Static

The lights burned white-hot against Brock's face.

His knees ground into the stage boards, every splinter digging through torn fabric into skin already raw. The plastic restraints had long since cut circulation to his hands; his fingers were dead weight behind his back, useless and numb. Roth's cologne—something expensive and wrong—choked the air to his left. On his right, Dane shifted his weight, boots creaking.

The crowd noise was a living thing. Hungry. Waiting.

Then the murmur changed pitch.

Brock lifted his head, blinking through the glare until his vision cleared enough to see the barricades. A figure pushed through—small, dark-haired, shoulders set in a line he knew better than his own heartbeat.

No.

No.

Harper stepped into the floodlights.

The world stopped. His chest seized, lungs forgetting how to pull air. She was supposed to be dead. They'd told him—Dane had smiled when he described it, every detail, how she'd screamed Brock's name at the end—

But she was here. Alive. Walking toward her own death.

"Harper—" His voice cracked, barely sound. "Harper, run—"

She didn't hear him. Or couldn't. The lights were too bright, the crowd too loud. She just kept walking, chin up, hands loose at her sides. Unarmed. Unprotected.

Stupid. So fucking stupid and brave and his.

Dane moved.

He descended the steps with terrible leisure, each boot strike deliberate. The crowd noise died to nothing. Harper stopped walking. Stood her ground. Brock could see her chest rising and falling too fast, could see the tremor she was trying to hide.

"Don't touch her—" The words tore from Brock's throat. "Dane, don't you fucking—"

Dane's hand shot out and closed around her throat.

Harper's eyes went wide. Her hands flew up, fingers scrabbling at his wrist, trying to pry loose the grip cutting off her air. Her mouth opened—no sound, just a desperate gasp that went nowhere.

Dane lifted.

Her feet left the ground. She kicked—wild, panicked—boots striking his shins, his knees, but he didn't even flinch. Just held her there, arm extended like she was a doll, watching her face with clinical interest as she choked.

"No—" Brock surged forward and the restraints yanked him back, shoulders screaming. "Let her go—please—"

Harper's hands were still clawing, nails raking bloody lines down Dane's forearm. Her face had gone red, then purple. Veins stood out at her temples. Her legs kicked weaker now, the fight draining with every second she couldn't breathe.

Brock thrashed against the plastic, feeling it slice deeper into his wrists, feeling warm blood run down his palms. "Harper—Harper look at me—"

Her eyes found his.

Just for a second. Wide and terrified and sorry, like this was somehow her fault. Like she was apologizing for dying.

Then the light went out of them.

Her hands dropped. Her legs went still. Her whole body sagged in Dane's grip, head lolling to the side, hair falling across her face like a curtain drawn.

"No—no no no—Harper—" Brock's voice shattered. "She's—you have to—someone help her—"

Dane held her a moment longer, studying her face. Then he opened his hand.

She fell.

Her body hit the concrete with a sound Brock would carry forever—dull, heavy, final. She crumpled wrong, limbs at angles that made his stomach turn. Her face was turned toward him, eyes open and empty, staring at nothing.

Blood roared in his ears. The world tilted. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the image of her lying there, small and broken and gone.

Dane stepped over her body without looking down. Started back toward the stage.

"Someone—please—" Brock's gaze swept the crowd desperately, looking for anyone, anything—

And found them.

Knuckles stood at the front barricade. Arms crossed. Face blank. Just watching.

Beside him: Mason. Same empty stare.

Kier. Onyx. All four of them in a line, close enough to have reached her, close enough to have done something—

Standing there like spectators at a fucking show.

"What are you doing?" Brock screamed at them, voice breaking into something animal. "She's—you have to—Knuckles please—"

Knuckles didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched Brock with eyes that held nothing—no recognition, no grief, no rage. Nothing.

Like Harper's body at his feet didn't matter.

Like Brock didn't matter.

Like they'd come here to watch him die and that was all.

"You were supposed to—" Brock's words dissolved into a sound that wasn't language anymore, just raw grief and fury and betrayal tearing from his chest. Harper was dead. Dead on the ground in front of them and they just—they didn't—

The stage groaned as Dane reached the top. His shadow fell across Brock first, then his boots came into view. He crouched, bringing them face to face.

"That was easier than I expected," Dane said. His voice was conversational, almost friendly. "She didn't even fight that hard. Guess she was tired."

He reached out, patted Brock's cheek. His hand smelled like Harper's shampoo.

Brock lunged—tried to—but the restraints held. He'd have torn his own shoulders apart to get loose, would have ripped his wrists to bone if it meant reaching Dane's throat. But the plastic just cut deeper, and Dane just smiled.

"Don't worry," he crooned. "You'll see her soon."

Cold metal pressed against Brock's temple. The muzzle of a pistol, hard and unyielding.

Brock's eyes stayed locked on Harper. On her small, still form crumpled on the concrete. On her face, turned toward him even in death.

He couldn't save her. Couldn't protect her. Couldn't do anything but kneel here and watch her die and then follow.

The trigger clicked and the world detonated inside his skull. He lunged, hands trying to tear forward—and nothing gave. No plastic cut, no stage under his knees, just a couch spring shrieking under his weight as pain spiked up both arms like live wire. Breath wouldn't catch. His chest worked in hard, useless gulps while sweat broke cold across his back.

