Chapter 26
AMANDA
I didn’t know Scout was back until I heard him.
Not his voice, not yet.
The sound of boots in the hallway outside Wrecker’s room had a different rhythm than the others. Slower. Uneven. Heavy in a way that wasn’t just exhaustion. I felt it before I understood it, my chest tightening like my body recognized something my brain hadn’t caught up to yet.
I sat up in bed, heart thudding.
Wrecker was gone. Had been for a while. Ranger had checked on me twice, Doc once. Ariel had stayed until I fell asleep, curled on the edge of the bed with Smoke pressed against her legs like a living anchor. At some point she’d gone too, leaving me alone with the quiet and my own thoughts.
Now the quiet shifted.
A voice murmured in the hall. Low. Rough. Familiar in a way that made my throat close.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed before I could talk myself out of it.
The floor was cold under my feet. My arm ached where Doc had wrapped it, a dull reminder that my body had been through something it hadn’t fully processed yet. I stood slowly, testing my balance, then padded to the door and cracked it open.
The hallway light spilled in.
Scout stood at the far end, leaning heavily against the wall while Doc talked at him in a voice that sounded calm but was clearly threaded with fury.
Scout’s shirt was gone, chest wrapped in fresh bandages, bruises blooming dark and ugly along his ribs and shoulder.
One eye was swollen, the skin around it yellowing already.
He looked wrecked.
He looked alive.
My knees went weak with it.
Not relief exactly, relief came later, but something closer to my body finally catching up to what my brain already knew. That he was here. That he was breathing. That the worst version of this moment hadn’t happened.
My hands trembled at my sides, useless and aching with the need to do something. Touch. Fix. Anchor.
The part of me that had survived the warehouse stayed sharp and alert, cataloging injuries automatically. Bandages. Swelling. Bruises that hadn’t finished blooming yet. The way he favored one side when he shifted his weight.
Alive didn’t mean unhurt.
Alive didn’t mean untouched.
I hated how familiar that felt.
A pulse of anger flared in my chest. Not wild, not explosive. Cold. Focused. The kind that sat low and steady and didn’t burn out fast.
They had done this.
Not fate. Not bad luck. Not mistakes.
People.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathed through it, grounding myself in the moment. The hallway light. The hum of electricity. The solid weight of Wrecker’s hand when it brushed my shoulder again, silent and steady.
Scout was alive.
That mattered.
Everything else could come later.
My breath left me in a rush that made my vision blur.
Scout laughed softly, the sound rough and broken, like it hurt to get out. “Doc, I swear to God, if you poke me one more time—”
“You don’t swear at God in my hallway,” Doc snapped. “And you don’t tell me when I’m done.”
Scout rolled his head back against the wall with a wince. “Missed you too.”
I didn’t realize I’d stepped out into the hallway until Wrecker’s hand landed gently on my shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, though my chest felt like it was cracking open from the inside. “That’s him.”
Wrecker’s grip tightened just a fraction. “Yeah.”
Doc turned when he saw me in the doorway, his expression softening immediately.
“Hey, sweetheart. You should be resting.”
“I know,” I said. “I just wanted a minute.”
Scout lifted his head at my voice.
Our eyes met.
For a beat, neither of us moved.
Then he let out a rough breath. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said hoarsely. “You’re upright.”
“Barely,” I said. “But I’m here.”
His mouth tipped into a faint smile. “Good.”
I stepped closer, careful of the bruising wrapped around his ribs. “They didn’t get you.”
“No,” he said. “They tried like hell, though.”
Something tight in my chest loosened.
“Guess we’re both bad at staying gone,” I said.
A quiet huff of laughter escaped him. It faded just as quickly, leaving something heavier behind.
“They scared you,” he said, not asking.
“Yes,” I admitted. “But not the way I thought they would.”
Scout studied my face. “What does that mean?”
I took a breath. “When they took Ariel, everything was chaos. Panic. Noise. I was reacting, not thinking.”
His jaw tightened at my sister’s name.
