Chapter 5
WRECKER
We didn’t go back to my room right after church.
By the time things settled, it was pushing toward lunch. The compound shifted the way it always did when decisions had been made. Less talking, more movement. Guys peeling off to assigned tasks. Engines starting and stopping. Radios crackling with short check-ins.
I steered Amanda toward the common room without asking.
Lunch was already out. Nothing fancy. Sandwich fixings, soup warming on the stove, the smell of coffee that’d been sitting too long but still did the job. She sat where I pointed her and ate because I stayed there until she did.
She wasn’t really hungry. I could tell by the way she took small bites and chewed like it was work. But she finished enough that I didn’t push it.
A couple of guys nodded at her on their way through. Not curiosity. Not pity. Recognition. That mattered.
When she was done, I stood. “Come with me.”
She followed without question.
The garage was quieter than usual. One of the bays was empty, sunlight slanting in through the open door. My bike sat where I’d left it, half stripped from the ride earlier that morning.
I handed her a rag and nodded at the chrome. “You wanna help, or just sit?”
She hesitated, then took the rag. “I can help.”
She worked carefully. Too carefully at first. Like she was afraid of doing something wrong. I showed her how to hold the wrench, how to feel for resistance instead of forcing it. She listened. Focused. The tension in her shoulders eased inch by inch as her hands found a rhythm.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Tools clinked. Metal cooled. Oil stained her fingers.
Normal.
That was the point.
She leaned back against the workbench at one point, watching me instead of the bike. “You do this when things get bad?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Fixing something I can see helps.”
She nodded like that made sense.
We stayed there longer than we needed to. Long enough that the sun shifted. Long enough that I could feel the moment her focus started to slip.
Her hands slowed. Her breathing changed.
That was when I knew the quiet was about to turn on her.
I wiped my hands and stepped back. “You wanna lie down for a bit?”
Not an order. Just an option.
She nodded immediately.
I walked her back to my room and shut the door behind us.
She sat on the edge of the mattress like she wasn’t sure she had permission to use the whole thing. Her fingers twisted the blanket. Her breathing stayed too shallow. She kept glancing at the closed door like it’d open on its own and swallow her whole.
It wasn’t fear exactly.
More like her body was running an old script she hadn’t figured out how to stop.
I recognized it because I’d lived it.
The hyper-awareness. The way every sound felt like a threat until proven otherwise. The way rest felt undeserved, like if you let your guard down something bad would rush in to fill the space.
She wasn’t panicking.
She was waiting.
For the door to open. For footsteps that didn’t belong. For the moment her instincts would be proven right.
That kind of vigilance didn’t shut off just because someone told you that you were safe. It burned itself into muscle memory. Into breath. Into posture.
I stayed where I was and let her see me not moving. Not hovering. Not ordering her to lie down or close her eyes.
Just present.
I didn’t say anything about it. I just kicked off my cut and dropped into the chair beside the bed. Same spot I’d been in last night. Same spot I’d be in tomorrow if she needed it.
She looked over at me, quick and unsure, before sliding under the blanket. She didn’t ask me to stay. But she didn’t have to. I wasn’t leaving.
Minutes passed.
Then half an hour.
The room stayed quiet except for her uneven breathing.
She finally whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t start,” I said.
Her fingers curled tighter in the blanket. “I don’t want to be… like this.”
She said it like an apology.
Like fear was a personal failing instead of a response to something done to her. Like if she could just grit her teeth hard enough, she’d snap back into the version of herself that existed before elevators and locked doors and men who smiled too much.
I hated that instinct in her.
Hated it because I’d carried it myself for years. Because I knew how easy it was to confuse endurance with strength, and silence with control.
Fear didn’t mean she was weak.
It meant her body remembered.
“Like what?”
She swallowed. “Jumping at everything. Hearing things that aren’t there. Acting like I’m gonna break.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You’re not breaking.”
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t agree either.
Another long minute went by.
Then she said, voice barely audible, “When he smiled… I knew he saw me. Like he had already decided something about me before I even understood what was happening.”
My stomach clenched. I gripped the edge of the chair so I didn’t punch something.
“You weren’t wrong,” I said. “He did see you. And I’m gonna make him regret it.”
“That’s not—” she breathed in sharply. “I’m not scared of him hurting me. I’m scared of being that useless again. Frozen. Watching. Doing nothing.”
“That’s not useless,” I said immediately.
She gave a humorless laugh. “Well, it sure felt like it.”
“Amanda.” I waited until she looked at me. “You moved the second it mattered. You got out. You told us. You survived something most people wouldn’t walk away from.”
Her eyes flickered. I didn’t know if she believed me, but she heard me.
She tried to lie back down, but her body wouldn’t settle. She stared at the ceiling like every memory she didn’t want was playing above us.
I stood.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
I ignored that.
I slid onto the bed beside her, just sitting at first, then leaning back against the headboard. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t crowd her. I just gave her something solid to lean against.
Every instinct I had screamed to pull her closer.
To wrap her up. Lock the door. Put myself between her and every nightmare she hadn’t finished outrunning yet.
That was the old wiring.
The part of me that believed safety was something you enforced instead of built. That protection meant control. That if I held on tight enough, nothing could get through.
But this wasn’t a battlefield.
And she wasn’t a mission.
She was choosing proximity. Choosing contact. Choosing me.
If I crossed that line without her asking, I’d take that choice away.
So I stayed still.
And waited.
She glanced at me again, confused for half a breath, and then something in her shoulders loosened. Just an inch, but I saw it.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No.” Her voice cracked. “But I’m better with you here.”
That hit somewhere deep. Far deeper than I was ready for.