His wrists were wrapped, not bound. Gauze bit when he flexed; the skin under it felt puffy and sore, fingers slow and clumsy from swelling and disuse. Grip wouldn’t answer. Every movement tugged at raw grooves that throbbed like deep bruises. The ghost of the restraints was still there anyway, tight as a memory you can't cut off. His tongue felt like it had been left in dust. His stomach knotted, then cramped harder—empty for days and angry about it—threatening that thin, mean heave that comes when there's nothing left to give.

The room was wrong. Not the yard. Not a cell. His eyes swept—old radiator, crooked blinds, a rug with a cigarette burn shaped like a star. Nothing made sense.

"Brock."

The name landed solid, a hand reaching through the fog. Kier. Close. Too close. Brock's vision swam trying to find him.

Movement teased the edges—shapes steadying where they were, the walls leaning in. His spine hit the couch back, shoulders hunching defensive. Fight or flight firing on an empty engine.

"Hey—hey—" Knuckles dropped into a crouch directly in front of him, big hands lifting where Brock could see them. Open palms. No threat. "You're safe, brother. You're with us."

Brock's gaze jerked to him, pupils blown wide, chest still working too hard. Knuckles didn't move closer, didn't reach. Just stayed there, solid and low, making himself small despite his size.

"That's it," Knuckles said, voice dropping to that steady rumble he used on bad extractions. "Right here. Focus on me."

Behind him, Mason crossed to the window and dragged the curtains, cutting the harsh morning light to something softer. He tipped the lampshade down. Onyx killed the overhead without a word and slipped into the kitchen, the door clicking softly behind him.

Kier settled onto the couch arm at Brock’s shoulder, not touching but close enough to be felt. The frame gave a small creak, a steadying weight at his side.

"In through your nose," Kier said quietly, measured. "Out through your mouth. Come on, match me."

He breathed—slow, exaggerated, loud enough for Brock to hear the rhythm. After a moment, Brock's chest hitched, trying to follow. Failed. Tried again.

"Good," Kier murmured. "Again."

Onyx reappeared with a glass of water, condensation beading on the outside, and set it on the coffee table within reach. He slipped out to the kitchen. Cabinet, ceramic. He came back with a small bowl—broth lifting thin ribbons of steam—and placed it beside the water. No words. Just provisions, ready.

Brock's breathing started to even out, the panic bleeding off degree by degree. His hands were still shaking—tremors running from wrist to fingertip—but the room had stopped spinning quite so violently.

Knuckles watched the shift, recognized it. "You with us?"

Brock's throat worked. He managed a single nod.

"Good." Knuckles' shoulders dropped half an inch. "You're in an Iron Vulture safehouse. In East Halworth. You've been out since we got back last night." He paused, letting that sink in. "You're safe here. No Syndicate. No one's coming through that door unless we let them."

The words were simple, concrete. Facts Brock could hold onto. Roth had said they were dead. Dane had smiled when he said it. The words tried to stand up again and failed in the face of evidence. Knuckles wasn’t a rumor—there was the tiny white crescent scar at his hairline. Mason’s nose was still set a hair left from last winter, profile sharp in the lamp. Onyx had that chip in his canine you only noticed when he half-smiled; it flashed and was gone. Kier’s breathing had a metronome tick Brock knew by heart. If they were ghosts, they were wearing calluses and old injuries.

Kier’s hand came to rest on Brock’s shoulder—light pressure, warm through the borrowed shirt. “How’s your head?”

Brock swallowed, tasted copper and dust. “Spinning,” he rasped, his voice gravel in a blender. The thought snagged on fabric that shouldn’t be there: not the shredded jacket, not the crusted shirt. This was soft and too big, a tag scratching his neck, sleeves dragging over gauze. Sweatpants instead of torn denim, a drawstring knot he didn’t tie, clean socks that weren’t his. He lifted his arm; the bandage pulled tight against skin scrubbed raw at the edges. Detergent and soap, not bleach and iron. Somebody had hauled him out of the mess and made him human again.

“Yeah.” His thumb circled once on Brock’s shoulder. “Makes sense. We’ll keep the floor still.”

Mason stepped closer, still careful not to crowd. "You need to get something in you," he said. Not a command, just a statement of fact. "Even just a few sips. Your body's running on fumes."

Brock's gaze drifted to the bowl, then away. His stomach rolled at the thought.

"I know," Knuckles said, reading him. "But you gotta try. Couple sips, that's all. We'll take it slow."

Knuckles reached for the bowl, lifted it, held it steady between them. The steam carried the scent of chicken and salt—plain, simple, nothing that would fight back.

Brock stared at it like it might bite him.

"Come on," Knuckles coaxed. "You've had worse." He tipped the bowl a fraction. “Or I can spoon-feed you like a baby bird.”

“Please don’t,” Mason groaned.

“Seconded,” Onyx murmured.

That almost pulled a sound from Brock—not quite a laugh, more an exhale that acknowledged the absurdity. His hand lifted, shaking badly, and Knuckles met him halfway, letting Brock's fingers curl around the bowl while he kept it stable.

The first sip was careful. Tiny. It hit his tongue and his throat tried to reject it on instinct. He forced it down, felt it land, waited for the revolt. It didn't come.

"There you go," Kier said quietly. "That's good."

Brock took another sip. Then another. Each one a small victory.

Across the room, Onyx had resumed his post by the door, but his posture had eased—less coiled, more watchful than wary. Mason leaned against the wall, arms crossed, but his jaw had loosened, the rigid tension bleeding out.

