"Block."
The word cut across the room, low but edged with command. Harper twisted, ribs screaming protest as Brock's aluminum trainer swept in. She was a fraction late. The strike landed with a hollow crack, pain bursting through bruised muscle. Her breath caught hard in her chest, but she forced it out slow. Shoulders squared, jaw set, she anchored herself against the sting. The pain would pass; his eyes on her would not.
She slashed low at his thigh, her trainer slippery with sweat in her grip. Brock pivoted clear before the blade kissed fabric—smooth, infuriatingly fast.
"Again."
Sweat traced the curve of her spine, soaking the back of her tank. Her lungs hauled for air, breath snagging on the deep, coiled ache living under her ribs—familiar, unwelcome, but constant. She didn't pause. She reset.
Weight forward. Blade low. Shoulders squared. Jaw set.
This time, she was ready. She caught the twitch in his shoulders—the kind of tell she wouldn't have seen days ago. The moment his blade dropped, she met it steel-on-steel, arms locked, bracing through the hit. The jolt rattled through her frame, but she held. Didn't flinch. Didn't give ground.
The clash rang out, bright against the walls. Her arms shook with the force of it, but her stance held. For a breath, neither of them moved—just the vibration of tension between blades. Then he stepped back without a word. No praise. No warning. Just space.
Across from her, Brock had already stilled—blade low at his side, feet planted, that motionless pause before the next strike. His eyes stayed locked on hers, measuring not just her guard but the weight in her stance, the drag of fatigue, the flicker of pain she couldn't quite mask.
He didn't speak. Didn't nod. Just watched.
She circled slowly, boots whispering over the mats, the motion drilled into her now—rehearsed, familiar, a rhythm carved into muscle over long days.
It had been this way for a week. Wake. Eat. Train. Back to her cell. Repeat.
The bruises were fading. Purple gone to yellow. The ache in her ribs dulled to a slow throb, manageable now—unless he knocked her off balance or drove her through drills until her lungs burned raw. She still caught herself pressing a hand to her side when his eyes weren't on her.
The cell never changed. Concrete bit into her spine at night, the threadbare blanket useless against the cold that seeped bone-deep by dawn. He brought breakfast himself—steam curling off eggs, bread, coffee—and she hated it more than the guards' scraps. The scraps made sense; they fit the cage. His offerings did not. They carried weight, a reminder that he could choose when she starved and when she didn't, when she was human and when she was less. The food always went down like ash, no matter how her body craved it.
And always, him. Brock's hand on her arm. Brock's voice dictating when she stood, when she fought, when she broke. His eyes never softened, only measured, stripping her down to a tally of failures and endurance. She despised the way her nerves stretched taut whenever his boots stopped outside her door, the way her pulse jumped at the scrape of the lock. He wasn't salvation. He wasn't company. He was the weight pressing her down, the one tightening the screws. She could stand the bruises; it was the familiarity of his presence she couldn't forgive.
Her foot snagged the seam between mats as she shifted forward, weight rolling into readiness.
Across from her, Brock stood steady—blade low, body still, eyes fixed on her.
"Strike."
The command hit and her body moved before thought could catch. No signal. No build. Just instinct, sudden and raw.
She feinted left, let him track the motion—then dropped low, twisting through the ache in her ribs and driving up off her back foot. It was scrappy, closer to a street fight than clean drill, but the rhythm carried her through.
Her trainer smacked against his side, flat and fast. Not a wound, not even close—but contact all the same.
He stepped back.
The silence that followed hit louder in her chest than any strike. That thin pause after contact—like the gap between inhale and exhale—dragged just a fraction too long, thick with meaning.
She held herself taut, blade angled, breath raw at the edges of her throat. Every nerve braced for him to close the distance, to remind her how small she still was.
Instead, he reset. Shoulders loose, stance squared. Eyes steady, unreadable.
No praise. No acknowledgement. Only the command that followed, flat as steel:
"Again."
She moved before the word had even left his mouth. Tight steps, blade low, every ounce of fury driving her forward.
This time she didn't feint. She drove in close, closing the space until there was no room left, blade cutting a tight arc. It clipped him low at the hip where his stance had opened on the reset. Not clean. Not elegant. But it landed.
