The lazy genius has 5 mates

chapter 49

The Vault lights dimmed back to their usual soft glow.

No alarms.
No pulses.
No screaming red warnings.

Just... silence.

The kind that followed after the kind of adrenaline that shook bone and breath.

Roxanne stood in the center of the dome, still as a sculpture, fingers curled slightly at her sides. Her mates stayed around her like an orbit that didn't want to break. Cain and Loman hovered nearby, unsure if they were witnessing the aftermath of genius—or the quiet before a storm.

Holwen stepped forward first.

"Roxy," he said gently, "you need to step away from the console."

She blinked, as if only now remembering she had a body connected to the world.

"I'm fine," she answered automatically.

Six people exhaled at the same time.

She was not fine.

Abel crossed his arms.
"You haven't moved in seven minutes."

Zolekh corrected, "Seven minutes, fifty-three seconds."

Rolkan added, "And your face is doing that blank, soulless, I-am-processing-eighteen-traumas look."

Cain's brow lifted.
"She does have that face."

Loman nodded sagely.
"Classic Rox meltdown face."

Roxanne reacted on instinct.

"No meltdown. I'm just... recalibrating."

Holwen approached her slowly, like approaching a sleepwalking tiger.

"Then let us recalibrate with you."

She hated how that sentence made something in her chest warm.

But she didn't argue.

Holwen took her hand.

Zolekh closed her laptop.
Abel gently shut down the holographics.
Helixiar flicked off the external feeds.

Rolkan slung an arm around Cain and Loman as if they were all starring in a very dramatic drama poster.

Then Zolekh clapped his hands once.

"New rule.
We are relocating before Roxy codes something catastrophic out of spite."

Roxanne frowned.
"I don't code out of spite."

Everyone stared at her.

She glared.

"Not usually."

Loman grinned.
"I vote we go to the lake house."

Cain nodded.
"It's secure, off-grid, and Dad doesn't even know the route."

Helixiar added, "And it's outside the Vault's automatic lockdown radius."

Roxanne blinked.

"...I forgot we had a lake house."

Zolekh snorted.
"Of course you did, love. The only property you remember exists is anything you personally soldered together."

Roxanne wanted to argue.

But she couldn't.

Holwen squeezed her hand again.
"Let's go."

And she finally let them lead her out of the dome.They took the underground exits—three layers of hidden lifts, one angled transport corridor, and a disguised shifting hatch that emerged in a forest clearing.