When Brock lowered the bowl, Knuckles took it without comment and set it aside. His hand came up—hesitated a fraction—then settled on Brock's knee. Just resting there. Solid.

"You scared the shit out of us," Knuckles said, voice rough at the edges. "Thought we lost you for real this time."

Brock's throat tightened. He looked down at Knuckles' hand, at the scarred knuckles and the calluses and the steadiness of it. Tried to find words that fit and came up empty.

Kier's grip on his shoulder tightened briefly. "You're here now. That's what matters."

The room settled around them—four men who'd been to hell and back, sitting in the quiet aftermath of another nightmare, holding space for the one who'd just dragged himself out of it.

Brock's hands were still shaking. His body still felt hollowed out, scraped thin. But the panic had receded, leaving exhaustion in its wake.

"How long—" he started, then stopped. Didn't know how to finish the question.

"Seven days," Mason supplied quietly. "Since they took you."

Seven days. It felt like longer. Felt like years compressed into a cell that smelled like bleach and old blood.

Brock’s eyes closed. He pulled in a breath and let it out slow. When he opened them again, Knuckles was still there. Kier’s hand still anchored his shoulder. Mason and Onyx still stood watch.

He wasn’t in a cell. Not on a stage. He was in a living room full of men who’d pulled him out of the dark and weren’t letting him fall back in.

The thought arrived clean and vicious. His eyes tracked before he could stop them—doorway, chair backs, the short hall that didn’t angle the way the yard had. Not here. The room had names now, corners he could recognize, a rhythm he could breathe with—and the empty space inside it finally announced itself.

She wasn’t here.

The floodlights tried to bloom again behind his eyes. Barricades. That line of her shoulders. Dane coming down the steps like he had time to waste. He didn’t want the reel but it threaded itself anyway: the hand at her throat, feet leaving the ground, the color running out of her face, the way her knees hit first. Then the sound—a blunt, wrong thud that felt like it happened at his ribs instead of the stage. After that, static. A click at his temple. Nothing.

His brain, traitor, filled in what it didn’t know with what it feared. If she wasn’t in this room—if she wasn’t already on him, swearing, shaking him by the shirt for scaring her—if the first face he saw wasn’t hers—

The furniture blurred at the edges, trying to slip back into the shape of that platform. The lamp’s warm circle stretched toward a floodlight hard and white. The radiator ticked and for a heartbeat it was the crowd’s insect hiss, waiting for the next cruelty.

He tried to make a case for reasons she wouldn’t be here. Couldn’t find one that didn’t end with a sheet over a face in a different room. They told me she was dead, his mind supplied, dredging up Dane’s smile like oil rising in water. They told me and I believed it and then I didn’t and now—

His chest tightened like a fist. He set his heels like he could stand and go and fix it if the answer was the worst one. The room tipped, tilted back. Knuckles’ hand hovered, steady in his periphery, not landing yet.

Knuckles tracked the change the way you track a fuse catching—no idea what it’s running toward yet, just the speed of it. He eased a little closer, palms up where Brock could see them.

“Hey,” he said, calm and low. “Stay with me.”

Brock didn’t blink. The hall kept pulling his eyes.

Knuckles tipped his chin a fraction, drawing Brock’s focus back. “Right here. Breathe. In for four.” He counted it under his breath, steady as a metronome. “Hold. Out for four.”

Kier matched the rhythm beside Brock, a quiet echo you could pin yourself to. Mason didn’t move from the wall; Onyx’s hand drifted to the doorframe and stayed there, a post.

“Good,” Knuckles said when the first jagged inhale obeyed. “Again.”

Brock dragged air, held it, let it go. The room steadied a hair. The fuse hissed quieter but didn’t die.

Knuckles kept his voice level. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not this room. You’re in this room. With us.”

Brock’s jaw worked. He swallowed hard; the word scraped up his throat like it had corners. “Harper.”

“Harper is alive,” Knuckles said at once. “She’s fine, Brock.”

Brock didn’t move. The word slid off like rain on glass. His eyes checked the doorway again, then the hallway, as if the truth should be standing there to prove itself. He blinked hard once, twice, trying to force the dream off the furniture. The radiator ticked like a second hand. Nothing else changed.

Knuckles watched that flicker of refusal—the way Brock’s jaw locked, the way his fingers twitched toward standing—and didn’t chase him with more assurances. He set his elbows on his knees, hands open where Brock could see them, and lowered his voice to the register he used when somebody was holding a cliff by their fingernails.

“Look at me,” he said. He waited until Brock did. “Take the room as a fact. Then give me what you’ve got from last night. Not the fear. The frames. What do you remember?”

Brock’s mouth opened and closed. Disbelief fought to stay. It didn’t have evidence. The room did. He dragged his gaze off the hall and anchored it on Knuckles’ face, on the scar he knew by shape, on the patience in it.

“Start anywhere,” Knuckles prompted, still steady. “We’ll fill the gaps after.”

Brock stared past him, trying to pull a line through static. “I remember the stage,” he said. “Floodlight in my face. Roth on one side. Dane on the other.” His mouth went dry. “Barricades. She—” He cut off, forced air in. “She came out of the crowd.”

Kier’s hand was still on his shoulder, warm and steady. “Keep going,” he said, quiet.

“I remember a gunshot. Maybe more than one. And yelling.” Brock’s gaze drifted, unfocused. “Then…something hit me.” His fingers curled against the couch fabric. “Everything spun. Cold under my cheek. Not concrete. Aluminum.” He squinted like that detail hurt. “Floor rippling under me. Engine somewhere. That’s it.” He looked back at Knuckles. “I don’t remember her after Dane went for her.”

