That night, the city was stripped down to bone and streetlight. Windowless blocks rolled past in smear and shadow. Neon bled dry, brittle across the facades. The SUV crept deliberate, its growl more threat than machine, rumbling beneath her like a pulse she didn't own.
Harper sat wedged in the backseat between two men she didn't know. They didn't speak. Didn't glance her way. Black coats zipped to the chin, gloved hands resting easy on their rifles, shoulders too broad for the space. She felt them even without turning. Heat radiated—not warmth but weight, filling the silence. The air smelled of oil and gunmetal. She couldn't shift without brushing one, so she didn't.
The clothes weren't hers. That was the worst part.
Jeans. A dark hoodie. Normal enough to pass, to vanish. But the cotton felt too new against her skin—soft in the wrong places, stiff at the seams. The bra pressed tight until her ribs throbbed. Her underwear was plain, folded from a drawer meant for someone else. Even the elastic at her waist felt intrusive. Everything about her had been repackaged, scrubbed, zipped into someone else's skin.
The shower had come first. Cold, then blistering, steam swallowing the stall. She washed herself, but not alone.
Brock stood just outside the glass, silent, unmoving, watching. She hadn't looked at him. Not once. Her fingers dragged weeks of filth from her body—sweat, dust, old blood, the weight of stillness ground into every joint. The water ran gray. When she stepped out, he handed her a towel. When she dried off, the clothes were waiting.
She put them on because she had to. Not because they fit. Not because they were hers. Because anything else would've taken too much fight. And now the wrong clothes carried her forward.
Brock still hadn't looked at her since she climbed in. One hand fixed steady on the wheel, the other resting loose on the console, fingers flexing now and then like the memory of something kept returning to him, twitching through tendon and bone as if he was listening to a phantom. His eyes stayed forward, locked, headlights tunneling the road into a single unbroken strip of pale concrete. The SUV carried them slow, heavy, each bump in the asphalt translating through the frame into her spine, the hum of the tires so constant it felt like it was inside her teeth. He drove like a man no one dared stop—like he didn't need to see her at all to know where she sat, what she was thinking, how tight her hands had gone in her lap as she fought not to flinch at every turn.
The longer the road stretched, the harder it became to swallow. Her throat felt raw, scraped dry by silence, her stomach folding in on itself—not sickness, not exactly, but the kind of weight that pressed until her lungs couldn't draw a clean breath. This wasn't a ride. It wasn't transfer. The SUV was a coffin on wheels and she was the body inside, packaged neat. She was the knock on the door, the opening move, the blade left waiting under the tablecloth. She was the trigger, cold and mechanical, and the worst part was knowing they didn't even need her alive for the fire to spread. She was just delivery. She was the end pressed into human shape.
She pressed her palms to her thighs to keep them still. Her fingers twitched anyway, rasping against the denim like static she couldn't discharge. She wondered if Brock heard it—the faint scuff of skin on fabric, the hitch in her breath when the SUV slowed for a light it never stopped at. No one spoke. The silence pressed too thick to pierce. The men beside her breathed in unison, their chests rising and falling like synchronized machines. She was the only human in the car, and even that felt provisional.
Ahead, the city closed in. Streets funneled narrower, lamps burned weaker, shadows clung longer. The air soured with trash steam and old rain. They were close.
The SUV banked left, tires hugging the curb. Headlights peeled across crumbling brick, over a rust-streaked dumpster, up the skeletal arm of a fire escape sagging half-detached from the wall.
Her gut clenched. Not from the turn. From recognition. She knew this street—the sag of the wires overhead, the sidewalk seam broken uneven near the corner, the ghost of spray paint clinging to the alley wall in strokes so faded they looked scorched.
She hated how much she remembered.
Another block passed—slower this time. Her pulse tripped.
The pharmacy came into view. Its metal grate hung half-dragged over the door like a jaw refusing to close. The neon sign above it buzzed weak, letters missing, one flickering dim red behind smeared glass. Rico used to call it their early warning system—said if the sign ever lit up fully, they'd know the world was ending.
Another turn, the SUV heavy on the wheel, headlights slicing thinner through the dark. Slower still.