His hand closed on her elbow a breath later—not rough, but solid, a jolt through the joint. A check, not restraint. A warning. He'd felt it.
And now he was finished holding back.
The change was instant. His shoulder slammed into hers, the force knocking her off balance. Not enough to drop her, but enough to stagger her weight.
She caught herself, barely, dragging her stance back under her. Blade rising—
Too slow.
He spun behind her, movement like smoke—sudden, fast, merciless. His arm cinched across her waist, just below her ribs, and ripped her off her feet.
Her boots left the mat. Air burst from her chest in a choking gasp as her spine cracked against the floor, the weight of her body folding into the impact. Pain flared white-hot. Her trainer flew from her grip, skittering across the mats, metal clattering as it came to rest yards away.
He followed her down a heartbeat later, one knee slamming into the mat beside her, the other driving across her upper thigh to pin her hips before she could roll.
Instinct dragged her shoulder toward the fallen knife, hand stretching for it—
—but cold metal was already waiting. His blade angled tight against her throat, the flat of aluminum pressing beneath her jaw.
Not deep enough to cut. Not even hard enough to bruise. But firm enough that breath hitched, firm enough she knew she was finished.
Brock loomed above her, one knee braced to keep her locked, his breath steady, blade fixed. The weight wasn't vicious—it was precise. Inevitable.
"Don't get cocky."
The words landed quiet in the space between them, low and measured. No edge of mockery, no flash of temper—only the flat certainty of a man stating fact.
The blade lingered a moment, weight pulsing with her heartbeat, before he eased back and rose—silent, no gloat, no glance. Just reset.
She stayed down. Breath ragged. One arm curled against her ribs, the other braced flat on the mat. Not stunned, not broken—just still, her body buzzing with the aftermath: breath tight, ribs raw, nerves ringing from the slam.
Then—quiet, deliberate—his hand slid into view above her, palm tilted so the light caught. Open. Steady. Waiting. No command in it, no urgency. A choice. The first he'd given her. A gesture without warmth, without instinctive mercy. A test.
She stared at the hand.
Her ribs burned with every breath, sweat cooling in patches along her spine, muscles still shuddering from the slam. One arm throbbed from the way she'd hit, and every inch of her body hummed with effort, buzzing with the echo of his weight and the restraint that followed. She could've shoved herself up, forced defiance into motion. She could've spat something cutting, just to bare her teeth. Or she could've stayed prone, dragged the silence out, turned it into defiance of a different kind.
But none of it fit. Not here. Not now.
Instead, she lifted her eyes past his hand to his face. He hadn't shifted. No crease in his brow, no flicker of irritation or triumph. Not waiting—just holding the space between them.
Her fingers flexed once against the mat, then again, slower. Pride coiled sharp beneath her ribs, fierce and aching—but under it lay something colder. Steadier. This wasn't surrender. It was recognition.
She didn't take his palm. She clamped onto his wrist—firm, deliberate. Not for balance. For control.
The contact jolted through her like a second pulse—firm, deliberate, hers clamped on his wrist, his arm unyielding in return. With one hard pull she forced herself upright, using his steadiness as leverage, not support. Her boots hit the mat solid, legs shaking but locked beneath her. She held his wrist a fraction longer than needed, making it clear the release was hers to give.
They stood in silence, the weight of the takedown still hanging between them. No words. No shift of expression. Just the hard fact of who had dropped who.
She let go first.
Brock crossed the mat without a word. He stooped once to collect her fallen trainer, slid it back into its rack, then turned. His hand closed firm around her arm—steady, unyielding—and he pulled her with him toward the door. No dismissal, no command. Just motion.
The door sealed behind them, boots striking in tandem on the concrete. His grip stayed firm on her arm as he steered her into the stairwell. Instinct braced her for the turn downward—back toward the basement, the cell—but his pull angled her the other way. Up.
She climbed without falter, breath steady despite the dull ache still threaded through her ribs. At the landing he let go. The absence hit stranger than his hold. His hand was always there—fixed above her elbow like he thought she might bolt if he didn't keep her tethered. Without it, her arm felt abruptly weightless, unmoored.