Knuckles blinked once, slow, taking that in. Kier tipped his head. “So you don’t remember the insanity after she stepped forward?”

Brock looked at him and shook his head. “Did he—did Dane get his hand on her? Where’d the shot come from?” Nothing. Just the floodlight and the drop and then the spin.

Kier actually huffed a laugh. “Your girl is fucking insane. You know that?”

Knuckles’ expression didn’t move, but his voice did. “Next time you loop me in before she plays bait.”

Brock blinked. “Bait?” The word scraped wrong. His temples throbbed like someone was tightening a bolt behind his eyes.

Kier dragged a hand over his jaw, eyes flicking once to Knuckles before he started. “We hatched this completely hairbrained plan—her idea start to finish. If we wanted a clean shot at Dane or Roth, she had to pull ‘em off that stage. Lure him. Put them where we wanted them.” He shook his head, a quick, disbelieving smile. “I told her she was out of her mind. Damned if she didn’t do it, and Dane fell for the bait.”

Knuckles snorted, no humor in it. “She told you,” he said to Kier. “The rest of us found out with the crowd.”

Kier didn’t bite. “I was tucked up a few hundred yards out with Onyx,” he went on. “Sight lined on that smug bastard. Cold wind up there, sand in the air. From that angle I could see the whole board—the stage, the barricades, the gaps, where they’d cut if they got the chance.” He lifted two fingers and sketched it small in the air. “The second she stepped into the lights—unarmed, no vest—my pulse doubled.”

Onyx’s mouth twitched. “Mine didn’t,” he said, deadpan. “Tripled.”

Kier’s grin widened, then steadied. “She got him. Reeled him right in. Stood square in the cone like she was born in it, chin up, hands loose. Not frozen. Not bait. A target he couldn’t stand not to touch.” A beat. “He took the stairs. The crowd hushed. He started down at her like he’d already won.”

Knuckles' jaw worked. "Effective," he said flatly. "Terrifying. But effective."

Kier’s voice stayed level, the cadence he used when he talked a spotter through wind. “She gave me the twitch,” he said. “Left hand, two fingers. That was the signal.” He held his forefinger out, drawing a tiny arc.

Brock’s gaze fixed on that small motion, seeing it, not seeing it. He felt his own pulse count to two and hold.

Mason’s eyes cut over, the smallest nod: get to the shot.

“When I took it,” Kier said, “he dropped like a sack of bricks. One clean hit. Dead before he knew he was falling.” He didn’t add and I don’t miss; he didn’t have to.

Onyx tipped his chin. “Roth went for his gun the same breath. I clipped him in the arm. Fuckers dragged him out of sight before we could put a second hole in him.”

“The other enforcer on the stage didn’t hesitate,” Kier said. “Started to draw—at you.” He gave Brock the smallest nod. “Harper bolted. Screamed up that stage like she’d trained for it.”

“I tagged the enforcer before he got to you,” Kier added, unblinking. “Right over her shoulder as she hit the stairs. Clean. He went down.”

Knuckles’ jaw worked. “Meanwhile the Vultures blew the gate like a bad idea. Expeditions through, lights up, yard went to chaos—people running, metal singing.”

Kier’s voice softened. “She launched across that stage and took you straight off the far side. Full speed, shoulder to chest. From my angle it looked painful as hell—stage, then both of you tumbled down the embankment.”

Mason’s eyes warmed a shade. “Then Calder and Gage were exactly where they were supposed to be. Boat slid in. We loaded you and got the hell out. Like a movie, if movies smelled like fuel and lake water.”

Kier’s hand settled firmer at Brock’s shoulder. “That’s the reel. He never touched her. You heard the shots because they were ours. Aluminum under your cheek was the skiff. Engine was Calder opening it up.”

Brock sat with it, trying to make the pieces line up. Skiff. Engine. Their shots, not Dane's. The frames assembled themselves into something that made sense—or would, eventually, once his brain stopped trying to slot them back into nightmare logic. But one piece was still missing.

“So…” His voice rasped and stalled. He cleared it and tried again. “So why isn’t she here?”

Knuckles didn’t make him wait. “’Cause she’s banged up all to hell,” he said, even and certain. “When you two went off the edge, she took most of it. Rolled you under and ate the ground for the both of you. Massive concussion, bruised everywhere, maybe a rib yelling about it.” He lifted a hand, palm out—don’t panic, don’t run. “We got her upstairs in Vera’s bed. She’s out. Vera’s on her—dark room, quiet. She’s been out since we got back, but she’ll be fine.”

Brock blinked, slow. “Vera,” he said, like the name had to pass through two doors to reach him. A picture jumped—Vera in the crowd, face hard under bad light, the split second before Harper stepped out. He’d thought she was there to watch him die. The memory flipped in his hands and became something else: not witness—position. Not audience—ally. She hadn’t come to see the end; she’d come to make sure there was another scene after it.

His breath wobbled once and held. He nodded, tiny, as if testing the hinge. “Okay.” He dragged a hand over his face, then looked at all of them—one by one, like he had to confirm the shapes would stay. “They said you were dead,” he rasped. “Said all of you were dead. And I—” His throat clicked. “I believed them.”

Onyx shifted off the doorframe but didn’t come closer. He didn’t reach for drama; he just set the facts down where Brock could see them. “They lied,” he said. “We’re here.”