The storefronts bled together, indistinct as old film—garage with the busted bay door, the lot with the leaning fence, a streetlamp bent and still bandaged in caution tape from two summers ago. A row of uneven windows caught the high beams, and her stomach cramped hard enough to fold her—if not for the rifles bracketing her in place. She didn't move. Couldn't.
The nausea crawled upward, blooming behind her eyes in a dull, chemical haze. Metal coated her tongue. Sweat prickled at the base of her scalp. Her ears rang—not loud but piercing, thin as a wire pulled too tight.
Her body recognized It before her voice could: this was home. Or had been. Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds more and they'd round the last bend. She'd see the back alley she once slipped out unnoticed, the boarded-up door with the scratch she and Dante carved in one drunken dare.
Her breath came shallow, clipped at the edges like her lungs had forgotten full draw. Heat pooled beneath the waistband of her jeans, sweat slicking skin still scrubbed raw. The denim itched in the wrong places—stiff where it should have flexed, clinging like a disguise forced onto her skin.
Her body braced before the wheels did, muscles locking as if she could feel the halt coming through the frame. Her tongue pressed hard against her teeth as the SUV eased into a wider street, engine idling low. Not stopping—slowing. Intentional. Her pulse hammered her jaw. Her spine stiffened. They were circling, positioning, headlights dragging shadows across brick.
This wasn't meant to come fast. It was meant to come clean. And she was the bait. She was the breach.
The SUV rolled to a stop at the edge of the block, tires grinding against scattered gravel. Brock killed the engine. The silence that followed didn't feel like relief—it felt like the breath before recoil, the moment a trigger stalls just before the break.
Harper stayed still, body locked against the seat, stomach curling tighter with each heartbeat. She didn't need to ask where they were. She could feel it rising from the sidewalk, radiating off the pavement. The others had stopped breathing—like the air outside already tasted of blood.
Brock turned in his seat, elbow hooked over the backrest, gaze cutting through the dark like it had been waiting for her. He looked at her first—not to assess, only to confirm she was still there, still intact enough to follow orders. Then his eyes shifted to the two men on either side of her, their quiet, measured breathing the only sound besides the tick of the cooling engine. When he spoke, his tone was level and practiced, each word stripped for function, not comfort.
"You're going to walk up to the front door," he said. "You'll knock. Make it look natural. Say you've been laying low. Say you got picked up and dumped a few hours ago. I don't care what the story is—as long as it gets you through the door." He didn't pause. No space to protest, no space to breathe. He spoke like there had never been a choice. "They'll come to meet you. Maybe they let you in. Maybe they step outside. Doesn't matter. All that matters is they step into the open."
His voice dropped—not softer, just heavier. "The second that door opens, the second they're in the open—these two finish the job." He nodded right. "Onyx." Then left. "Keir."
Neither man moved. They didn't acknowledge the names. Didn't look at her. Didn't look at each other. They sat braced on their rifles, bodies coiled with tension, eyes fixed forward—as if the scene had already played out behind their lids.
Then Brock's gaze cut back to her. His expression didn't shift, didn't harden or soften. It just remained—firm, cold, undeniable. "Clean. Quick. No mistakes." His hand closed over the door handle. "You walk up. You knock. That's all."
Before she could speak, Brock shoved his door open and slipped into the night. Air rushed in—a breath of summer heat, cooler than the SUV but thick with waiting. Then the other doors clicked open, one by one, each latch spilling more darkness inside. Onyx moved first, tight and deliberate, every step like a drill run a hundred times. Harper followed. She slid toward the gap, legs stiff, boots striking pavement with a borrowed thud that didn't feel like hers. The night wrapped around her, not cold but heavy, waiting. The moment she straightened, her knees threatened to fold, dread coiling through her gut, sickness threading her limbs like lead wire.
She curled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking, but the tremor stayed, rattling through her bones.
Brock approached from the other side, steps quiet on the concrete, precise as always. He stopped just short of her shoulder. For a second, she thought he might speak—something cruel, something final.
Instead, his hand came down on her shoulder. She flinched before she could stop herself. His palm was warm through the fabric, weight pressing her down instead of holding her steady. It wasn't a shove. It wasn't possession. It was weight—reminder, not comfort. Then it was gone.
"Go," he said.