He didn't step away. Stayed close enough that the air between them was claimed all the same. The corridor ahead stretched brighter, broader—an unfamiliar hall, one she'd never been led through before.
Her gaze cut sideways, confusion flickering before she could rein it in.
Brock caught it. His voice came flat, even. "Cafeteria."
His hand brushed her elbow again, a nudge more than a grip, steering her forward. The corridor funneled them toward a set of heavy double doors at the end, steel panels dulled from years of use.
Her chest tightened. Each step dragged her closer to the noise, to the weight of bodies on the other side. She'd fought him, bled under him, endured the cold concrete of her cell—but this was different. This was eyes. Judgment. Public.
Brock caught the tension in her shoulders, the prickle of hesitation in her stride. His voice came low, iron under every word. "You don't get to hide. You walk in, and they look. Let them. Every stare reminds you what you are here—alive because I say so, safe because I stand here. That's the weight you carry. Better you learn it now than choke on it later."
Her jaw locked against the words, pride rising bitter in her throat—but the truth of them dug deep all the same. Alive because he said so. Safe only in his shadow. Every stare waiting on the other side would hammer that fact in. She hated him for it. Hated herself for the flicker of fear crawling under her skin.
The doors swung wide at his push. Noise rushed out, sudden and thick—metal on metal, boots on concrete, voices layering over one another in a grind of conversation and laughter. The air carried grease and salt and the faint sting of coffee burned too long on the pot.
Rows of steel tables stretched wall to wall, benches crammed with Syndicate enforcers and recruits bent over trays. At the far side, a food line snaked past battered steel counters and steam trays sweating under heat lamps—meat ladled out in chunks, bread stacked lopsided on dented pans, coffee sloshed from urns into tin mugs. Guards with sleeves rolled back moved through with the rhythm of routine: tray down, scoop, slide forward. The hiss of the line cut through the room beneath the chatter, steady as machinery.
Some men leaned over their meals, eating quick and silent. Others slouched in packs, laughter cracking loud across the tables. But one by one, heads lifted as the pair crossed the threshold. Conversation broke, forks stilled, trays landed heavy against tabletops. Dozens of gazes caught her—trailing the sweat still damp on her collar, the yellow bloom of half-healed bruises across her ribs, the way Brock's shadow bracketed her. Recognition moved through the room like current. They knew. Every face carried it: what she'd endured, what she'd lost, what she was being remade into.
Brock didn't slow. He cut a path straight through the center aisle, boots carrying them down the main stretch between rows of tables. The silence that followed was heavier than the din had been, filled with the scrape of benches as men shifted, the rustle of sleeves as conversations cut short. Her own steps sounded loud against the concrete, every one of them marked by the weight of eyes.
She fixed her gaze on the food line ahead, the glow of heat lamps over battered trays. But from the corners of her vision, faces surfaced—familiar in jagged flashes. A handful of men who'd been in the hall that night, watching as Brock dragged her in zip-tied and bloodied, his fist tangled in her hair. Their stares tracked her now, registering the difference: not on her knees, not hauled like cargo, but walking beside him under her own power. Not free. Never free. Just different.
Murmurs rose in her wake, bleeding table to table. Some low and sharp, some muffled under laughter, all carrying the same weight: recognition, judgment, speculation. Each whisper pressed against her skin until she felt stripped bare, exposed under their collective gaze.
The line at the far wall inched forward, steam curling off dented pans. A recruit slid his tray down the counter, glanced back at her once, then snapped his eyes away. Others weren't as quick. The whispers swelled, rippling wider, and the weight of it settled hard in her chest. Alive, but not safe. Never safe.
At the counter, Brock reached first. He caught a dented tray from the stack, dropped a plate onto it, and stepped into the line without a word. The motion was practiced, efficient—like muscle memory. He didn't check if she followed. He didn't need to. His pace set the path, and she was expected to fall in behind.
She hesitated a half beat, then pulled her own tray free, the metal edges clattering against the stack. The sound snapped through her nerves louder than it should have. She slid a plate down and kept her eyes on his hands as he moved ahead—two ladles of greasy meat, a fist of bread torn from the pile, a mound of potatoes collapsed in pale lumps, coffee poured black from the urn into a dented mug.