Brock’s eyes stayed on him, trying to pin the room to the words.

“The night they took you,” Onyx went on, “they lit the cabin. Front wall went first. Loud. Bright.” His gaze flicked past Brock’s shoulder, seeing it. “But we all got out.”

Brock’s fingers tightened in the couch seam. “The cabin—”

“Gone,” Onyx said. “A pile of wet black wood by morning. But not us.” He angled his chin, indicating the floor, the walls that held them. “We called Calder from the treeline. He came in quiet and pulled us out. We didn’t stop except for fuel and bad coffee.”

“Brought us here,” Mason said, tipping his head toward the floor like the house itself was part of the plan. “We’ve been posted since.”

Kier’s mouth twitched, the closest he got to a smile. “Waiting for you to make our lives difficult again.”

Brock let out a ragged breath that might’ve been a laugh if it wasn’t so tired. He looked at each of them again, slower this time. The story the Syndicate had fed him peeled back and fell away like a bad scab.

“Okay,” he said again, a shade stronger. He glanced toward the hall. “So we’re here. She’s upstairs. And I’m—” He flexed his wrapped hands, the tug of gauze answering. “—not dead.”

Knuckles’ mouth eased by a millimeter. “Correct on all counts.”

Onyx tipped his head at the table. “Finish what you can. Then you sleep.”

Brock started to shake his head on reflex and felt the room tilt in quiet warning. Kier’s hand tightened once at his shoulder—not a question, an anchor. Mason slid the bowl closer, the steam a thin ribbon in the lamplight.

“Couple more,” Knuckles said. “Then we kill the lights.”

He managed three. Each landed without a fight. The tremor in his hands wasn’t gone, but it was bored now, less feral. When he lowered the bowl, Knuckles took it and set it on the table like it weighed something that mattered.

“Feet up,” Mason said, as if it were the easiest task in the world. Between the two of them they levered Brock back enough that the couch stopped trying to throw him. A folded blanket appeared from nowhere—Onyx, of course—and came down over his legs. It smelled like detergent and a little like smoke.

“Head,” Kier murmured, and tucked a pillow into the angle near the arm so Brock’s neck wasn’t fighting the couch. His palm stayed a second longer at Brock’s shoulder than it needed to, then lifted.

The radiator ticked. Wind worried the bent blinds and lost. Someone turned the lamp down to a hush. Their shapes adjusted in the dim—Mason by the wall, Onyx at the doorframe, Knuckles in the low crouch he could hold forever, Kier reclaiming the couch arm with the kind of careful weight that wouldn’t jostle a thing.

Brock’s eyes slid shut before he gave them permission. The dream prowled the edge of the room, testing the windows; it didn’t find a way in. He breathed. The house answered with its patient old noises, the kind that belonged to a place that had already seen fire and decided to keep standing.

“Couple hours,” Knuckles said, voice down to gravel and comfort. “Then we’ll walk the hall.”

Brock nodded without opening his eyes. “Soon,” he said, the word shaped around a promise he didn’t have to push. The floor held. The dark stayed on the other side of the door. His grip on the edge of the blanket loosened, and the world narrowed to breath and the thready percussion of the radiator.

He slept with his men around him, and for once the room didn’t try to take him.

─•────

Knuckles was right. She was a stupid fucking girl.

Harper came up through dark syrup, the world stuck to her in patches—nausea first, mean and green at the back of her throat; then the headache, a hard pulsing knot behind her right eye that beat time against her skull; then the ache everywhere, a full-body bruise that made even the weight of the blanket feel like someone had laid wet sand across her. The room was dim, blinds pulled tight, but light still leaked around the edges in thin knives. The ceiling wasn’t the one she knew. The air smelled like detergent and old wood and the faint ghost of someone’s perfume that wasn’t hers. When she tried to swallow, her tongue felt like cardboard. When she tried to move, the bed tilted and her stomach lurched in ugly warning.

She froze, breathing shallow through her nose, willing the roll to pass. The radiator ticked in the wall. A shadow shifted beside her—soft, not threatening—and a cool palm settled against her forehead, thumb brushing her temple like it had done this all night. “Easy,” Vera said, voice pitched low enough not to jar. “Hold still. Don’t sit yet.” A basin bumped the mattress near her hip; a clean towel waited over Vera’s wrist. Harper’s fingers curled in the sheet without her permission. For a second she couldn’t place the shape of the room—blinds, dresser with a chipped corner, a glass catching a thin stripe of light on the nightstand—and panic tried to sprint. It didn’t get far; the headache clotheslined it.

“Half a sip,” Vera murmured. An arm slid behind Harper’s shoulders and lifted—just a few inches, just enough to keep the water from going wrong. “Don’t help,” she added, feeling the reflex coil. “Let me do it.” A straw tapped Harper’s lip. The first trickle hit and her throat tried to reject it on reflex; Vera steadied her with a palm at the shoulder and the water slid down in a small, burning mercy. “Good. Again.”

The nausea flared; Vera tilted her a notch toward the basin, tucking the towel under Harper’s cheek with one practised hand. The ringing in her ears came and went like a tide. Her ribs complained when she breathed too deep. Her neck felt like someone had tried to twist her head off and changed their mind halfway through.

“Where—” It came out raw, the word scraping. The room swam when she blinked. For a heartbeat she saw floodlights and a face she hated and the blank, stunned look of a crowd not sure whether to scream. Then the darkness of this room closed back around her like a hand.

