Callan glanced at me briefly, and I caught the look. He wanted to talk.
But the conversation could wait.
Right now, we had two people in front of us who looked like they hadn’t eaten a real meal in days.
“Come on,” Callan said, motioning for them to follow.
We led them through the service corridor and into the main aquarium hall. The place sat dim and quiet. The giant tanks stretched up through the spiral walkways, filled withdark water that caught what little light remained and held it.
Ethan slowed as he walked through, his head tilting back, eyes traveling up the towering central tank.
“Whoa…” he whispered.
Jeff let out a low whistle beside him.
“Hell of a place to hole up.”
Callan gave a small shrug.
“Working so far.”
As we walked, he added over his shoulder, “We made dinner; figured you’d be hungry.”
Jeff laughed quietly—a rough sound that barely qualified.
“Son,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve been anythingbuthungry for three days.”
That earned a tired grin from Ethan.
When we reached the director’s office area, the smell hit them:
Garlic. Tomatoes. Warm bread.
I had the small portable stove going on the desk, a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering gently while a stack of bowls sat ready on the table. Earlier that day, I’d used the cafeteria oven to warm frozen loaves of bread we’d found buried in the back of the industrial freezer; the smell had filled the entire hallway for the past hour.
Both Jeff and Ethan stopped walking.
Their eyes went straight to the food, and Ethan’s stomach growled so loudly it echoed off the walls.
His face turned red instantly.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
I smiled softly and handed him a bowl.
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Sit down.”
Jeff shook his head slowly as he stepped into the room,staring at the pot of sauce and the bread as if they might vanish if he looked away.
“I swear,” he said, his voice dropping to something low and almost reverent, “that’s the best smell ever.”
Callan leaned against the doorframe.
“Eat first,” he said. “We can talk afterward.”
Jeff didn’t argue.
He sat down heavily in one of the chairs, his body sagging into it. Ethan dropped into the seat beside him, already spooning pasta into his bowl, eating with the single-minded focus of a teenager who hadn’t seen real food in a week.