When it was her turn, she mirrored the motions in smaller measure. A single ladle of meat, half a slice of bread, no potatoes. At the end of the line, her hand hovered over the same urn he'd used—steam rising bitter from the spout. She shifted instead, caught a tin cup, and filled it from the juice canister beside it. The color was flat, watered down, but at least it didn't claw her tongue like the coffee had.
Brock moved on without pause, tray balanced in one hand as he cut through the aisle. He didn't look for a place—he chose one. An empty table near the center, no cover, no corners. The kind of spot that left every angle open, every stare unobstructed. He set his tray down with unhurried weight and claimed the bench like it was already his.
She followed, plate and cup clattering too loud in her hands. The silence pressed sharper here, the scrape of benches and low murmurs filling the gaps where conversation had broken. She lowered herself onto the bench opposite, metal cold beneath her palms. The weight of the room settled heavier with her seated, the exposure complete. Not tucked away. Not hidden. On display.
Brock dug in without hesitation. Fork rasping against metal, bread broken into rough halves, coffee swallowed black. Every motion steady, unbothered, like the room around them didn't exist—or like it had never mattered in the first place.
Her tray stayed untouched. Heat rose off the food, curling into her face, but her stomach was knotted, clamped against the weight of the room. She could feel attention still dragging across her—men leaning back on benches, heads tilted, whispers running through the gaps. The longer she sat frozen, the more it felt like waiting for a blow.
She forced herself to move. Fingers tightened on the fork, scraping up a piece of meat glazed in grease. Her hand trembled once before she steadied it, raised it to her mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. The flavor was heavy, salt ground deep, but it wasn't the taste that turned her stomach. It was the quiet after—the way every motion felt observed, catalogued, judged.
Brock ate on, unmoved.
She felt him before she saw him. A shift in the air at her back, boots dragging closer with a pace she knew too well. Her spine stiffened an instant before Knuckles slid onto the bench beside her, tray clattering down with casual weight. The smell of his food mixed with hers, hot and greasy, and the space she'd had was gone.
Her chest cinched tight. She didn't look at him, didn't need to. Memory filled in the shape: his fists hammering her down, his laughter cutting through her ears, his grip locking her arms while Brock dragged her through the hall. And later—those same hands wiping blood from her face when Vex was finished, rough and practical, no softer than the beating itself. No mercy in either act. Just the same blunt presence she felt now, close enough to crowd her space.
Her fork hovered above the plate, appetite gone to ash.
Across the table, Brock looked up as Knuckles settled. Their eyes caught, and the shift between them was immediate—like the room around them dropped away for a breath.
"Brother," Knuckles said, grin flickering as he reached across to knock his fist against Brock's forearm.
Brock's mouth edged into something rare, almost a smile. "About time," he muttered, voice rough but lighter than she'd ever heard it. The words carried history, an old rhythm worn smooth.
Then the moment passed. Brock tore into his meal again, black coffee following it down. Knuckles matched him, posture loose, shoulders easy. A pair at lunch, their silence companionable. For them, nothing had shifted. For her, everything had.
They ate for a stretch, the scrape of utensils against tin loud in the press of watching gazes. Brock worked through his tray without pause, steady and unbothered. Knuckles kept pace, stabbing meat, chewing slow, broad and unhurried beside her.
Harper kept her head down, prodding food she didn't want. Every muscle in her back was tight, waiting for the room to break against her, waiting for laughter or a word sharp enough to cut. She didn't realize how rigid she'd gone until Knuckles' elbow brushed lightly into her arm, a nudge more playful than rough.
"Relax, Firefly," he said, tone lighter than she expected. Not mocking. Almost gentle. "They're gonna stare whether you twitch or not."
Her shoulders locked under the contact. The nickname hit like static—unwelcome, too close. She didn't answer, jaw clamped shut, pride sealing the words in her throat. Knuckles felt the tension roll through her and flicked a glance across the table. Brock met it without pause, one steady look traded for another. A silent exchange. Understanding passed between them, unspoken but clear. Then Brock returned to his food, steady as stone, and Knuckles jabbed another bite from his plate as if nothing had happened.