Vera’s palm slid to the back of Harper’s head, steadying the world. “My room,” she said. “You’re safe.” Vera’s mouth thinned, which somehow meant more than any oath. “You took a nasty tumble. Concussion’s loud. We’ll keep it quiet.”

Harper let her eyes fall shut because the knives at the edges of the blinds were getting brighter, and the basin stayed within reach like a promise if her stomach decided to make good on its threats.

The thought came like a hook from under the water and yanked—Brock—and her eyes snapped open. She pushed up hard on instinct.

Big mistake.

The room lurched sideways; white exploded behind her eyes; her stomach climbed her throat in a hot rush. Vera was already moving—one hand to Harper’s sternum to slow the rise, the other to the back of her neck guiding her over. The basin met her just in time. Dry heave first, then a bitter thread of bile that burned all the way to her nose.

“Easy,” Vera said, low and even, riding the motion with her. “Don’t fight it. Breathe. Let it pass.”

Harper clung to the sheet with one fist and the edge of the basin with the other, ribs sawing at the effort. The ringing in her ears swelled, receded. Tears leaked without permission. Vera’s palm circled between her shoulder blades, slow, steady, counting out a rhythm that her body could copy.

When the worst of it ebbed, Harper tried for air and got a ragged piece. “Brock,” she managed, voice scraped raw. “Where—”

"He's alive," Vera said immediately. She eased Harper back only a fraction, keeping her tilted toward the basin in case the wave came back. "Downstairs. Sleeping now." A beat, softer. "You got him out."

Harper's breath shuddered out of her—relief, nausea, exhaustion all tangled together.

The words landed through the throb like stones finding the bottom. Harper blinked, caught between relief and another surge of nausea. “I have to—”

“No,” Vera said, the kind of no that sounded like a door shutting with love on the latch. “Not yet. You sit fast again and we’re starting this over.” She tucked the towel beneath Harper’s jaw and swapped the basin for the glass with the straw, lifting from behind to give her a breath of height. “Half a sip. He’s not going anywhere. The boys are all down there with him.”

Harper drew on the straw. The water hit the acid burn and came back as heat, a hurt that made her eyes squeeze shut. A thin sound slipped out of her anyway—half whine, half plea, the kind you don’t mean to make when your body’s run out of ways to be brave.

“I know,” Vera said, already dabbing the corner of Harper’s mouth with the towel. “It tastes like a battery. Another half.” She waited for the swallow, felt it travel under her hand. “Good, love.”

Harper’s fingers worried the edge of the sheet. “I just—” Her voice failed and reassembled in a smaller key. “I need to see him.”

Vera’s breath left her in something like a laugh that didn’t mock. “You are gone for that boy,” she said, fond and exasperated in equal measure. “Head ringing like a church, ribs mad at you, stomach staging a coup, and all you can think about is getting downstairs to glare at him for scaring you.”

Harper tried to smile and lost it to a wince. “Sounds about right.”

“Mm.” Vera set the glass back on the nightstand within easy reach, kept her arm behind Harper to keep the angle gentle. “And he is precisely the same about you, which is why we’re doing this the smart way so you don’t both end up back on the floor.” She smoothed damp hair off Harper’s temple with knuckles that knew the map of old bruises. “You’ll see him when the knives at the window turn into butter knives. Not before.”

Harper breathed through her nose, small and obedient because anything bigger made the room shift. “How long?”

“When you’re both able to move without puking or falling,” Vera said. No wiggle in it. “Clock’s not the boss, your bodies are.” She nudged the pillow half an inch so the pressure missed the sore knot at the back of Harper’s head. “Morrow and Rook went out at first light to scavenge furniture. We’re flipping that sad little room they stuck you in the first night—making it yours. Yours and his.”

Harper blinked at her. The words took a second to settle, then warmed. “A room,” she echoed, like it was a language she hadn’t spoken in a while.

“A door you can shut,” Vera said. “A bed that doesn’t remember anything ugly. Lamp that doesn’t buzz. Maybe even curtains that don’t look like they lost a fight.” A faint smile tugged at her mouth. “You two will wreck it with muddy boots in a week anyway.”

A laugh tried to escape Harper and came out as a wince. “Probably.”

“Definitively.” Vera tucked the blanket over Harper’s hip where the bruise throbbed loudest. “So you rest. Let me do the glamorous work of counting minutes and bullying you into sips.”

Harper stared at the stripe of light on the nightstand, softer now that her eyes had learned it. “He’s going to hate waiting.”

“He’s also going to do it,” Vera said, matter-of-fact. “Because I told him to. And because if he tries the stairs before I say so, I’ll tell Knuckles to sit on him.”

That earned a ghost of a smile. “Please film that.”

“Later,” Vera said, cooling a line across Harper’s temple. “Eyes first. Breathe second. When the light stops acting like knives and behaves like butter, you can go to him.”

─•────

He'd had forty-eight hours of broth, saltines, and sleep sandbagged between him and the worst of it, and the house had decided today Brock could try the stairs.

Knuckles took the first step up with him, staying one tread below, one palm under Brock's elbow, the other hovering at his hip in case gravity got ideas. "Slow," he said, like the word had weight. "Floor's not going anywhere."

The first rise bit all the way up his calves. Muscles that had slept too long fired late and shaky; his knees complained like rusted hinges. He set his foot, waited for the room to catch up, then dragged the other leg after. Breath came loud in his own ears, too hot for how little work he was doing. Sweat started anyway, cold at his hairline. The banister was slick where varnish had gone to glass over the years; his knuckles went white around it.