She didn't nod. Didn't speak. She just turned, body moving before her mind could catch—legs stiff as iron, arms cinched tight around her midsection like she could hold the dread inside if she pressed hard enough. She didn't look back. Behind her, Brock and the others peeled into the edges of the street until they were nothing but shadow. No footsteps. No whispers. Just absence.
She rounded the corner. Her breath snagged in her throat, heart battering her ribs like it wanted out. And there it was.
The den stood as if she'd never left. The same warped siding. The cracked upper window sagging under a sheet nailed long ago. The burn scar across the door—half an outline from a Molotov that never healed. Even the railing still bent at the bottom stair where Dante once caught her mid-stumble after a long run.
The porch light flickered low and yellow, draping the steps in half-glow. It looked untouched. It looked like home. It looked like it had been waiting.
She stopped. Her feet locked, heels frozen, stomach twisting tighter—sharp enough to bend her in half. Her legs went watery, knees threatening to fold beneath her. Heat burned behind her eyes until tears welled and blurred the porch light, hot and unwanted, spilling before she could stop them.
She could run. She knew every alley within six blocks, every basement window, every fence with a gap near the bottom. If she bolted now—no hesitation, just raw instinct—she might slip free, scrape through wire, vanish into cracks that had always been hers. But it wouldn't change what came next. They'd kill the crew anyway. Tear through the house. Find them asleep or scrambling—never knowing she'd come back. Running wouldn't save them. It would only mean she didn't have to see it.
So she walked.
Up the steps. Past the flickering light. Past the scarred doorframe she used to kick open with a boot when her hands were full, half-laughing, half-breathless from a run. Her breath felt wrong in her chest—hot and thin and tangled. She hadn't meant to hope, but the thought still came unbidden, curling up from the pit of her stomach: Let it be empty. Let them be out. Let them be anywhere but here. Her hand hovered. Clenched once. She dragged the back of her wrist across her cheek, catching wetness she hadn't meant to show. Then it rose.
And she knocked. Three quick, two slow—the rhythm they used for home. The sound rang too loud against the metal. Wrong. Like an echo she didn't recognize. Her hand dropped back to her side, fingers curling in on themselves, joints locked stiff. Her eyes flicked over her shoulder—the street lay empty. No Brock. No Onyx. No Keir. But she knew they were out there, somewhere, waiting.
The porch light buzzed low above her, stretching her shadow thin across warped slats of the steps. She stood rigid, arms cinched around her midsection like she could stop the tremor shaking loose inside her. Every breath sounded ragged in her throat, scraping like sandpaper.
Then—movement.
Shuffling behind the door. A voice—low, muffled, too close. Her breath hitched sharp, chest locking. The soft drag of bare feet across hardwood, hesitant, approaching. Then the bolt—a clunk too final. The latch clicked. The handle turned. Her pulse crashed in her ears, a brutal staccato that drowned everything else. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Her knees locked. Heat clawed up the back of her neck as her stomach twisted. Seconds. Maybe less. Out of time. Out of breath. Out of choices.
The door opened. And there he was.
Dante froze in the frame like the air had been ripped out of him. One hand locked on the doorknob, knuckles bloodless, the rest of him carved to stillness. His eyes locked on hers—wide, stunned, disbelieving. Like she'd been torn out of a dream. Or a nightmare. His mouth opened. Nothing. Lips shaped her name once—then again, as if saying it might drag her fully into existence.
"…Harp?"
It split her open. Just her name—half-breathed, broken—but it cracked something deep. Her chest seized. Vision blurred, salt spilling before she knew she was crying. She didn't wipe it. Didn't blink. Her throat cinched tight around the sob clawing its way up. And then she saw it—the red dot. Small. Steady. Centered over his heart. It pulsed once, calm, patient, as if it had been waiting her whole life.
Her breath caught. Her spine locked. And something inside her shattered. No thought. No plan. Only motion.
She surged forward, crashing into him, arms clamping hard enough her bones ached. Face buried in his shoulder, she held on—not from hope, not from relief, but from dread. From desperation. From the raw, helpless instinct to shield him from what she couldn't stop.
Dante staggered a step under her weight, breath ripping out of him. "Jesus, Harp—" His arms folded around her, automatic, desperate, clutching like he could anchor her to this doorway, to him. "You're here—you're really here." The words trembled against her hair, full of a relief that gutted her.