The three of them ate, the hush stretching until Knuckles tipped his mug back, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at Brock.
"You still good for this afternoon?" His tone was easy, like it was just another errand on the list.
Brock finished chewing, fork clicking against metal. "Yeah. Guy's overdue. We'll handle it quick."
Knuckles speared a chunk of meat, chewing slow before he asked, "Same spot as before?"
"Mm." Brock drained the rest of his coffee, set the mug aside. "He'll fold fast enough." Then, after a beat, his eyes cut across the table—steady, deliberate. "She's coming."
The words hit Harper like a blow. Her fork stalled halfway to her mouth, grease shining on the tines. She froze, pulse climbing hard against her ribs. Out there. He meant to drag her out there.
Knuckles' brows rose, surprise plain before he masked it. His gaze slid to her, then back to Brock. "Since when are we bringing passengers?"
"Since now," Brock said, flat as stone. "She stays in the car."
Harper's fingers tightened around the fork, her breath shallow. She couldn't hide the flicker in her eyes—the hesitation, the fear she didn't want them to see. Brock caught it, steady as ever.
"You'll sit in the car," he said, voice even. "You'll hear it, see it, feel it. Better with us than blind later. That's how you learn."
─•────
Harper didn't realize how long it had been until the sun hit her face. Weeks, maybe more, since anything but fluorescent hum and concrete walls. Now it poured through the windshield in a hard wash of gold, forcing her eyes half-shut as the SUV rolled down the road. It should have felt like freedom. Instead it burned, glare searing after so much dark, exposing every raw edge she'd tried to bury.
Knuckles drove, one hand loose on the wheel, elbow braced against the door. The easy rhythm in his posture made her skin crawl. Brock sat behind her, silent, steady, presence pressing at her back like a weight that wouldn't lift.
She turned toward the window, cheek angling into the glass, and let the world slide past. Streets unspooled in quick cuts—storefronts with peeling paint, kids kicking a ball in a cracked lot, laundry lines snapping in the breeze. Ordinary, alive, things she hadn't seen in weeks. Every flash of it scraped at her chest, raw in its normalcy, like she was watching through glass at a life she no longer owned.
The SUV slowed as Knuckles swung them off the main road. Pavement gave way to gravel, the tires grinding steady until he eased to a stop outside a squat building with boarded windows and paint curling off the siding. A single rusted sedan sat crooked in the dirt lot, sun glinting off its windshield.
Knuckles killed the engine. The stillness that followed pressed heavier than the drive. He leaned back in his seat, waiting. Brock's hand pressed once against the back of hers on the headrest—more signal than touch—before he opened his door.
"Stay put," he said, voice flat as fact. Then he was out, stones crunching under his boots, the door shutting with a weight that left her alone with Knuckles and the echo of her own pulse.
She tracked him through the glass as he crossed the lot, gravel shifting beneath his steps. Brock's shoulders carried the same unhurried weight they always did, as if this were nothing more than another drill, another routine. He reached the door of the squat building, rattled it once with his hand, then slipped inside without a glance back. The frame swallowed him whole, leaving the lot empty, the car hushed.
Harper's fingers dug into her thighs, nails pressing crescents through the fabric. She couldn't hear anything yet—no voices, no struggle—just the drone of sunbaked air and the creak of the car cooling around her. The pause stretched until Knuckles spoke, voice breaking it like a stone through glass.
"He won't take long," Knuckles said, tone easy, almost conversational. "Guy's soft. Folds if you breathe hard enough."
He shifted, settling deeper into the driver's seat, arm slung loose across the wheel. "Truth is, jobs like this are the sweet ones. No blood, no teeth on the floor, just a door knock and a reminder." His mouth curved, grin cutting wider. This time his eyes slid to her, holding. "But then I wouldn't get to have any fun."
The words crawled under her skin. Harper turned her head, meeting his look for the first time since he sat down. Heat rose in her throat, pride aching for a retort—but nothing came. She clamped her jaw shut, refusing to give him more than her silence. His grin lingered a moment longer before he looked back at the door, unbothered.
