Chapter 2
Chapter Two
CARA
Softness.
That's the first thing I notice. Wrongness follows immediately after.
My body remembers concrete floors and metal shipping containers. Years of hard surfaces have trained my muscles to brace against unyielding resistance. This softness beneath me feels like quicksand, like I'm being swallowed alive.
My eyes snap open to unfamiliar darkness. Not the pitch black of the container or the harsh fluorescents of the "processing" rooms, but a gentler shadow. Moonlight filters through blinds I don't recognize, casting stripes across an actual bed. The sheets smell of laundry detergent instead of sweat and fear. The space around me stretches too far in every direction after years of confinement.
Wrong. All wrong.
My heart thunders against my ribs as memories fragment and collide. Men with guns. The container doors opening. Being carried. His face?—
Falcon.
The memory of his expression when he recognized me sends a fresh wave of panic through my system. Shock. Horror. Disgust? I couldn't read him like I used to.
Male voices rumble somewhere outside the door, and my body reacts before my mind can catch up. I'm on the floor, wedged between the bed and wall, making myself as small as possible. A skill learned through pain and repetition.
"This one needs special attention. The boss has plans."
Rough hands dragging me by my hair. Laughter as I struggle.
No. I'm not there anymore. I press my palms against my eyes until colors burst behind my eyelids. Focus on now. On here.
I take inventory: someone has cleaned me up. The grime of countless unwashed days is gone. I'm wearing soft sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt that smells faintly of motor oil and sandalwood. An IV line runs into my left arm, the needle taped securely in place. My hair feels damp—someone washed it while I was unconscious.
The realization that strangers handled me while I was vulnerable sends another spike of terror through me until I remember where I must be. The Saints Outlaws MC clubhouse. Falcon's home.
I was rescued. I'm safe.
Five years of captivity have taught me to distrust such simple statements.
The door opens, and I press myself harder against the wall, fighting the urge to scream.
"Easy," says a female voice. "Nobody's going to hurt you here."
A woman enters, moving slowly into my field of vision. Late thirties, maybe. Dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. She keeps her distance, hands visible at her sides. Her eyes assess me with knowing recognition.
"My name's Maggie," she says. "I work with the Saints Outlaws. Help women like us."
Like us. The words land like a weight.
"You were..." My voice rasps from disuse, or maybe from screaming during the rescue I barely remember.
"Three years ago." Maggie doesn't need me to finish the question. "Different operation, same nightmare. The Saints Outlaws found me in a basement in Seattle." She gestures to the space between us. "Mind if I sit? Not too close."
I manage a jerky nod, inching out from my hiding place as she settles on the floor a few feet away. Not looming over me. Not trapping me against the wall. Small mercies I've learned to appreciate.
"The other women?" I ask.
"Safe. Being looked after. The children are with social services—the good kind, with people we trust." Maggie's face softens. "You all got out. Every one of you."
Something loosens in my chest. In the container, we'd whispered promises to remember each other if any of us made it out. To tell someone we existed.
"How long have I been here?"
"About thirty-six hours. Doc had to sedate you." She watches my reaction carefully. "You were fighting pretty hard. Took three of the guys to hold you down while Doc got the needle in."
Another memory surfaces—thrashing against restraining hands, the feeling of a needle, the certainty I was being drugged for transport again. I'd bitten someone. Tasted blood.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
Maggie shakes her head. "Don't apologize for surviving. We've all been there."
I try to stand, suddenly determined to prove I can, but my legs fold beneath me. Maggie doesn't move to help, somehow understanding that her touch would make it worse.
"Your body's been through hell," she says matter-of-factly. "Malnutrition, dehydration, muscle atrophy. Doc says you've got three broken ribs, a recently healed collarbone fracture, and enough scar tissue to tell a five-year story nobody wants to hear."
I try again, using the bed for support, ignoring the trembling in my arms.
"I need to—" What? Run? Where would I go? Who would I be?" I need to move. Please."
Maggie nods. "Bathroom's through that door. I can help, or I can wait here. Your call."
"Wait," I say immediately, then soften my tone. "Please."
She settles back against the wall. "Take your time. I'll be right here."
