Chapter 12 Amanda
AMANDA
I couldn’t sleep.
Even curled into the corner of the big leather couch in the rec room, with Ariel beside me and Cap across the room cleaning one of his damn rifles, my skin wouldn’t stop crawling.
They were out there. Somewhere. Watching.
I knew that now, down to my bones. The men were still out on recon, and the clubhouse had gone quiet hours ago, but I couldn’t shake the way it felt to have someone looking at me through glass. Like I was prey.
I had felt hunted before. In real ways. Concrete floors and locked doors and eyes that never looked away.
But this was different.
This wasn’t captivity.
This was awareness.
The kind that lived under your skin and refused to quiet down. Like every shadow had weight. Like the walls were only pretending to protect me. My body kept reacting before my thoughts could catch up. Heart stuttering, muscles bracing, breath going shallow for no reason I could name.
Stupid fucking lungs. I thought. Decided to work please.
I hated that even surrounded by people who would kill for me, my nervous system still remembered what it was like to be chosen.
To be marked.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, nails biting into my sleeves, and tried to stay anchored in the room. Cocoa. Ariel’s voice. Cap’s presence like a loaded gun leaning against the wall.
Safe things.
Real things.
Still, my gaze kept drifting to the windows.
“They’re fine,” Ariel said gently, nudging a mug of cocoa toward me. “Wrecker’s with them. Ghost. Brutus. Ranger. You’ve got the A-team out there right now.”
“I know,” I murmured, but my voice didn’t sound like mine. “I just… I can’t stop thinking about the photo. That it was me. Inside this place. That they were that close.”
Doc, sitting cross-legged on the floor, looked up from her knitting. “Which is why you’re not alone. No one gets near you without going through all of us.”
“You’d stab someone with your yarn needle?” Ariel teased.
Doc didn’t even blink. “I’d gut them.”
A shaky laugh escaped me, and that tiny flicker of warmth almost made me feel normal. Almost.
The TV played some 90s rom-com none of us were really watching.
A couple of the old ladies, Vi and Tamara, I think, were curled up on the other couch, half-asleep with one eye open.
Cap was still cleaning that damn rifle, movements methodical, sharp, deadly.
Like even sitting still, he was dangerous.
“I’m gonna pee,” Ariel announced, stretching. “Don’t let Amanda go all ‘final girl’ while I’m gone.”
I smiled, faint and crooked. “No promises.”
She vanished down the hallway, humming, and the quiet stretched again. I sipped the cocoa. It was sweet. Too sweet.
Then the power cut.
Everything went black.
No flicker. No warning. Just—
Snap.
Darkness slammed down like a fist. The TV died. The overhead lights cut. The heater’s soft hum vanished.
Ariel screamed.
I jumped so hard my mug hit the floor, shattering against the tile. I scrambled off the couch and dropped to the floor behind it before I could stop myself, heart hammering so loud I swore everyone could hear it.
The dark was suffocating.
“Amanda,” Cap barked, voice a low growl. “Stay put. Nobody moves.”
Tamara gasped. Vi clutched her chest.
Doc was already moving, crouched low. “Cap—”
“I said stay put,” he snapped, already up and armed, standing like a wall in front of us.
The emergency generator hadn’t kicked in yet. The house was silent.
That was worse.
So much worse.
I couldn’t breathe. My hands trembled violently, nails digging into the couch leather. My brain flooded with noise.
Fuck. It was happening again. I clenched my shaking fists and tried to push the fear away.
“Cap,” Brutus’s voice came from the hallway, sharp and urgent.
He stepped into the room, shotgun gripped tight, his massive frame backlit by the pale moonlight through the front window.
“Perimeter’s clear,” he said. “We tripped nothing.”
Ranger followed, face grim. “No breach. But someone threw something at the transformer. Hard. The whole junction’s fried.”
My lungs burned. I pressed my forehead to the floor, trying to ground myself. You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re—
The backup generator buzzed to life.
The lights flickered on.
And my phone buzzed.
Just one.
A single text.
I reached for it with numb fingers, but Ariel beat me to it. She stared at the screen, face draining of color.
“Amanda…”
Cap took the phone from her. His face didn’t change. Not a twitch. But the way he gripped the phone, tight like it might snap in two, told me everything.
He turned the screen so I could see.
A picture.
The freight elevator door from the compound.
Closed. Silent. Nothing in the frame.
Except for a trail of bright red blood running down the buttons.
A message.
A signature.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Oh God,” Ariel whispered, stepping back into the room. “Amanda—”
The walls spun.
My hands curled into claws, fingers locking up, pain shooting through my joints as my body collapsed in on itself. I hit the floor and couldn’t make myself move. Couldn’t suck in a breath.
Just static.
Panic crashed through me, full-body. I was back there. I was not safe. I would never be free from this. They would never stop hunting me down.
“Is she’s seizing?” Cap asked sharply.
“No, “ Doc said and he slid down next to me. “It’s a panic attack. Her hands are locked. Get her flat—now.”
Cap crouched low, pressing one grounding hand to my back. “Amanda. Breathe.”
