. Negotiators.

  None of it landed.

  What landed was the scrape of a chair as Alice dragged it closer and sat, elbows on her knees, hands clasped too tightly together.

  What landed was Dad finally sitting too, like standing had become unsustainable.

  Skye didn’t sit.

  She moved instead — a few steps toward the long table, where someone had left a paper tablecloth creased with use. She pressed her fingertips flat against it, grounding herself in the texture: cheap plastic, faintly sticky, real.

  She was still here.

  Across the room, someone cleared their throat.

  “I should head off,” a woman said, already gathering her coat. She didn’t look at Skye when she said it. Not out of cruelty. Out of not knowing what looking meant anymore.

  Others followed. Quiet goodbyes. Avoided eyes. A sense of something unfinished but acknowledged.

  The hall thinned.

  The radio murmured on.

  “...unconfirmed reports of gunfire—”

  Father Mallory turned it off completely this time. The silence afterward rang.

  “We’ll stay here for a bit,” he said, glancing around the room, then — deliberately — at Skye. “It’s easier to keep track of who’s coming and going.”

  Skye nodded.

  Not because she agreed. Because she understood the logic and chose not to fight it.

  She slid into a chair at last, the plastic seat flexing under her weight. Her ribs complained quietly. She ignored them.

  Dad shifted closer, close enough that their knees almost touched.

  “You okay?” he asked, low.

  Skye considered lying.

  “I’m here,” she said instead.

  He nodded like that was enough to hold onto for now.

  Outside, rain ticked against the high windows, light but insistent. Somewhere beyond the walls, engines moved. Sirens rose and faded without committing to meaning.

  Far away — so far it might as well have been another life — a building was full of people who hadn’t come home yet.

  Skye didn’t know that.

  But the radio had known.

  And somewhere in that distance, something violent and contained was already moving toward its end — fast, brutal, and necessary.

  Skye folded her hands together on the table and stayed where she was.

  The hall settled around her, not safe, not calm — just held.

  And the night kept going.