I shuffle toward the bathroom, dragging the IV stand with me. Each step is a victory against the weakness in my body. Against them.
The first time I fought back, a man with tattoos covering his neck had laughed. "Fiery one," he'd said, before breaking my finger. "We'll fix that." The second time, they broke my arm. By the third time, I'd learned to make them think they'd broken my spirit instead.
In the bathroom, I catch my first clear look at myself in five years. The woman in the mirror is a stranger. Hollowed cheeks. Dark shadows beneath eyes that seem too large for my face. My collarbones protrude sharply beneath skin that's ghostly pale. My hair, once my pride, hangs in dull strands around my shoulders.
I wasn't allowed mirrors in captivity. They said it was because we didn't need to see what we were becoming. I think it was because they didn't want us to see ourselves as human.
I splash water on my face, wincing at the tenderness around my right eye, the healing split in my lip. When I return to the bedroom, Maggie is arranging a small tray of food—toast, apple slices, a bowl of something that might be soup.
"Start small," she advises. "Your stomach needs to remember how to work properly."
I nod, sinking onto the edge of the bed. The toast feels like sandpaper in my mouth, but I force myself to chew and swallow. One slice. Two apple pieces. Three spoonfuls of soup. Small victories.
"Falcon," I say finally, my voice steadier now. "Is he?—?"
Something flickers across Maggie's face. "He's around. Running things." She studies me with new interest. "You know him? Before, I mean."
I look down at my hands, at the place where a ring once sat. A lifetime ago. "Something like that."
Maggie doesn't press, but I can see her connecting dots. "He hasn't told anyone," she says finally. "Whatever your connection is. But something's been off with him since the raid. Never seen him so—" She searches for the word. "Haunted."
Before I can respond, voices in the hallway grow louder. I tense, listening.
"—waste of time when we should be focusing on the women," says a voice I'd recognize anywhere. Deeper than I remember, harder at the edges, but unmistakably Falcon.
"This ledger could lead us to the top," argues another man. "The women are safe. We need to look forward."
"Vulture's right," adds a third voice. "If we can decrypt this thing, we could take down their whole operation."
"It's gibberish," Falcon snaps. "And we're not cyber experts. Let the women heal. Let them go home. That's our priority."
"And the one who recognized you?" asks the second voice, quieter now. "What's her story?"
Silence stretches. My heart pounds in my ears.
"Later," Falcon says finally. "Get that thing to Ice Pick. Let him play codebreaker if he wants. I've got other concerns."
Footsteps move away. I release the breath I've been holding, looking up to find Maggie watching me curiously.
"You could hear them?" she asks.
I nod. "They found something. A ledger?"
"At the warehouse," Maggie confirms. "Some kind of record book with names, dates. All in code."
A chill runs through me. I remember whispered conversations between guards, talk of "the book" and how carefully it was protected. How certain entries meant certain girls would disappear, never to return.
I'd overheard one guard telling another, "The system's genius. Even if someone gets the book, it's useless without the key."
I should say something. Tell Maggie what I know. But five years of survival has taught me to hold my cards close. Information is currency. Safety is never guaranteed.
"I'm tired," I say instead, and it's not a lie. This small conversation has drained what little energy I had.
Maggie stands. "Get some rest. I'll check on you in the morning."
When she's gone, I drag myself back to the bed, curling on my side. The moon has shifted, no longer casting light through the blinds. In the darkness, I feel the familiar weight of dread settling over me. Sleep means nightmares. Nightmares mean screaming. Screaming means punishment.
No. Not anymore. I'm safe now.
I repeat the words until exhaustion pulls me under.
Hands holding me down. A needle in my arm. The van rocking beneath me as men laugh. "She'll fetch a good price." Someone cutting away my clothes. My engagement ring slipped from my finger. "No personal effects." That was the first time they hurt me. I didn’t keep count of how many times they hurt me. It was too many. Learning to go away inside my mind is my only survival. Falcon's face, growing dimmer in my memory with each passing year.
I wake screaming, tangled in sheets soaked with sweat. For a moment, I don't know where I am, thrashing against invisible restraints until a calm voice cuts through my panic.
"You're at the Saints clubhouse. You're safe. No one is going to hurt you."
