Chapter 24 Sloane #2
Laughter crashes through. For a few minutes, it's easy to forget the war room, the docks, the girl who knew my old name. Knox slides onto the edge of the loveseat, thigh brushing my shoulder. His fingers ghost over the back of my neck, light but sure.
"You look less like you're about to bolt," he murmurs.
"Give it time," I say, but softer.
I'm just starting to believe we might hold this moment when Malachi's phone buzzes on the table. Once. Sharp. A blade through the noise. His hand closes around it. He glances at the screen. Whatever trace of humor was hanging around his mouth disappears.
"James," he says, and answers. "Yeah?" The room goes still. His jaw locks as he listens. "We're on our way." Low and final. He hangs up.
The moment breaks. Everyone moves at once. Boots hit the floor, markers are tossed aside, shoulders straighten like someone pulled invisible strings.
"What is it?" Candace asks, already on her feet.
"Donovan's car is outside the Holloway building. James says he's not alone this time."
I know that building. Victor's wife Olivia works there, and Olivia is Donovan's stepdaughter, the center of an obsession he's been feeding for years.
The girls go quiet. Maggie covers her mouth, fist forming before it drops. Ruby's eyes widen. Frankie's pen stops. Malachi looks at us, Candace, Maggie, me, Ruby and the rest, with that layered look that says he would chain us to the floor if he thought it would keep us safe.
"No one leaves this building. Lockdown until we say otherwise."
Ruby blinks. "Lockdown?"
"Not a drill, Rubes." Malachi's voice leaves no room for argument.
He tips his head at Knox, then Nash, East, Kyle, the others. The brothers start to move, grabbing cuts, helmets, and weapons with practiced efficiency.
Knox steps closer, knuckles brushing my jaw. "Stay here. With Maggie. With the others. If anything feels off, you call me, not try to handle it yourself. Got it?"
"Be careful."
His face softens, just a flicker. "Always, Turner."
He doesn't kiss me. I'm glad. A kiss would feel too much like goodbye. Then he's gone, following the others out in a rush of footsteps and steel. Engines roar to life. The sound rattles windows and vibrates in my bones. They pull away in a pack, bikes disappearing around the corner.
Silence spills into the space they leave.
Ruby collapses back onto the couch. "Well. So much for game night." No one laughs.
We drift toward the windows, watching the empty street. Candace stands so still I'm not sure she's breathing. Maggie paces once, twice, then forces herself behind the counter to stack mugs.
Darla keeps checking her phone, refreshing even though there won't be anything yet. Frankie perches on the edge of a chair, notebook forgotten, gaze distant.
I'm on my feet before I realize I've stood, arms wrapped tight around myself, pacing the middle of the room. This part always gets to me. The waiting. The helplessness. Watching the blast radius of someone else's bad decisions spread while all I can do is hope my phone stays silent.
"Okay," Ruby says, thinner than usual. "Someone tell me something absurd so I don't spiral. Frankie. Weird witch fact. Go."
Frankie blinks as though she's been yanked back from far away. "Uh. Some cultures think teeth hold memories. Like little stones recording what you survive."
Ruby stares. "That was the opposite of helpful."
"Sorry. Low on material today."
Maggie slides a mug toward me. "Drink. If you're going to pass out, at least do it caffeinated."
I take it mostly to keep my hands busy.
We're still trying to make nervous jokes when the floor lurches under my feet.
Followed by a deep, impossible sound. A boom that isn't noise so much as the earth flinching.
The windows rattle. The floor bucks, a sickening lurch that sends my stomach into my throat.
One hanging light swings wildly, chains squealing.
Ruby yelps. "What the hell was that?"
Screams echo faintly outside. A car alarm wails; it's a jagged backdrop to the ringing in my ears.
I can't move. Can't breathe. The blast rips through the air and keeps vibrating inside my chest, wrong and enormous.
My fingers go numb around the mug. It slips, hits the floor, shatters.
Coffee splashes my shoes. I don't feel it.
Someone is talking. Maggie? Ruby? The words smear. Then all our phones shriek at once. Emergency Alert tone. High, insistent, merciless. I fumble my phone out with fingers that don't feel attached.
EMERGENCY ALERT: There has been a bombing. Please remain calm and remain where you are currently located. More details will be released soon.
"Oh my God," I hear myself whisper. My voice doesn't sound like mine.
Maggie's already dialing, face gone pale. Frankie sinks onto the arm of the couch, eyes wide but sure.
Ruby reads her screen, then looks up, color draining. "This is real. This is right now."
"What if they were near it?" Darla's voice cracks. "What if—"
"They'll be okay," Candace says, but it sounds like a prayer, not a promise.
For a second, I am back in Chicago. Crisp white scrubs in a hallway that smells like smoke and money.
My father's hand heavy on my shoulder, his voice calm as he tells reporters it's all under control while victims bleed three floors below.
Standing in a storage room, watching a man who isn't supposed to exist sign orders with a name that will never touch a headline.
We control the narrative, Sloane. Not the facts.
