Chapter 30
AMANDA
The first punch knocked the breath out of me.
Not because it was hard.
Because I hadn’t expected my body to hesitate.
I stood there in the training room, gloves up, heart hammering, staring at the padded target in front of me like it had personally betrayed me. Ranger had set it up himself. It was heavy, scuffed, and hanging from reinforced chains bolted into the ceiling. Nothing fancy. Nothing dramatic.
Just something meant to hit back if I got sloppy.
“Again,” Ranger said calmly.
I rolled my shoulders, flexed my fingers inside the gloves, and reset my stance. Brutus leaned against the wall behind him, arms crossed, eyes sharp. Wrecker stood off to the side, quiet and watchful, not interfering.
That mattered more than I wanted to admit.
I exhaled and threw the punch again.
This time it landed solid. The pad swung back on its chain with a dull thud.
“Good,” Ranger said. “Now don’t think about it.”
Easy for him to say.
I’d spent weeks thinking about every movement. Every sound. Every shadow. Training wasn’t about learning something new. It was about unlearning what fear had hardwired into me.
Brutus stepped forward and adjusted my footing with the edge of his boot. “You’re telegraphing,” he said. “You decide before you move.”
I dragged in a breath. “How do I stop that?”
He shrugged. “You don’t. You move anyway.”
“Super helpful as always Brutus,” I half laughed.
“It’s the truth,” Brutus as he bit back a smile.
We started slow. Not because they didn’t think I could handle more. But because they wanted me to trust my body again. Ranger walked me through drills I already knew in theory: balance, leverage, controlled strikes. Brutus focused on reaction. Blocking, redirecting, staying upright.
I went down twice.
The first time my knee buckled unexpectedly and I hit the mat hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The room went quiet instantly. Too quiet.
“I’m okay,” I said quickly, pushing myself up before anyone could help.
Wrecker took a step forward anyway.
I held up a hand. “I’ve got it.”
He stopped. Just like that.
Something warm settled in my chest.
The second fall was worse.
A misstep. A twist of my ankle. For half a second the room tilted, and my mind flashed with concrete floors and restraints and voices that weren’t here.
I froze.
The freeze didn’t feel dramatic.
It wasn’t panic or screaming or collapse. It was quieter than that. My muscles locked like someone had flipped a switch, my thoughts blurring at the edges while my body hovered between standing and falling.
For a heartbeat, I wasn’t in the training room.
I was back on concrete. Back in fluorescent light. Back in a place where hesitation cost you control.
My pulse roared in my ears. My vision tunneled.
And then I felt the mat under my palms.
Textured. Solid. Real.
I dragged in air slowly, deliberately. Let my weight settle. Let my knees remember that they were allowed to bend without breaking. The past pressed close, but it didn’t take over.
Not this time.
No one rushed me. No one spoke.
That mattered.
I counted my breaths. Felt the ache in my shoulder. The sting in my scraped palm. Pain anchored me in a way fear never had.
I wasn’t trapped.
I wasn’t restrained.
I was on the floor because I’d fallen and falling wasn’t the same as losing.
When I pushed myself upright, my legs shook, but they held.
And that—right there—was the difference.
Ranger didn’t touch me.
Didn’t speak.
He waited.
I sucked in a breath. Then another. Pressed my palms flat against the mat. Felt the texture. Counted the lines in the rubber padding.
Here. Now.
I pushed myself up.
“That’s it,” Brutus said quietly. “That’s the difference.”
Sweat soaked through my shirt. My arms burned. My lungs felt raw.
And for the first time in a long time, the ache didn’t feel like punishment.
It felt like progress.
We took a break mid-morning. Doc appeared with water and protein bars, scowling like he expected me to collapse at any second.
“Hydrate,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” I said, and meant it.
Outside, the compound buzzed with low-level activity. Bikes being tuned. Radios crackling. Scout sat on the porch wrapped in a blanket, nursing a mug and talking quietly with Ariel. He looked tired. Still healing.
Still here.
I caught his eye as I passed, and he gave me a small nod.
Something steady clicked into place inside me.
We moved to weapons after lunch.
Nothing live. Nothing reckless.
Ranger walked me through grip and posture with a handgun first, correcting small things. My elbow angle, my wrist tension, the way I breathed before pulling the trigger. Each correction made the shot cleaner. More controlled.
“This isn’t about power,” he said. “It’s about intention.”
The words stuck.
Brutus took over for close-quarters work. No theatrics. No mercy either.
“Again,” he said, every time I hesitated.
By the time my muscles started to shake, I wasn’t thinking anymore. My body reacted before my fear could catch up.
That was the goal.
Wrecker never stepped in.
He watched. Learned. Adjusted his own stance without meaning to, mirroring the way I moved. When our eyes met across the room, there was no worry in his gaze.
Only trust.
Late afternoon, Ranger called it.
“That’s enough for today,” he said. “You’ll feel this tomorrow.”
I already did.
I peeled off the gloves with clumsy fingers, hands trembling from exhaustion. Sweat dripped down my spine. My hair stuck to my face.
And I was smiling.
Wrecker handed me a towel without a word.
I took it. “I didn’t freeze.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I felt it try,” I admitted. “But it didn’t win.”
He studied me for a long moment. “It doesn’t get to anymore.”
That night, I soaked in a hot shower until my muscles loosened and my thoughts quieted. The water beat down on my shoulders, grounding me in sensation instead of memory.
Later, curled up on Wrecker’s bed, I felt the fatigue settle deep and heavy. Not the bone-deep exhaustion of fear.
The earned kind.
He lay beside me, one arm draped over my waist, not holding tight. Just there.
“I’m not done,” I said softly.
He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. “With training?”
“With everything,” I said. “I don’t want to be protected from the world. I want to be able to stand in it.”
He nodded. “Then we do it together.”
I turned into him, resting my forehead against his chest. His heartbeat was steady. Familiar.
For the first time since the elevator, since the warehouse, since everything cracked open, I believed him.
Not because he was strong.
But because I was too.