An older man stands in the doorway, keeping his distance. Gray hair, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. A medical bag in one hand.
"I'm Doc," he says. "The club's physician. You were having a nightmare."
I force my breathing to slow, uncurling my fists from the sheets. "Did I—is everyone?—?"
"You didn't disturb anyone," he assures me, though I'm certain my screams must have carried. "May I check your vitals? I'll tell you everything I'm going to do before I do it."
I nod, grateful for his careful approach. He talks me through each step—checking my pulse, my temperature, the IV site. His touch is clinical, impersonal in a way that doesn't trigger panic.
"The other women," I manage to ask. "How many?—?"
"Twenty-seven women, nine children," Doc says, noting something on a chart. "All receiving care. You were in the worst physical condition of the adults." He glances up. "Falcon has been asking about you."
My heart stutters. "Has he?"
Doc's expression softens. "Hasn't slept since they brought you in. Been pacing outside this room half the night."
I don't know what to do with this information. Is he guarding me? Avoiding me? Planning what to say to the woman he thought abandoned him, who has returned as a broken shell?
"Dawn's breaking," Doc says, glancing toward the window. "Try to rest more if you can. Your body needs it."
After he leaves, I know sleep won't return. Instead, I focus on standing again, determined to build back what they took from me. One step. Another. The IV pole provides support as I shuffle toward the window.
Pain radiates through my body with every movement, but it's clean pain. Healing pain. I embrace it as I reach the window and carefully part the blinds.
Morning light reveals a courtyard I don't recognize. The Saints Outlaws must have set up a club in Chicago. I only knew Falcon when they were in ??? . This clubhouse looks more established. A row of motorcycles gleams in the early sun. A few men in leather cuts smoke near a picnic table, passing a thermos between them. A woman carries a basket of laundry from one building to another.
It looks so... normal. Almost domestic. Nothing like the violent criminals the world believes them to be. Nothing like the monsters who kept me.
Movement draws my eye to a figure working on a motorcycle at the far end of the yard. Even from this distance, I'd know him. The set of his shoulders. The way he braces one boot against the ground as he leans over the engine.
Falcon.
Five years haven't changed his outline, though I know they've changed everything else. The easy smile I once kissed is probably gone. The gentle hands that traced paths across my skin have hardened, learned new ways to hurt. The man who once whispered he couldn't live without me learned to do exactly that.
As I watch, he straightens suddenly, as if sensing my gaze. He turns, looking directly at my window. Even across the distance, I feel the connection snap into place between us—a live wire, dangerous and electric.
For five years, I survived by remembering him. By believing that somewhere, he was living the life we'd planned. Happy. Whole.
Instead, he became this—a hardened outlaw who rescues women from the same fate that took me. I wonder what drove him to it. If my disappearance played some part.
He doesn't wave. Doesn't acknowledge our connection. After a long moment, he turns back to his bike, shoulders rigid with tension which I can feel across the yard.
I press my palm against the cool glass, accepting a truth I've been avoiding since I saw his face in that container: the past can't be reclaimed. We can't go back to who we were before. Those people died—his Cara in an instant when I was taken, my Falcon more slowly as hope turned to betrayal turned to whatever hardened shell he wears now.
The only path is forward. And forward means using what I know. The fragments of information gathered over five years of forced invisibility.
I turn from the window as the door opens, revealing Maggie with a tray of food.
"Morning," she says. "You're up. That's good."
I gesture to the chair beside the bed. "Can we talk?"
She sets down the tray, studying my face. "Sure. What about?"
"The ledger," I say, surprising myself with my steadiness. "I might know something about it."
Maggie stills. "What kind of something?"
"I overheard things. When I was..." I swallow hard. "When I was there. The men talked. They thought we weren't listening, or didn't care if we were."
Understanding dawns in her eyes. "I'll get someone."
"Not Falcon," I say quickly. "Not yet. Someone else who's working on it."
She nods slowly. "I know just the person."
As she leaves, I straighten my shoulders despite the pain. They took five years from me. Took my dignity, my freedom, my future. The ledger is my chance to take something back.
My turn to become the nightmare they never saw coming.