She felt the breath stutter through him as he held her, stunned but solid, the heat of his chest grounding her, anchoring her in a reality she couldn't afford. His grip tightened, not crushing but full, like he needed every inch of her to believe she was real. His scent hit her all at once—gun oil, sweat, the faint trace of shampoo and smoke—and it hollowed her out.
Dante's hand slid up to the back of her head, fingers slipping into the damp mess of her hair, thumb brushing the base of her skull. His other arm locked firm around her back. He hadn't asked where she'd been. He hadn't stepped away. He just held her like he'd never let go again.
Her throat tore tight, words breaking raw out of her. "I love you," she whispered, choking on it. "I'll always love you."
He pressed his face into her hair, breath shuddering. "God, Harp—I never stopped." His voice cracked, thick with disbelief and relief all at once. His grip tightened, clutching her like he could anchor her to the doorway, to him, to here.
The air around them felt aimed. Weighted. Like something in the dark had drawn its bead and settled. She didn't need to see it. She felt it—steady as a scope at her back, patient, waiting. She knew what was coming.
And then, from inside, bare feet shuffled soft across wood. A hoodie slipping off one shoulder. Hair mussed, eyes half-lidded with sleep. Lena froze mid-step, caught in the spill of lamplight. Her gaze locked on Harper, widened—then shifted past her, past Dante, to the porch, to the street, to the shadows waiting just beyond the light. Her lips parted, breath stalling. No sound came. She didn't need to speak.
Lena knew.
Harper squeezed her eyes shut, willing Lena out of sight, willing time to fracture and slow. Just one more second. One more breath. One more heartbeat pressed against him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, voice splintering against the hollow of his neck.
Dante pulled back, just enough to see her face. His eyes searched hers, confusion softened by something else—like he thought she was apologizing for being gone, for the lost time, for every night between. His lips parted, a question forming—
The crack came like thunder against concrete, so loud it swallowed thought. Dante's head snapped back, blood misting the porch light before his body even began to fall. The bullet struck just above his brow—clean, lethal—a precision strike that ripped through him, leaving ruin at the back of his skull. Bone and blood sprayed the hallway behind him in a wet arc. His eyes didn't close.
She didn't register her scream—if it ever left her throat. His arms went slack, and the weight of him ripped her down with it. His body dropped backward in a heap of dead weight, dragging her forward. She crashed to her knees, bone jolting on wood, thighs astride his hips, arms locked around him like her body hadn't caught up to what was already gone.
Heat spread fast across her chest as the front of her hoodie soaked through—hot, slick, metallic. His head lolled at a broken angle. No twitch. No breath. Nothing.
A scream ripped through the doorway—guttural, raw, almost inhuman. Harper flinched at the sound, her cheek still pressed into the curve of Dante's neck. She didn't see Lena stumble forward, didn't see the shape her face twisted into. She only felt the vibration of that cry through the porch boards, heard it crack the night wide. Behind it came noise from inside—the slam of feet on wood, chairs dragged hard, voices rising sharp in panic.
Harper folded herself over Dante and didn't move. Heat bled through his shirt into her palms, slick and heavy, fingers slipping in the blood she couldn't hold back. She pressed her face into the curve of his neck, refusing to look at what was left of him, breath rasping shallow against his skin.
Footsteps thundered up the porch behind her. She barely registered them—just the roar in her ears, the pounding of her own pulse. Onyx and Keir stormed past, boots cracking wood. A shin clipped her hard enough to jolt her sideways, but she didn't lift her head. Didn't loosen her grip.
Lena did. A hand reached out—shaking, panicked—but Onyx caught her with the barrel of his rifle, shoving her back through the doorway. She hit the wall, stumbled, screamed. Then the gunfire started.
Muzzle flashes ripped the dark in bursts. Screams broke, jagged and short. Wood splintered, something heavy crashed. A voice shouted. Another begged. One cut off mid-word. The air filled with cordite and blood.
Harper clung harder, face buried in Dante's throat, breath stuttering wet through clenched teeth. The world fractured around her—sound and heat and violence shattering the night—but she stayed locked to him, refusing to let go as the massacre began.