"Don't lock it," Knuckles murmured. "Soft knees." He nudged Brock's elbow a fraction higher, not a shove, a guide. "Left, then right."

Left, then right. He counted them because numbers behaved when nothing else did. By the fourth tread the tremor in his thighs had gone from whisper to argument. By the sixth, his heart was throwing punches at his ribs. His vision papercut at the edges—thin, bright slices that warned of tilt. He stopped, chin down, breathing through his teeth until the floor stopped trying to roll him.

Knuckles didn't push. "Good spot," he said, like they'd reached a summit instead of a scuffed tread. He stood where he was, one step down, a post that wouldn't move. From the kitchen, a kettle let off a tired sigh; somewhere a radiator ticked in approval, counting along with his breaths.

Another step. The ache in his ribs hit, late but uncompromising, a reminder of elbows and boots and a long fall he didn't remember. He made room for it without giving it attention. The banister bit his palm; the gauze tugged under his sleeve. He lifted, placed, lifted, placed. Somewhere behind them Mason said something quiet to Onyx that sounded like odds. Brock almost laughed and didn't, because laughing would cost oxygen he couldn't spare.

"Eyes here," Knuckles said softly, and touched the rail with two fingers. "Banister. Me. Not the top."

Brock obeyed. When he did look up, only for a second, the hallway above was a strip of dusk: blackout cloth tacked over a door, a quilt draped to swallow sound, a bossy note taped to the newel—QUIET LIVES HERE—in Vera's blocky letters. He wanted the end of that hall so badly his knees tried to sprint. He told them no and kept the pace a human body could afford.

They made the turn at the landing. The corner was small enough that his shoulder brushed the wall; chalky paint dust kissed his sleeve. He stopped again and let his pulse step down a rung. His hands shook—less a fear tremor now than a body misfiring after too long in the dark. Knuckles' hand settled firmer at his elbow for a heartbeat, then lifted, letting Brock own the next tread.

"Three more," Knuckles said, low. "That's all. If it tilts, we sit. No heroics."

"Never liked those," Brock managed. The rasp of his voice sounded more like him than it had for days.

"Liar," Knuckles said, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

Step. The wood creaked like an old friend answering. Step. His breath evened into something he could ride. Step—the last one felt taller than the others, but his boot cleared it anyway, and then they were level. Light bled around the edges of the cloth at the far door, softened to something his head could stand. He stood there a moment, palm flat to the cool banister, waiting out the small, private quake in his legs.

Knuckles didn't hurry him. He tipped his chin toward the quilted door at the end of the hall. "Whenever you say," he murmured. "We do it your speed."

They moved together, shoulder to shoulder down the narrow hall—Brock with one hand flat to the wall for balance, Knuckles a step off his hip like a guardrail that breathed. The quilt over the far door hushed the last of the house's sounds. Knuckles lifted it with two fingers; the cloth fell back behind them as they crossed in.

The room was small and made from other people's lives. Mismatched curtains pinned tight over the window. A dresser with one missing knob and another stolen from a different century. A dented nightstand that used to be red under the scuffs, holding a glass and a bottle with the label half-peeled away. The bed itself was a Frankenstein—iron frame that squeaked if you looked at it, a mattress that had learned kindness somewhere else, clean sheets that didn't match anything but tried hard. A lamp with a crooked shade threw a warm circle instead of a buzz.

Vera stood beside the bed, sleeves shoved to her elbows, hair coiled up like it meant business. She had a hand on the blanket the way a captain has a hand on a wheel. When she saw them, her mouth softened into a smile that said good and don't be stupid at the same time. She didn't speak.

Harper slept curled on her side, knees drawn a little, one hand caught under the pillow like she'd chosen it and then forgot. The bruise at her cheek had settled from violent purple to something that wanted to heal; a butterfly strip curved near her temple like a small white crescent. Her mouth was parted the tiniest bit. She breathed with a low, steady sound that had weight and promise to it. Her hair made a dark spill against the case; a strand stuck to her lip, then freed itself with a ghost of a breath.

Brock stopped breathing.

The world narrowed to that rise and fall—her chest lifting, falling, lifting again. Alive. The word tried to land but couldn't find purchase. He'd carried her death for seven days, had lived inside the story Dane told him, had believed it so completely that seeing her now felt like looking at a ghost that didn't know it was supposed to be gone.

His throat closed. His vision blurred at the edges—not from exhaustion this time, but from something breaking open in his chest that he'd welded shut to survive. He tried to take a step and his legs locked. Tried to speak and nothing came.

Knuckles' hand settled at the center of his back—steady, grounding. "She's real," he said quietly. "Go on."

The permission broke something. Brock's breath shuddered in, too loud in the quiet room. His hand found the doorframe and gripped hard enough to hurt, anchoring himself against the pull of her. Seven days of thinking she was dead. Seven days of carrying the image Dane had painted—her screaming his name, her body going cold on a cabin floor he'd never see. And here she was. Breathing.

He took the last few feet like they were a field of tripwires. One step. Another. The iron frame gave a tiny complaint when his knee touched it. He steadied himself on the post, then lowered to the edge of the mattress inch by inch, careful not to startle the old springs or the sleeping girl they held. His thigh tried to quit halfway down. The iron sang under the shift; his vision nipped white at the corners.