“But when you disappeared,” I continued, “and then the elevator happened… it wasn’t chaos anymore. It was a pattern.”
Scout nodded slowly. “Yeah. That tracks.”
“That’s what scared me,” I said. “Not freezing. Realizing how intentional it all is.”
I looked down at my hands. “They don’t just hurt people. They wait. They stack it. They let things pile up until your body can’t tell the difference between danger now and danger remembered.”
Scout was quiet for a long moment.
“They talked about that,” he said finally.
My stomach dipped. “About me?”
“About everyone,” he said. “They told me you saw things you couldn’t stop. That you’d carry it. That you’d doubt yourself.”
Anger sparked, sharp and bright. “Did it work?”
“No,” he said immediately. “Because that’s not what I saw.”
I looked up.
“I saw you show up,” he said. “Over and over. For Ariel. For the club. For people you didn’t even know.”
My throat tightened.
“They don’t understand that freezing doesn’t mean quitting,” Scout went on. “It just means your brain needed a second to catch up.”
I swallowed. “Sunshine didn’t get a second. Did she?”
Scout’s expression sobered.
“No,” he said. “She fought anyway.”
My heart dropped. “They killed her.”
Scout held my gaze. Didn’t soften it. Didn’t dodge it.
“Yes,” he said. “They did. Because she made noise. Because she didn’t disappear quietly. They were angry about that.”
The words settled heavy and final.
Not imagined.
Not feared.
Confirmed.
I nodded once, like my body needed the motion to accept it. “Ariel said she wouldn’t go quietly,” I murmured. “That she was stubborn as hell.”
Scout’s mouth twitched faintly. “That tracks.”
I exhaled slowly. “Forgetting her would be easier. And I don’t think easy is the point anymore.”
A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “You sound different.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m scared. I’m tired. But I’m not lost.”
He held my gaze. “Good. Because they’re scared of people who remember.”
Doc cleared his throat loudly from down the hall. “This is touching and all, but Scout needs to sit before he passes out.”
Scout grimaced. “Rude.”
Wrecker stepped closer, a steady presence at my back. He didn’t interrupt. Just listened.
“You did good,” Scout said quietly. “Both of you.”
Wrecker nodded once. “Get some rest.”
I stepped back, exhaustion finally settling in.
That was when I heard it.
Not a gasp.
Not a sob.
Just a soft, broken inhale that didn’t quite make it all the way in.
I turned.
Ariel stood a few feet down the hallway, one hand braced against the wall like she needed it to stay upright. Her face had gone pale, eyes unfocused, like the words had knocked the room out from under her.
“Ariel,” I said softly.
She didn’t look at me.
“She didn’t make it,” Ariel whispered.
It wasn’t a question.
No one answered.
“They killed her,” Ariel said again, quieter this time. Like she was trying the words on, seeing if they would hold. “She went back because we left.”
Tears prickled my eyes as I walked closer to her. In that moment, I wished that I could somehow protect her from this pain. But deep down I knew that wasn’t possible. All I could do was be there for her.
“She trusted us,” Ariel said. Her voice didn’t break, and somehow that made it worse. “Cap promised her. I promised her.”
Her hand slid down the wall an inch.
“I told her we’d come back.”
She finally looked at me then.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Just wrecked.
“I need a minute,” she said quietly.
Then she turned and walked away before anyone could stop her.
The hallway stayed silent after she was gone.
I didn’t follow right away.
I gave her the space to make it to the end of the hall. To disappear around the corner where the light didn’t reach as brightly.
Then I went.
Ariel was sitting on the floor outside one of the empty rooms, knees drawn to her chest, forehead pressed to the door like it was the only thing holding her up. She didn’t look at me when I stopped a few feet away.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” she said quietly.
“I know,” I replied.
I slid down the wall beside her, close enough that our shoulders touched. Not holding. Not fixing. Just there.
She leaned into me after a moment, breath hitching once before she caught it again.
We stayed like that.
No promises.
No plans.
Just breathing.