She didn't feel the hand until it ripped her back.
Fingers locked in her hoodie, hauling her up with brutal force—so sudden her knees scraped the porch edge, so hard her grip tore from Dante's body as he sagged lifeless out of her arms. A guttural cry ripped out of her, legs flailing for footing as she was yanked off the steps. Her boots caught once, slipped, then she fell—backward, hard—into Brock's chest. His arm cinched around her middle, locking her upright.
She exploded in his grip. An elbow cracked his jaw, sharp and fast. He grunted, head snapping sideways, but his hold clamped tighter. Her heel hammered his shin, her nails raked, her body twisted wild, her breath breaking into screams that shredded into sobs.
"No—stop—don't—please—he didn't—Dante—"
Brock didn't release. He turned and drove her down. Her body slammed in a brutal cascade—knees, chest, chin—each impact jarring breath from her lungs. She bucked, feral, but his full weight crashed down. One hand hooked her wrists, wrenching them behind until bone ground bone. His knee braced her spine, pinning her flat. His palm shoved her cheek into gravel until skin split and the world narrowed to dust and blood.
"Enough," he growled into the back of her neck—low, ragged, more strain in it than he meant to show.
Her scream tore out of her, raw and animal, her whole body convulsing beneath him. She kicked hard, bucked wild. Her wrists twisted until fire lanced through them. Brock didn't move. Just pressed her down harder, like he meant to grind her into the earth. Gunfire still shredded the den in front of them, every burst rattling through her chest.
She bucked again, legs thrashing, wrists wrenching under his grip until gravel scraped her cheek raw.
"Harper," he said—low, firm, final. Her name like a weight dropped between them. "Stop. It's done."
The last shot cracked. Then silence. Not peace—just aftermath.
She froze under him, breath sawing against the pavement, blood and gunpowder thick in her mouth. The images burned behind her eyes—the spray across the steps, the mark where his boot had fallen—etched too deep to look away from. Brock didn't speak again. He only waited, weight unyielding, focus sharp enough to cut.
Then—boots. Two sets. Heavy. Uneven. They came down the porch. Harper couldn't lift her head, couldn't move, cheek mashed to concrete, eyes staring out toward the steps, the smear of blood, the shadows closing in.
Lena came first. Onyx had her by the arm, dragging her rough and fast. Blood soaked her sleeve, one hand dangling useless. She didn't fight—just stumbled, legs buckling, jaw slack. At the bottom step she crumpled. Onyx yanked her up without slowing.
He hauled her beside Harper and slammed her down like she weighed nothing, a knee grinding between her shoulder blades. Lena hit hard—the breath knocked out in a choked gasp more air than voice. Her body sagged, head rolling until her cheek struck the pavement on the same side as Harper's. Their faces ended inches apart, eyes forced to lock by the angle of the ground. Lena's lashes clumped with blood, one swollen eye blinking slow. Harper couldn't look away. Their breath rasped shallow through grit, mingling in the dirt, trapped together in the wreckage. They stared—silent, broken—the world narrowed to blood and the ruin of what they couldn't stop.
Boots crossed her line of sight—Keir's, heavy and deliberate—and another pair dragging behind, uneven, stumbling. A body came with them. She caught it in fragments: a shirt soaked dark at the side, arms wrenched back, a head sagging with each pull. Each step rattled a wet gasp into the night, close enough she could hear it over the roar In her ears.
Then the weight hit the ground beside Lena with a bone-heavy thud that shuddered through the boards. Keir drove a boot between his shoulder blades, grinding him flat without pause, without care. His head rolled to the side, face slack with pain, and Harper saw him. Wedge. Blood-drenched, bound, half-gone—but alive enough for his eyes to find hers. They widened, startled, disbelieving, like he was staring at a ghost. Like he couldn't make sense of her being there at all.
The air pressed In on all of them. Harper couldn't speak. Her lungs burned. Her wrists strained against Brock's grip, her cheek grinding into dirt. Her vision tunneled—blood, sweat, grit, and Lena's face inches from hers: wrecked, wide-eyed, lips parted like she wanted to speak but couldn't. She didn't have to. Harper already knew.
This was all that was left.