I shifted so she had room to move if she wanted. She didn’t. She scooted closer, hesitating only a moment before resting her back against my chest. Not curled up. Not fragile. Just… close.
Close enough I felt the warmth of her through my shirt. Close enough her hair brushed my jaw when she breathed. Close enough my whole damn body went tight in an instant.
I forced myself to stay still.
Control wasn’t optional here.
“You don’t have to pretend you’re okay,” I said quietly.
“I’m not pretending.” Her hand lifted, clutching a handful of my shirt like she didn’t know she was doing it. “I just… I don’t feel this scared when you’re here.”
There it was. The thing she didn’t say in the last four days.
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“I don’t know.” She exhaled shakily. “You’re just… steady. When I’m near you, my body stops bracing for the next thing. I don’t have to guess what you’re going to do. I don’t have to be afraid of being too loud or in the way or not enough.”
My throat tightened.
Steady.
I’d been called a lot of things in my life. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Too much. A liability in the wrong situation and a weapon in the right one.
No one had ever called me steady.
The word landed somewhere quiet and unexpected, like it didn’t know what to do with itself once it got there.
I realized then that she wasn’t talking about strength the way the club did. She meant consistency. Follow-through. The absence of surprise.
I didn’t disappear. I didn’t explode. I didn’t ask her to perform gratitude or toughness to earn space beside me.
I just stayed.
And somehow, that mattered more than anything else I could’ve offered her.
“You pulled me out of that hub before I even knew I needed to get out,” she said quietly. “You didn’t talk to me like I was broken. You didn’t question why I froze. You just… took care of it.”
“Amanda.” I angled toward her. She kept her eyes forward. “Anyone in your position would’ve frozen.”
“You didn’t,” she whispered.
I let out a slow breath. “I’ve got training you don’t. And experience you shouldn’t.”
Her jaw tightened. “I should’ve done something.”
“You did,” I said. “You survived. You got us intel. You didn’t break.”
She didn’t respond right away. Then she slowly leaned her head back against me, letting it rest near my collarbone. I felt the exact moment she let her weight go. Not all of it, but just enough that she wasn’t holding herself up out of tension.
My arm moved on its own. I slid it around her middle, not tight, just steady. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t pull away. In fact, she moved closer. Her back pressed to my chest. Her hand stayed fisted in my shirt.
My heartbeat kicked into overdrive, and I had to inhale carefully to keep it even.
“You’re shaking,” I murmured.
“Not as much,” she said. “Not when you’re touching me.”
I closed my eyes, swallowing hard. That—yeah. That did something to me.
“You’re safe,” I said.
Her voice was small but sure. “I know.”
We sat like that for a long time, the silence stretching out between us in a way that didn’t feel heavy anymore.
After a while, she whispered, “You don’t have to stay here every night.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
She made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh, not quite disbelief. “What if I keep needing you?”
“Then I keep showing up.”
Her breath caught again. “Why?”
I answered honestly. Quietly.
“Because I want to.”
There.
Truth I’d been circling for days.
Something she needed to hear and something I needed to say.
She didn’t speak for a long time. Her body relaxed slowly, like her muscles were unclenching one at a time. Eventually her head dropped fully onto my chest, cheek pressing against the front of my shirt.
“You smell like my soap,” I muttered without thinking.
She stiffened. “Sorry—your shower was closer—”
“I wasn’t complaining.”
That came out lower than I meant it.
Her breath brushed through the fabric of my shirt. “I didn’t think anyone would want me near them right now. I feel… messy.”
“You’re allowed to be messy,” I said. “You’re allowed to be scared. You’re allowed to need someone.”
“And you’re okay with that someone being you?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah, sweetheart.” My voice dropped. “I am.”
Her fingers tightened in my shirt again, just a little. Enough to make something in my chest pull tight.
We stayed like that until I knew I had to move or I wasn’t going anywhere. The recon ride wasn’t optional and leaving her like this was the last thing I wanted.
But the club needed me.
Walking away from her like this went against every instinct I had.
Leaving when she was finally breathing evenly. When her body had stopped shaking. When she’d trusted me enough to let go.
But staying when I wanted to wasn’t the same as staying when she needed me to.
If I stayed because I couldn’t stand to leave, that wasn’t comfort.
That was dependency.
And I refused to turn what she was building into something fragile.
So I made myself step back. Let her feel that I would come back. Not because she begged, but because I said I would.
I eased my arm from around her, and her whole body reacted. Tensing, grabbing, trying to pull me back without meaning to.
“Don’t go,” she breathed.
My chest cracked open. “I have to.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. Wide, scared, stubborn. Amanda. Every version of her all at once.
“Promise you’ll come back?”
I cupped her jaw, thumb brushing a strand of her damp hair behind her ear. “Always.”
Her breath hitched. Not fear. Something else. Something warmer. Something dangerous.
I stood, boots hitting the floor too loud in the quiet room.
She sat up, blanket slipping down her shoulders, bare skin catching the low light.
My gaze dragged over her before I could stop it.
The curve of her neck, soft dip of her collarbone, the line where my shirt from earlier hung a little too loose on her frame.
Heat punched low in my stomach. I pushed it down hard.
At the doorway, her voice pulled me back again.
“Wrecker?”
I turned.
She wasn’t trembling anymore. She wasn’t shrinking. She wasn’t frozen.
She looked right at me, chin lifted just the slightest bit. The same stubborn, fearless spark that had gotten her into that hub in the first place was finally creeping back in.
“Be careful,” she said.
I nodded. “For you? Always.”
And I left before I could climb back into that bed and never leave again.