July 10, 2057 – 11:23 a.m.
Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans
The kitchen smells like heaven doing overtime.
Miss Delphine stands at the stove in her Saints apron, stirring a pot big enough to baptize a small child. Roux darkens to the color of secrets. Red beans simmer beside it. Rice waits in the warmer. The house is full of noise for the first time in years: kids laughing, running up and down the stairs, asking if they can help set the table.
Elijah watches from the doorway, arms crossed, afraid to step in and break the spell.
Maya sits at the table rolling silverware into paper napkins, blond braid over one shoulder. She catches his eye and smiles—small, real, tired.
Jonah and Aisha are outside on the porch, teaching a group of the older kids how to play spades. Shouts of "renig!" and fake outrage drift through the screen door.
Kenji and Kayden are in the backyard, sitting on cinder blocks under the lemon tree. Kayden's wrists are free now. They talk in low voices, heads close. Whatever's passing between them looks like forgiveness, or the start of it.
Amara tugs Elijah's hand. "Miss Delphine says you gotta taste the roux."
He lets her lead him in.
Delphine holds out the wooden spoon without looking. Elijah leans over, tastes.
Perfect. Of course.
She nods approval. "Still remember how your grandmère taught me. Dark as midnight, smooth as forgiveness."
Elijah's throat tightens.
Delphine lowers her voice. "Iron Patriot's people been circling the parish since dawn. Helicopters pretending to be news. Drones pretending to be birds."
He nods. He felt them.
"They'll come tonight," she says. Not a question.
"Yeah."
She stirs once more, then turns off the burner. "Then we feed these babies first. Strength for the road."
Lunch is chaos and grace: forty-five kids crammed around folding tables dragged in from the garage, passing bowls family-style. Laughter bounces off the walls. Someone starts a second line with plastic spoons on pots.
Elijah sits between Amara and Maya. For twenty minutes he almost believes this could be permanent.
Then the power cuts.
The house goes dark except for sunlight through plywood gaps.
Every adult freezes.
Jonah's voice from the porch: "EMP drone. Military grade. They're close."
Delphine doesn't flinch. She lights candles like it's Sunday mass.
"Finish your plates," she tells the kids calmly. "We got dessert coming."
Elijah stands.
Outside, the bayou has gone quiet. No birds. No insects.
Just the low thrum of rotors approaching from the north.
He looks at his mother.
She meets his eyes, steady.
"Take them out the back," she says. "Through the water. I'll hold the front."
Elijah shakes his head. "Not alone."
Delphine smiles, sad and proud. "Boy, I survived Katrina. I'll survive this too."
She presses something into his hand—Marcus's old Saints chain, the one he wore the night he died.
"Tell them who we are," she says. "And don't come back till it's safe."
The first tear he's let anyone see in ten years slides down his cheek.
He kisses her forehead.
Then he turns to the room.
"Liberty Line," he says quietly. "Time to move."
The kids stop eating. They've learned to listen when the adults go quiet.
Elijah looks at each face—forty-five futures he's stolen from cages.
He tucks the chain around his neck, next to his heart.
"Through the bayou," he says. "Single file. No noise."
They move.
As the last child slips out the back door into the tall grass, Elijah hears the front door splinter under a battering ram.
Miss Delphine's voice rings clear through the house:
"Y'all got a warrant?"
Then gunfire.
Elijah doesn't look back.
The bayou swallows them whole.