The silence wasn't peace, wasn't relief. It pressed heavy, a dead throb of aftermath that none of them dared break. Brock didn't move. His knee stayed planted in the small of her back, his weight pinning her flat, his grip grinding bone to bone at her wrists. Blood and grit filled her mouth. Beside her, Lena trembled, breath catching shallow, her stare locked and unblinking.
Then Brock spoke. "Nothing stays buried. Not for long." His voice wasn't cruel. It didn't have to be. The words landed heavy and absolute, like stone dropped in water—no echo, no ripple, just finality. His eyes swept over the wreckage, then slid to Lena. "Could've stayed gone. Could've let it rot quiet. But someone came knocking."
Beside her, Lena's breath hitched—ragged, caught. Harper met her eyes, the smallest shift she could manage, and gave her a look that said what she couldn't speak: it's okay. Even if it wasn't. Even if nothing was.
Harper caught the motion flicker past Lena—Keir raising the pistol.
Then the shot.
Wedge's body jolted once, a violent twitch under the weight of Keir's boot. The crack rattled through her skull, swallowing every other sound. Blood sprayed low across the pavement, warm specks kissing Harper's cheek, close enough she could taste iron in the back of her throat.
She didn't scream. She just stared. And Wedge didn't move again.
Before her body could even process it, a sound ripped out of her—ragged, useless. "No—" Already too late.
Onyx moved anyway.
The round punched through the side of Lena's skull with a wet crack, spraying blood and bone into Harper's face. It hit hot, sharp, running across her skin and lips. Her limbs jerked once—fingers curling, shoulder twitching—then collapsed. Her eyes stayed open, locked on Harper. Blank now. Empty. A second ago she'd been breathing into her face, and now she was gone.
Harper went still. Her breath caught mid-spasm, chest locking so tight she thought her ribs would crack. Her arms went numb, nerves buzzing like dead wires. The ground vanished beneath her. For one split second, everything shrank—the alley, the blood, the bodies—until all that remained was Brock's palm crushing her skull to the dirt and his knee grinding into her spine. Both his hands were full. No weapon drawn. But still—
She waited. Braced. The silence closed in, taut and breathless, like the air itself was holding for the shot.
Brock moved without a word. The weight vanished from her spine, and then his hand was at her back again—fisting her hoodie, yanking her up in one brutal pull. Her boots scraped pavement. Her knees buckled, collapsing under her, and she staggered forward until balance caught, unsteady and raw. Blood soaked her clothes in layers—some still warm, some already cold. Her hoodie clung to her ribs, her arms, her throat like a second, suffocating skin. Her knees were torn. Her hands twitched at her sides, fingers stuck in a half-clench she couldn't unwind.
Her chin stayed tucked, eyes dragging over the bodies at her feet—Lena slack, Wedge sprawled—until she couldn't stand it and dropped her gaze lower. The smeared path of blood stretched from the porch to the street, dark and endless. She fixed on that instead. Her breath came ragged, every inhale a scrape. Her thoughts were gone, burned out in the blast. All that remained was sensation. Cold. Weight. The sting of grit in raw skin. The stink of gunpowder, blood, and smoke thick in her nose.
Brock moved around her, boots scuffing the ground until he stood in front of her. His coat brushed her arm as he turned, and Harper flinched before she could stop it, body braced for a blow. But it didn't come. Instead, his hands rose—slow, deliberate—and closed around her face. She flinched again, sharper this time, every nerve recoiling.
His palms were warm. Not gentle, not rough—just firm, steady. One thumb smeared blood along her cheekbone like paint. The other pressed near the corner of her mouth, tracing something she couldn't name. His fingers framed her jaw, holding her still, tilting her head up until she had no choice but to meet his eyes.
He looked at her—right through her. And then, softly, almost tender: "You did good."
The words carried no edge of mockery. They were quiet, heavy, and worse for the faint ring of belief inside them. His voice made it sound true, as if in his mind she had done exactly what was needed. The verdict landed like weight in her chest, crushing. Her stomach twisted. Tears slid hot down her face, streaking into his palms. Her knees sagged, nearly folding, but his hands stayed fixed, thumbs brushing through the wet as if wiping them away, as if claiming them. The weight of his approval wrapped over her like a shroud. Warm. Wrong. Complete.