Up close, she was made of details he'd hoarded and then lost. The thin pale seam along her throat where Kato's blade had kissed months ago. The scatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose, lighter now against skin that had seen too much cold. The dark sweep of lashes that always looked like they didn't belong to a fighter until they did. One knuckle of her right hand, scabbed where she'd skinned it on something and not mentioned it.

His hands shook so badly he had to clench them into fists. He pressed one against his mouth, trying to hold in the sound building in his chest. It didn't work. A broken exhale escaped—half sob, half prayer—and he squeezed his eyes shut against the burn.

She's here. She's alive. She's here.

He reached out—slow, trembling—and brushed a stray strand of hair off her cheek, tucking it back so he could see all of her face at once. His fingertips barely grazed her skin but the warmth of it nearly undid him.

She stirred at the contact—first a deeper breath, then a small frown like the world had nudged her before it should. Her eyes opened to a slit, unfocused. The flinch came on instinct: a quick recoil from the hand near her face, shoulders tensing under the blanket.

"Hey," he managed, voice breaking on the single syllable. His palm flattened against the mattress to show he wasn't a threat, but his whole arm was shaking. "It's me."

Her gaze found him in stages—shape, then eyes, then the line of his mouth trying to form her name. Recognition hit and her expression crumpled.

"Brock," she breathed—relief and disbelief tangled together.

She pushed up before sense could argue, ignoring the way pain flared through her ribs, her neck, the drum behind her eye. The room tilted but she didn't care. She needed to touch him, needed to know he was solid and real and here.

He caught her before she could fall, hands at her shoulders, steadying her even as his own body threatened to give out. And then she was reaching for him, fingers fisting in the front of his shirt, and he was pulling her in—careful of the bandages, careless of everything else.

The sound that tore out of him was animal. Raw. A grief finally given permission to break. His arms closed around her and he buried his face in her hair, shoulders shaking with sobs he couldn't stop, didn't want to stop. Seven days of believing she was dead, of living in that cell with the story Dane had fed him, of imagining her last moments—it all came crashing down at once.

"I thought—" The words choked off. He pulled back just enough to see her face, to make sure she was real, and his vision was so blurred with tears he could barely focus. "They told me—" Another sob broke through, splitting his voice in half. "They said you—"

"I know." Harper's own voice cracked, tears streaming down her face. Her hands came up to frame his jaw, thumbs brushing across his cheeks. "I know what they told you. I'm here. I'm here."

He shook his head like he could deny what he'd carried, but the tears kept coming, hot and relentless. "You were dead," he gasped. "You were supposed to be—" His breath hitched violently. "I couldn't—I couldn't save you—"

"You don't have to." Her forehead pressed to his, their tears mixing between them. "I saved you. We saved each other."

That broke him completely. A sound tore from his chest that he'd never made before—anguished, relieved, devastated. He pulled her back against him, one hand cradling her head, the other wrapped around her waist, holding on like she might vanish if he loosened his grip even a fraction.

"I'm sorry," he choked out into her hair. "I'm so sorry—"

"Stop." Harper's fingers tangled in his shirt, her own sobs shaking through her. "Don't you dare apologize for surviving."

He couldn't speak anymore. Could only hold her while he fell apart, while days of trauma and terror and grief finally found their way out. His whole body shook with it, breath coming in ragged gasps against her shoulder. She held him through it, one hand at the back of his neck, the other fisted in his shirt, anchoring him to the moment.

"You're here," she whispered, over and over like a mantra. "You're alive. You're with me."

Behind them, Vera's shadow thinned. A hand touched Knuckles' sleeve; the door eased until the quilt fell back into place and the room got even quieter. The lamp hummed. The radiator kept its patient tick.

Gradually, the sobs quieted to shaking breaths. Brock pulled back just enough to look at her again—really look. His hands came up to cup her face, thumbs tracing the bruises, the butterfly strips, the proof that she'd fought for him. Fresh tears spilled over and he didn't try to stop them.

"I carried you dead for seven days," he said, voice wrecked. "Every time I closed my eyes, I saw—" He couldn't finish. His forehead dropped to hers again, breath shuddering. "You walked into those lights and I thought I was watching you die."

"But I didn't." Her hands covered his, pressing them firmer against her face. "We made it. Both of us."

He nodded, the motion jerky and small. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, relearning the geography of her face. "I don't know how to—" His voice broke again. "I don't know how to stop seeing it."

"Then don't." Harper's eyes held his, fierce despite the tears. "See it. Remember it. But know that this is what's real. This." She guided his hand to her chest, pressing his palm over her heart. "Feel that? I'm here. I'm breathing. I'm yours."

The sob that escaped him was quieter this time but no less broken. He pulled her back in, gentler now, tucking her against his chest where he could feel every breath she took. His chin rested on her crown, his hand splayed across her back, counting her heartbeats.

"Mine," he echoed, voice barely a whisper. "You're mine."

"Yours," she confirmed, and the word settled something in both of them.

They stayed like that—wrapped around each other, trembling, breathing in uneven rhythm—while the lamp cast its warm circle and the house held them steady. No more words. Just the proof of pulse and breath and presence.

Just the impossible, unbearable relief of being alive in the same room again.

When Brock's breathing finally evened out, Harper shifted just enough to look up at him. His eyes were red and swollen, face wet with tears he'd finally let fall. She reached up and brushed her thumb across his cheekbone, catching the last of them.

"There you are," she whispered.

His hand came up to cover hers, holding it against his face. "Here," he said. "Right here."

And for the first time since they'd dragged him into that cell, he believed it.