Those were the days before I understood what I was really seeing. Before I connected the dots between the girls in hospital beds and the men in expensive suits. Before I realized my father wasn't just covering up crimes. He was orchestrating them.
I didn't know then. But I should have.
Maggie's voice cuts through, close and worried. "Sloane? Honey, breathe."
Ruby sinks beside me and grabs my hand, squeezing hard. "Hey. Don't disappear on us. Knox will skin me alive if I let you hit the floor."
I force a laugh. Wrong-sounding. "He'd only maim you a little."
"Atta girl," Ruby says, relief threading through sarcasm.
"I'm fine." Too fast. Too thin.
Frankie frowns at her phone, brow furrowed. "If it's the Holloway building…"
"It is," I say. I'm not sure how I know, but the certainty settles in my chest. Because Donovan doesn't do small.
We're still rattling in our own orbits when Frankie breaks the fragile quiet. "This isn't the last one," she says softly.
Ruby's head snaps around. "I'm going to need you to workshop your timing, babe."
Frankie winces. "I don't mean today. Just… the air feels wrong. Like when a storm's still miles off, but your fillings start buzzing. This is the beginning of something, not the end."
Ruby gapes. "You seriously opened with 'this isn't the last one' and thought that would be comforting?"
Frankie presses her palms together, eyes closing. "I'm not trying to freak anyone out. I just…" She opens them and lands her gaze on me. "Some things you can't stop from coming. But you can decide who's standing next to you when they hit."
I look away too fast. The alert still glares from my phone on the table. Remain where you are. Remain calm.
My father would be in front of a camera by now if this were Chicago. Drafting a statement. Spinning a narrative before the first victim hit the O.R.
"Sloane," Maggie says, stepping closer. "Honey, sit before you fall." She doesn't wait for argument. Just guides me to the nearest cushion with steady maternal authority. I let her. My knees aren't reliable anyway.
Ruby drops to the floor in front of me, crossing her legs, forearms resting on my knees so I can feel her weight, her warmth. Tethering me, keeping me from drifting into the flashback fog.
"Look at me," she says, softer but steely underneath.
"Inhale. Exhale. Stop staring like you're watching a train wreck in your own skull.
" I force myself to look up. Her eyeliner is smudged at one corner.
It makes her look human instead of untouchable.
"There she is," Ruby murmurs. "Good. You're here. "
"Try again," Frankie says from my left. She's moved closer without me noticing, hip pressed against the arm of the couch. "The 'I'm fine' from earlier. Try it again without lying."
"I-I don't like bombs," I say, absurdly understated but all I can manage.
Darla gives a tiny, pained huff. "No one likes bombs, Sloane."
"I know. I just… I've seen this movie. Different city, same script."
Maggie's hand settles on my shoulder, thumb pressing steady warmth into the muscle. "What happened before doesn't make you responsible for what's happening now."
Tell that to my nervous system.
Frankie leans forward, elbows on knees. "Whatever this is poking at in you… it won't stay buried. Things like that claw their way back up, no matter how much cement you pour over them." Her eyes soften. "But you don't have to dig it up alone this time."
Ruby nods. "You're stuck with us now. Trauma-bonded, bitch. No returns."
A strangled laugh bursts out of me; it's broken, but real. "That's not how therapy works."
Ruby snorts. "Good thing none of us are licensed. We get to make up the rules."
Darla shifts closer, side pressed to mine. "You took care of all those girls last night. Held it together when the rest of us were one breath away from breaking. You don't have to do that here. Not with us."
Before I can say I don't need this, that I'm fine, that I've always handled myself, Candace moves. She slides off the couch and kneels beside Ruby, one hand resting over mine.
"You're always there when any of us fall apart," she says.
Quiet, steady, in a way that comes from surviving hell and choosing softness anyway.
"You show up. Hold our pieces together. You don't look away.
" She traces my knuckles. "So don't even think about us leaving you alone with yours.
" My eyes burn. I blink too hard. "We're not letting you spiral by yourself. Not now. Not ever."
Knox flickers through my mind, making me remember how he looked at me this morning, how he felt that I was off without asking why. His thumb brushed my cheek, a silent question. He's going to notice everything. The shaking. The panic under my skin. All the memories I keep choking down.
Maggie squeezes my shoulder. "You don't have to tell us anything before you're ready. But don't disappear on us. Let us sit in the not-knowing with you."
Frankie nods, eyes dark and certain. "Some threads are meant to be pulled. But if you tug too hard, too fast… you'll unravel more than you're ready to lose." She tilts her head, hearing something none of us can. "Just don't be the only one holding it when it comes loose."
Ruby's grip tightens on my knees. "Translation: you chase this, you drag our nosy asses with you."
Candace adds quietly, "We take care of our own. And you're ours. Deal with it."
I look down at Ruby's chipped nail polish, Maggie's steady hand, Frankie's calm stare, Darla's still presence, Candace's warm fingers curled over mine.
"Don't," I whisper, sharper than I mean to.
Ruby blinks. "Don't what?"
I drag in a breath that doesn't help. "Please just leave it alone."