The silence fractured as an engine growled up the alley—slow, deliberate, like a predator that already knew the kill was made. Harper didn't turn her head. She felt it first, vibration bleeding through the soles of her boots, crawling her legs, climbing her spine until it nested at the base of her skull. Gravel crunched. Glass shifted. The van hissed to a stop behind her.
At some point, Brock's hands had dropped—one sliding from her face to clamp around her arm, the other settling heavy on her shoulder. Not forcing, not dragging. Just weight. Presence. A reminder. She didn't try to move. Couldn't. Her body wasn't hers anymore. It hadn't been since the moment they chose her as the knock on the door.
The van doors cracked open with a twin-metal groan. No orders. No chatter. Just movement—gloved, practiced, silent. Syndicate cleanup. Onyx and Keir stayed close, boots planted, rifles angled, eyes cutting between the street and the porch as the janitors went to work.
They took Dante first. One crouched to his shoulders while another caught his wrists, dragging him down the steps. His boots thumped each riser, head lolling with every jolt until they hauled him past her. Harper's chest locked. She couldn't move, couldn't even reach, only watch as his face swung into view—eyes glassy, mouth slack—as if he might still say her name. Her hands twitched, useless, as if she could reach. Then they heaved him into the van. The sound landed sharp: a wet slap, bone on metal, his skull rebounding off the floor before the dark swallowed him.
Then Lena. A man hooked an arm under her ribs, dragging her limp across the boards. Her foot bent sideways against the curb, hoodie twisting around her torso as they pulled her past Harper and flung her in after Dante. She hit the floor with a slick thud, leaving a smear across the pavement that made Harper's stomach buck against itself.
Next came Wedge. They caught him by bound wrists and ankles, folding him in half as if joints meant nothing. His shoulder clipped the porch rail, then he sagged sideways, a line of blood streaking behind him as they carried him past. Harper forced her eyes shut as they hurled him in on top of Lena's legs, but she could still hear it: the collapse of weight, the metallic ring, the steady drip painting the van floor.
Then the rest. Seven, maybe eight more. No names. No words. Just shapes, limp and bloodied, dragged out past her like refuse. A jacket with a Viper tag she'd helped sew back on mid-mission. A wrist tattoo she'd once traced with a marker to darken the ink. A pair of boots she'd borrowed when hers were soaked through. Now those same boots skidded across the pavement, their leg bent wrong, until they too vanished into the van's dark mouth.
All of them had been hers. Her people. Her crew.
Brock turned her, guiding her toward the open van one quiet step at a time, like a handler walking something broken. She didn't resist—not with her legs—but at the threshold she balked. Her knees locked. Her chest seized. She could smell it already—iron thick as rust, heat rolling out of the steel box before she saw inside.
The van was hell.
No benches. No division. Just slick metal walls and a heap of bodies. Blood pooled beneath them, spreading in dark rivers. Wedge's boots stuck near the edge, an arm bent wrong beneath him. Lena lay crumpled beside him, hair glued to the gore streaking the floor. Someone else—Skiv, maybe, or Gash—was folded against the wall, mouth slack, eyes gone glass. Dante was deeper in, half-buried, only the edge of his jacket visible through the mess.
Brock's hand pressed her forward. Not rough. Not impatient. Just inevitable. "With them," he said, voice low, final. Her fingers curled around the frame, knuckles white, before she dragged herself up. Her boots slid on blood-slick steel, sending her stumbling. She caught herself with a slap of her palm against the wall—and it smeared, red across her skin. Heat wrapped her next, thick and suffocating, radiating from the bodies like fever.
Behind her, the doors slammed shut with a hollow bang that echoed down her spine and nested behind her sternum. The van jolted into gear. She stayed upright at first, hand braced on the wall, boots planted between limbs. A corpse shifted near her calf. Someone's foot bumped her ankle. Then another lurch—sharper—and her knees gave. She dropped.
Blood met her palms. Her thighs pressed into cooling flesh. Her fingers slid over something soft and slick. There was no space to sit clean. She landed wedged between ribs and hips, legs bent the wrong way. Shoulders leaned into her, faces pressed close. A jaw knocked her shin. An elbow pinned her hip. She slumped against the wall, half-seated, half-consumed, the weight of them moving with the van's sway as if they still breathed.