The lull fractured. A shout carried faint through the walls, muffled but urgent. A door slammed against something hard, the echo dull even from the car. Furniture scraped, heavy and sudden, like it had been shoved aside. Then nothing—just the weighted hum of afternoon heat, pressing thicker than before.
Knuckles' grin settled into something steadier, like he'd been expecting it. "Told you," he muttered, almost to himself. "Won't take long."
The hush held for another stretch, so long she started to count her own breaths. Then the door creaked open. Brock emerged alone, shoulders square, stride unhurried. His hands were empty, no weapon in sight, his shirt neat but for a wrinkle where he'd shoved his sleeves back. No blood, no mess—just the calm gravity of a man who'd finished what he came to do.
He crossed the lot without hurry, stones grinding under his boots, eyes fixed ahead. Whatever had been said inside, whatever had been done, he carried none of it on his face. He looked the same as when he'd gone in. And that—more than any shout or slam—made Harper's stomach knot tighter.
He pulled the rear door open, slid into the back seat, and shut it with a solid click. "Done."
Knuckles started the engine like nothing at all had happened, humming low under his breath as the car rolled back onto the road.
─•────
By the time they locked her back in, the overheads had dulled to their nighttime buzz. Now, hours later, the hum still vibrated faint through the concrete, steady as breath. The air had cooled, seeping damp into the floor until it clung to her skin. Harper lay flat on her back, blanket bunched beneath her skull in a poor excuse for a pillow, eyes fixed on the ceiling's cracked plaster.
The day clung to her still—her ribs aching from the mat, her throat dry from cafeteria food, sunlight lingering behind her eyes like a burn she couldn't blink away. On the drive back she hadn't spoken a word, just listened to the low drift of Brock and Knuckles' voices trading between them—casual, easy, like the job had been nothing. Their talk had carried down the hall even after the lock had slid home, fading into the distance and leaving her with nothing but the quiet hum and the cold pressing up through her spine.
It was the ordinariness of it that hollowed her out. Brock's calm, Knuckles' easy chatter—two men returning from work, unwinding as though they hadn't just dragged her through their world like cargo. And what a world it had been. The cafeteria, every eye cutting her open as she walked past. The sunlight, too much after weeks of concrete. The drive, watching streets and children and laundry like she was peering through glass at another life. And the job—her sitting silent in the car while Brock went inside, while Knuckles filled the space with threats that felt like jokes. All of it had been more than the cell, but none of it belonged to her. She was there, but never part of it. Alive, visible, but not included. A piece to be moved. A shadow dragged behind them.
She sighed through her nose and rolled onto her side, the concrete biting into her hip. The chill sank deeper there, needling bone. Her blanket was still bunched under her head, thin and useless, a poor cushion against the slab. She had to choose—keep it at her skull for comfort or drag it down for warmth. Pillow or heat. One or the other. Never both.
Her eyes slid shut, breath evening out. The day clung at the edges of her mind—cafeteria stares, sunlight through glass, Knuckles' grin—but exhaustion pulled heavier. Muscles loosened, thoughts blurring. Sleep pressed close, shallow but enough.
Footsteps pulled her back. Faint at first, boots against concrete somewhere down the hall. She stirred, lids heavy, pulse nudging faster. Brock, she thought. Too late for rounds, but it had to be him. No one else came for her this late. No one else had reason.
The tread multiplied. Not one man. Three. Three distinct rhythms striking closer, overlapping, steady in their approach. The sound turned the air colder than the floor beneath her, chasing sleep from her body in a rush.
She pushed up fast, the slab biting through her bare soles, muscles jolting awake as the lock scraped. The door swung wide. Light from the corridor slashed across the cell, and three figures filled the frame before stepping inside.
Her heart stopped cold. She knew them. The same three from the showers, the ones who had circled her like wolves before Brock had cut through. Their faces carried the same look now—hungry, certain, as if the cell itself had already chosen sides.
The tallest one grinned, teeth glinting in the dim. "Change of plans," he said, voice dripping with satisfaction. "Turns out Brock doesn't want you around anymore."