Chapter 7
Doc
I wake up before she does.
We slept longer than I meant to. The light filtering through the curtains isn’t gray anymore. It’s thick, golden. Afternoon.
She’s curled against my side. Bare skin warm against mine. Her hand resting over my ribs like she fell asleep making sure I was real.
My chest tightens.
She looks peaceful.
No tension in her shoulders. No crease between her brows. The tape around her wrists is still in place from last night, edges lifting slightly. Faint purple shadows bloom beneath it.
There are other marks too. Thin scratches along her calves from branches, bruises at her shins, small cuts at her feet from running barefoot through God knows what.
And then the marks I left.
I brush my thumb gently over one of the fading prints at her hip.
Too hard.
I should’ve been gentler.
I should’ve—
“You’re doing it.”
Her voice is soft, still thick with sleep.
I look down. Her eyes are open, studying me.
“Doing what?”
“That thing where you decide you messed up before asking me.”
I huff out a breath. “You’re sore.”
Her mouth curves slightly. “I’m feeling very good, actually.”
“That’s not the same.”
She pushes up onto one elbow, hair falling over her shoulder. There’s no fear in her eyes. No regret.
“You listened,” she says quietly. “You paid attention to me the whole time. You didn’t rush me. You didn’t take anything.”
Her fingers slide up my chest, grounding.
“I gave it.”
The words land deep.
I close my eyes for a second, then open them again. “I don’t ever want you thinking I took something from you.”
“You didn’t.”
She says it like fact. No hesitation.
I sit up slowly and swing my legs off the bed.
The med kit’s still on the small table in the living room where I left it last night.
Old habits.
I grab it and come back to the edge of the bed.
“You’re not done being patched,” I tell her.
A faint smile touches her mouth. “You’re relentless.”
“Yeah.”
She shifts so she’s sitting in front of me. I take her wrist gently, peeling back the tape I wrapped last night.
The skin underneath looks better. Less inflamed. Still fragile.
“You tell me if it hurts,” I say.
She watches me instead of the wound. “It doesn’t.”
I clean it again anyway. Rewrap it snug but not tight.
When I press the tape down, I bring her wrist to my mouth and kiss the inside without thinking.
Her breath catches.
I move to the shallow scratches along her calf, brushing antiseptic over them. Then the bruised arch of her foot. My thumb traces the curve before my mouth follows.
This isn’t lust.
This is reverence.
“You don’t have to fix everything,” she murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”
My phone vibrates on the nightstand.
We both freeze.
I grab it.
Ghost.
I answer on the second ring. “Yeah.”
“Viper and Saint found Tessa. They picked her up,” Ghost says. No greeting.
Tessa.
My vision narrows.
Images flash through my head. Carly on my porch. Her wrists. The way she flinched in her sleep.
A cold, surgical part of me catalogs what I’d do to anyone who laid hands on her. Anyone who sold her.
Put them in the ground.
Slow.
“And?” I ask.
“She’s talking. Not a lot. Enough.”
I don’t look at Carly, but I know she’s listening.
“There’s another girl,” Ghost continues. “Transfer set for tonight. Different location. They move her before dark.”
A beat.
“You’re coming?” he asks.
I look at Carly then. At the tape on her wrists. The scratches on her legs. The softness in her eyes that wasn’t there yesterday.
Every instinct in me says stay.
Every other instinct says end it.
“Yeah,” I say finally.
I end the call.
The cabin feels smaller.
“Another girl,” Carly says quietly.
I nod once.
Silence stretches between us.
Then she swings her legs off the bed.
“I’m coming with you.”
“You’re not coming,” I say immediately.
She stands.
“I am.”
“No.”
She lifts her chin. Not defiant. Steady.
“I can’t stay here,” she says. “I can’t sit in this cabin knowing she’s where I was.”
“That’s exactly why you’re staying.”
She steps closer.
“I walked out,” she says. “I’m not hiding from it now.”
“You don’t owe anyone that.”
“I owe myself.”
That stops me.
Her hand presses flat against my chest. Not pushing. Grounding.
“I don’t need to go inside,” she says. “I don’t need to see the room. But I need to be there when she walks out.”
Her voice doesn’t shake.
“I need her to see that it doesn’t end in that room. That you can walk out and keep going.”
The words settle heavy in the space between us.
I study her like I’m seeing someone new.
Her pulse is fast beneath my fingers, but her gaze is clear.
“You stay behind me,” I say finally. “You don’t move unless I say.”
She nods.
“And if I tell you to leave, you leave.”
“Okay.”
I don’t like it.
But I see it.
It isn’t recklessness.
This is her taking something back.
I grab my cut from the chair and shrug it on. The weight settles over my shoulders like it always does. Purpose. Brotherhood. War.
Carly watches me.
“You’re different,” she says softly.
“When?”
“When you get a call like this.”
“Yeah.”
She steps closer and straightens the edge of my collar without thinking.
“You’re going to bring her out,” she says.
It isn’t a question.
“Yes.”
I cup the back of her neck, pulling her in close. Press my forehead to hers.
“You ride with me,” I murmur. “When we arrive, you stay behind me. You don’t stray.”
“I won’t.”
I look down at her one more time.
Last night, I carried her out of the dark.
Tonight, she’s choosing to walk toward it.
And I’ll burn whatever stands in front of her.