Chapter 6 Amanda
AMANDA
I was doing fine.
Not fine fine. But functional. Upright. Breathing. Carrying a tray stacked with mugs from the sink to the long prep table like I’d done it a hundred times before. My hands shook a little, but I told myself that was normal. Nerves burned off when you stayed busy. That’s what I’d always done.
The clubhouse smelled like coffee and oil and something Brutus had started simmering that looked dangerous but tasted good. The windows were open. Sunlight cut across the floor in long bars. Smoke lay stretched out near the door, tail thumping every time someone passed.
I told myself I was safe.
Boots scuffed behind me.
Not fast. Not aggressive. Just close enough that I heard his boots scuff the concrete.
The sound hit my spine like a switch.
My chest locked. My breath went shallow so fast it felt like someone had wrapped a band around my ribs and pulled. The hallway narrowed. The walls leaned in. The air thickened, heavy and wrong.
I took one more step.
The tray slipped.
Ceramic shattered against the floor.
Someone said my name, but it sounded far away, warped, like it was echoing through a tunnel. My vision tunneled, the edges going dark, the center sharpening into something else entirely.
The freight elevator.
Metal doors. Fluorescent light. The smell of cleaning solution and fear.
I was there again.
Time folded in on itself.
The room didn’t disappear, but it stopped making sense. Sounds came first. They were too loud, then too far away. Someone swore. A chair scraped. Smoke barked sharp and frantic, like he was trying to pull me back by the sound alone.
My hands wouldn’t work.
I told them to open. To drop the tray. To do anything. They stayed locked, fingers curled tight like they were gripping something invisible.
My chest burned. Not in pain but in pressure. Like my lungs were only pulling in half a breath and refusing the rest. I knew I needed air. I knew I wasn’t trapped. But my body didn’t care what I knew.
Move, I ordered myself.
Nothing happened.
That was the worst part. Not the fear, not the memories, but the moment where I realized I was watching myself fail to respond. Awake. Aware. Stuck inside a body that had decided danger was already here.
The sound of crying. Muffled. Broken.
I couldn’t move.
My body went cold and hot at the same time, sweat breaking out across my neck, my lower back. My fingers curled uselessly, locking in place like they didn’t belong to me anymore.
Breathe.
I tried. I couldn’t pull enough air in. My lungs refused to work right, like they didn’t remember how.
Someone crouched in front of me.
“Hey—hey—don’t move,” a voice said. Calm. Firm.
Doc.
His face came into focus slowly. He held his hands up where I could see them. Didn’t touch me. Didn’t crowd me.
“Look at me,” he said. “Not behind you. Right here.”
I tried. My eyes slid past him, catching on shadows, on the hallway, on the door at the end I didn’t remember opening.
Smoke barked.
Sharp. Protective.
Boots thundered from the other side of the room.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Wrecker hit the doorway like a storm breaking.
He crossed the room in three strides and dropped in front of me, hands firm on my shoulders. Not shaking. Not gentle. Solid.
“Red.” His voice cut through the noise. “Look at me. It’s me.”
I locked onto his face like it was a lifeline.
His eyes were steady. Grounded. Not panicked.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re in the clubhouse. You dropped a tray. That’s it. Nothing else is happening.”
My breath hitched.
“I—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. My throat closed, tight and burning.
He didn’t rush me.
“Hands,” he said quietly. “Can you feel my hands?”
I nodded. Barely.
“Good. Press into them.”
I did. My palms pushed against his forearms, feeling muscle, heat, reality.
“Again.”
I pressed harder.
“That’s it,” he said. “Stay with me.”
The room slowly came back into focus. The sound of my own breathing, loud and uneven. The scrape of a chair being moved. Someone swearing under their breath, probably Brutus.
Brutus stood frozen near the counter, face pale.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough. “I didn’t mean—”
“Not now,” Wrecker snapped without looking at him.
The edge in his voice made my stomach flip. Not in fear. It was something else. Protection. Anger aimed outward.
Doc shifted closer. “Amanda, I need you to take a sip of water.”
A bottle appeared in my line of sight. I took it with shaking hands, spilled some down my chin, didn’t care. Swallowed. Coughed. Swallowed again.
The worst of it passed like a wave breaking, leaving me weak and exposed in its wake.
My face burned.
I hated this part. The aftermath. The moment where everyone knew I wasn’t okay.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words tumbling out automatically. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Stop,” Wrecker said.
Not sharp. Firm.
“This isn’t you messing up.”
I looked at him, blinking fast.
Doc nodded. “You had a trauma response. That’s not a choice.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, shoulders caving inward. “I froze.”
Wrecker’s jaw tightened. “No. You had a memory hit you sideways. That’s different.”
It didn’t feel different.
It felt like weakness. Like failure. Like I’d been exposed as fragile when everyone else around me moved through the world like nothing could touch them.
Brutus loomed nearby, arms crossed, eyes dark. “Anybody say otherwise, I’ll handle it.”
I almost laughed. Almost.
Doc helped me to my feet slowly, one hand hovering near my elbow but not grabbing. Wrecker stayed close enough that I could feel him without being crowded.
“I should go upstairs,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to be in the way.”
“You’re not in the way,” Wrecker said.
“I don’t want people watching me,” I added.
He nodded once. “Then we go.”
Not you.
We.
He walked me toward the stairs, his hand warm at my lower back, steadying but not guiding. Every step felt deliberate, like my body was relearning how to move.
At the top landing, I stopped.
“I didn’t help her,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Wrecker turned fully toward me.
“In the elevator,” I continued, voice shaking. “I just stood there. And when Brutus walked behind me just now, it was like I was there again. Like I was watching and doing nothing.”
His expression softened. Not with pity. But with something heavier.
“You survived,” he said.
“That’s not the same.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it matters.”
I shook my head. “What if I freeze again? What if next time someone actually needs me?”
His hands came up, framing my face gently, thumbs brushing my cheeks. I leaned into the touch without thinking.
“Then I’ll be there,” he said. “And we’ll deal with it together.”
Something in my chest cracked open at that. Relief. Gratitude. Fear tangled so tight I couldn’t separate them.
“I don’t want to be a liability,” I said.
He let out a slow breath. “Red, you were targeted by monsters doing monster shit. You didn’t break. That’s not liability.”
I dragged in a breath.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you settled.”
He stayed with me upstairs longer than necessary. Sat in the chair by the window while I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, counting my breaths.
I hated that I needed this.
I hated that my body could betray me like that.
But when Wrecker stood to leave, pulling on his vest, my breath caught hard in my chest.
“Be careful,” I said.
He looked back at me, eyes unreadable for a moment.
“Always,” he said.
The door closed softly behind him.
I laid there, staring at the sunlight crawling across the wall, trying to convince myself that freezing didn’t define me.
That surviving counted for something.
That next time, I’d move.