I couldn’t.
Doc leaned in close. “You’re here. You’re safe. Look at me. Five things you can see.”
“Doc—” my voice cracked. “I c-can’t—”
She grabbed my wrist and pressed it to her own chest. “Feel that? My heartbeat. Match it. In. Out.”
Wrecker’s name flashed across my phone screen.
He was calling.
I couldn’t move.
Cap snatched it and answered, voice low and clipped. “It’s Cap. Get back. Now.”
Silence on the other end. Then—
“Tell me what happened.”
“Power cut. Message received. It's blood.”
“I’m ten minutes out.”
Cap hung up.
He didn’t say a word. Just rested one hand between my shoulder blades, steady and firm.
And I stayed there on the floor, hands clenched, chest heaving, heart pounding.
Wondering how the hell we were ever going to win this war.
The sound of engines was thunder across the night.
Wrecker’s was first.
I knew it. It was louder, deeper, and angry like the man himself.
It rolled in and shook the windows before the tires even hit gravel.
I was still sitting on the floor, back against the couch, wrapped in a blanket someone must’ve thrown over me while I was spiraling.
My hands still ached. Every finger cramped.
Doc had massaged them, whispering grounding words, but I hadn’t said much.
Couldn’t.
Cap stood by the front door, arms crossed, gun holstered but still in reach. The second the first headlight cut across the porch, he unlocked the deadbolt and stepped out.
Wrecker didn’t wait for the engine to cool.
He killed the bike and stormed in, helmet still on, jaw clenched so tight it could’ve cracked bone.
The others followed. Ghost peeled off toward the kitchen without a word, Brutus taking a post by the front window, Ranger moving to check the fuse box again.
But Wrecker?
He made a beeline for me.
Helmet off. Jaw set. Chest heaving.
His eyes found mine and I swear, I saw something break in him.
He dropped to a crouch in front of me, pulling the blanket down just enough to cup my face.
“I told you,” he said, voice barely above a growl, “I told you I’d keep you safe.”
“You did.” My voice cracked. “I am safe. I just—my body didn’t believe it.”
His thumb brushed my cheekbone. “What did they send?”
Cap tossed the phone onto the couch behind me. “Picture. Elevator from the compound. Blood down the buttons. Text said—‘You should have stayed in your lane, little red.”
Wrecker didn’t react at first.
Then he stood.
Fast.
Hard.
And turned, driving his fist into the drywall with a crack that echoed like a gunshot.
No one flinched.
This was normal here.
His shoulders heaved. “They were here.”
“No breach,” Brutus said calmly. “They took out the transformer from a distance.”
“It was a flex,” Ghost added, reappearing with a laptop and a frown. “They knew the generator would kick in. They just wanted her scared.”
“It worked,” I said softly.
Silence.
Then Wrecker was back in front of me, both hands cupping my face again. “You did everything right. You stayed calm.”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “I collapsed.”
“You breathed. You came back. That’s all that matters.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
That’s what undid me.
Not the text.
Not the memory of that elevator.
Not the panic.
Him.
I reached for his wrist, holding tight. “You came back.”
He swallowed hard, throat working like he didn’t trust his voice.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” he said.
The words weren’t dramatic. They weren’t loud. They landed heavy because they were honest.
“You didn’t,” I said. “You were protecting me.”
His jaw tightened. “From the outside.”
I understood then. Really understood, that this wasn’t just about fear or guilt. This was something deeper. A fracture in the story he told himself about control. About distance. About how far his reach was supposed to extend.
They hadn’t touched me.
But they had reached him.
I slid my hand into his, threading our fingers together, grounding us both. “I’m still here,” I said softly. “They didn’t take that.”
His grip tightened, like he was anchoring himself to the truth of it.
Not protection.
Presence.
And that was going to change everything.
“Okay,” Doc said gently. “No more adrenaline tonight. Cap, we need to reset shifts. I’m keeping her downstairs.”
“I’m not leaving her,” Wrecker said.
“No one’s asking you to,” Cap replied. “But I want someone outside, someone on cams, someone by the door.”
“Already on it,” Ghost said. “Camera caught the object mid-air. Not a person. A drone.”
That sent a new wave of nausea through me. “They flew it in?”
“Weighted bag with metal scrap inside. Hit the junction box dead center. Took out the power without breaching the line.” He looked at me. “They didn’t want in. They wanted you to know they could.”
Mission accomplished.
The buzz in the room was low but constant with people shifting, talking in quiet voices, checking locks, resetting passwords, realigning cameras. Cap gave orders like he was born doing it. Ariel hovered near the couch, arms crossed tight, rage simmering just under the surface.
“They picked the wrong bitch to mess with,” she muttered.
“You’re not wrong,” I whispered back.
Doc helped me stand. My legs were shaky, but I made it upright. Wrecker stayed close. So close that his shoulder brushed mine with every step. When we moved toward the hallway, Cap spoke again.
“Wrecker.”
He paused.
Cap met his eyes. “Take care of her.”
Always.
That’s what his eyes said before we disappeared into the hallway.