Zubair posted the rotations with a knife tip against the table instead of a pen on paper.
"Three shifts," he laid out, tapping once for each. "Two on, three down. Change on the hour until dawn."
He split them without ceremony. First watch: Alexei with Lachlan. Second: Zubair with Elias. Third: Sera with whoever wasn't snoring.
"Questions?"
None. There never were when the plan fit the room as tightly as this one did.
Alexei took the first spot by the window like he had been born there, elbows loose, posture lazy in the way that didn't fool anyone. Lachlan dropped into a crouch beside him, chin up, eyes bright—too wired to sit, too proud to admit it.
Elias rolled into his blanket near the stove and didn't sleep. He closed his eyes because that was what a man did when he was off the line; his brain stayed standing with its boots on.
The cup in his kit bothered him.