She didn't cry. Instead, she catalogued. A patch sewn crooked on a vest. A scar she'd kissed once as a joke. A hand with a jagged pinky she used to mock. Ash had taught her to break into corporate feeds, fast-talking and sharp-eyed, gum always snapping between his teeth. Ash was small now, slumped in the back, knees tucked, still. Another had shown her how to loop razor wire into coat lining. He lay face-down, boot gone, ribs jutting like broken ridges.
She didn't count. She didn't have to. Twelve. The old heads. The fresh recruits. Even Jager, who swore he'd die in bed with a girl and a smoke. He was curled by the wheel well, hoodie soaked, mouth slack.
And then—Dante.
He was there. Half-buried beneath the others, one arm twisted under a body she didn't bother identifying. His hoodie clung to his chest, soaked and dark. His fingers were curled. His mouth slack. His eyes still open, still waiting. The blood had gone nearly black. There was nothing left to misread. No breath to hope for.
Harper moved.
Her knees slid through blood. Her hands slipped in it. She clawed her way forward, dragging herself over the heap of limbs and torsos and faces she used to know. An elbow dug into her ribs. A boot caught her thigh. She didn't stop. Didn't look. Didn't care. She shoved a body off his shoulder, pulled another aside until Dante's chest was clear. She collapsed beside him, the van's steel floor cold beneath her hips. Blood soaked her jeans, her shirt, her skin. Her fingers trembled as she touched his cheek, brushed his hair back from his forehead—revealing the hole above his brow, small and merciless. Her vision blurred, hot tears spilling, streaking the blood already on her face.
She curled into him like they were only just beginning, not ending—pressing close the way she used to when the nights were long and safe. She whispered his name. Just once. The sound broke inside her, raw and helpless.
The van turned. A body slid Into her back—an arm, heavy and limp, pressing her tighter against Dante's sleeve. She didn't flinch. The dead couldn't hurt her anymore. Only the living could.
Time passed in fragments. The sway of the van tilting the heap of limbs. The groan of suspension with every rut in the road. The stink of blood drying tacky on her skin. Sometimes a shoulder shifted against her ribs, or a boot knocked her shin as the pile shifted. She stayed curled into Dante, cheek pressed to his sleeve, holding to him as the minutes bled into what felt like hours.
Eventually, the van slowed. Turned. Rolled to a stop. The engine cut out, leaving only quiet—thick, absolute.
Harper didn't lift her head. Dante's arm was stiff under her cheek, his hoodie cold against her skin.
Then the latch cracked. White floodlight poured inside from mounted rigs overhead—compound perimeter lighting. Harsh. Unforgiving. It struck her eyes raw after the dark, burning tears into them before she realized she was crying again.
"Out," Brock said from the threshold. She didn't move. "Now."
Nothing. Not even a flinch.
Boots hit the van floor. He climbed in, crossing the blood-slick metal. His hand closed on her shoulder, prying her loose. She resisted without meaning to—her arms locked around Dante's body, cheek pressed to his sleeve. Brock pulled harder, peeling her away finger by finger until her grip slipped free. Her boots slid in the blood. She lurched forward, still reaching for him, eyes locked on his face until the pile of bodies and the dark of the van cut him from view.
Then air. Then ground. Knees struck first, then palms. Gravel and oil-bit concrete scraped raw against her skin. She tried to push up, arms trembling, but they buckled beneath her. Brock didn't wait. He hauled her upright in one motion, as if she weighed nothing. No gentleness. No cruelty. Just effort. Just expectation. Her body listed. Vision spotted. The harsh fluorescents of the Syndicate garage stung her eyes. Behind her, the doors slammed shut, sealing the dead away.
Brock looked her over—blood, dirt, sweat, someone else's death smeared across her like a second skin. He didn't speak right away. Just watched her wobble, his jaw tight, something flickering in his eyes before it shuttered closed again. Then he jerked his chin toward the waiting men. "Get her cleaned up," he said. "Put her back in her cell."
Three stepped forward from the shadows. She tensed. One gripped her arm. Another took the other side. The third fell in behind. She twisted, useless.
They dragged her anyway.