Chapter 16
When I wake this time, it’s different. Not clean.
Not easy. But clearer. The fog isn’t gone, not completely, but it’s thinner, like something finally loosened its grip on my brain enough to let real thoughts through instead of fragments.
The ceiling above me comes into focus faster.
The light doesn’t stab the same way. My body still feels heavy, but not disconnected.
I know where I am. Not the place. But the situation. That matters more.
My hand shifts, and the pull hits immediately. The IV. I look down at it, at the clear line taped to my skin, at the bag hanging beside me like something keeping me here instead of helping me. My fingers twitch again, stronger this time, more responsive.
Good.
That’s good.
Control is good.
I take a breath. It doesn’t catch like it did before. It still feels too fast, too tight, but it’s mine now. I can slow it if I try hard enough.
In.
Out.
Again.
The memory comes back sharper this time. Not all of it. But enough. Cold air against my face. Footsteps behind me. That voice. “Hey—” Hands. Too many hands. The sting at my neck. The world slipping. Gone.
My stomach turns. I push myself up too fast. Pain flashes through my arm where the IV pulls, and my vision tilts for a second, but I don’t stop. I need to move. I need to not be flat on my back in a room I don’t recognize with people I don’t know.
“Hey, slow down.” Brooke’s voice. She’s there again. She moves closer but doesn’t touch me, and that’s the only reason I don’t recoil completely. “You’re going to make yourself dizzy,” she says.
“I need to leave.” The words come out stronger than I expect. Not steady. But clear.
Brooke doesn’t argue immediately. That almost makes it worse. “Okay,” she says. “We can talk about that.”
“I’m not talking about it,” I push. “I’m leaving.” My hand moves to the IV again. This time I don’t hesitate. I start peeling the tape back.
“Wait, don’t—”
“I’m not staying here,” I say, sharper now, panic creeping back in under the control I just managed to grab. The tape comes loose. The needle pulls free. It hurts. Not enough to stop me.
A small line of blood follows it, and Brooke grabs gauze from the tray, pressing it gently over the spot before I can pull away. “Hold that,” she says.
I do. Not because she told me to. Because it makes sense. My feet hit the floor. The cold from the tile shocks up through me, grounding me faster than anything else has. My legs feel weak, like they’re not sure they want to hold me up, but they do. Barely.
“Olivia,” Brooke says, her voice still calm, still steady. “You’re not ready to—”
“I don’t care,” I cut in. “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who any of you are, and I am not staying in a place like this.”
“A place like this,” she repeats quietly.
I don’t soften it. I look around the room again, really taking it in now.
It’s not a hospital. It’s too small, too personal, too…
used. The cabinets are stocked, but not sterile the way hospitals are.
The walls aren’t bare. There’s a jacket hanging on a hook that definitely doesn’t belong to a doctor.
This isn’t neutral ground. This is theirs. And I am in it.
“I need to call my mom,” I say, my voice dropping slightly as something else hits me. “My sister, my brother, they’re going to—”
“Your phone broke,” Brooke says gently. “But we can get you another one. You can call them.”
I laugh. It sounds wrong. Like I’m trying to hold something together that’s already cracked. “Get me another one?” I repeat. “Like this is normal? Like I just…wait here while you fix it?”
Her expression doesn’t change. “I know this isn’t normal.”
“That’s an understatement.” My chest tightens again. Not full panic. Not yet. But it’s building. Because nothing about this is mine. Not the room. Not the people. Not the rules. My life doesn’t look like this.
My life is…
My mom’s kitchen with the yellow curtains she refuses to change.
My sister texting me ten times a day about things that don’t matter but somehow always do.
My brother showing up unannounced just to eat whatever I made like he lives there.
Normal. Safe. Predictable.
I look at the walls again. At the space. At the unfamiliar. I am very far from normal. “I’m leaving,” I say again.
Brooke watches me for a second longer, then nods once. “Okay.”
That throws me. “You’re not going to stop me?”
“I’m not going to restrain you,” she says. “That’s not how this works.”
Something about that lands. I don’t examine it. I move.
The door is already half open. I push it the rest of the way and step into the hallway. The shift hits immediately. Sound. Smell. Movement. The clubhouse isn’t quiet.
It’s alive.
Voices overlap from the main room. A deep laugh cuts through something lighter.
A cabinet door slams somewhere. There’s music playing low, not loud enough to take over, just there.
The smell of food mixes with leather and something faintly smoky that clings to the air.
It’s not what I expected. Not even close.
I step forward slowly, my legs still unsteady, my hand still pressed to the gauze at my hand.
The hallway opens into a larger space. And I see them.
Men in leather vests, patches stitched across the back and chest. Some are standing, some sitting, all of them looking like they belong exactly where they are.
Women move through the space like it’s theirs too, not hovering, not unsure, just…
existing inside it without question. There are toys on the floor.
Actual toys.
A small truck sits near the couch, one wheel slightly bent. A stuffed animal is half tucked under the table like it was dropped mid-run. A toddler is yelling near the kitchen. Loud. Unapologetic.
“Mine!” he shouts, clutching something that looks like a piece of bread like it’s a life or death situation.
Another one is trying to climb onto a chair he has no business climbing.
Someone laughs. A woman says, “That is exactly his father’s attitude in tiny form, and I am not dealing with both of them tonight.”
It’s chaos. But it’s…contained. Structured. People move around each other without colliding. The noise doesn’t overwhelm. It layers. It doesn’t feel like a nightmare. That’s the problem. Because it should.
My brain doesn’t know what to do with that. I take another step. Then another. And then…everything stops.
Not the room.
Me.
He’s there.
I don’t see him move. One second the space ahead of me is open. The next, it isn’t. He stands in front of me, close enough that I can’t move past him without making a choice to push through. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t reach. Doesn’t crowd. He just… exists there. Solid. Still. A wall.
My body reacts anyway. My breath catches. My muscles tighten. Fear spikes fast, sharp and instinctive, because everything about him says he could stop me if I tried to run.
He doesn’t. He just stands there. Looking at me. Not scanning. Not uncertain. Locked. “You’re not safe out there.” His voice is the same. Low. Certain. Like it doesn’t need to convince me.
I swallow. “I don’t know you.”
“Doesn’t change it.”
“I don’t know this place.”
“Doesn’t change it.”
“I don’t belong here.”
His gaze doesn’t shift. “Doesn’t change it.”
Frustration flares through me. Hot. Sharp. “Stop saying that,” I snap. “It absolutely changes things.”
“It doesn’t change what they tried to do.” That hits. Hard.
The van. The hands. The needle.
My stomach twists. I hate that he’s right. I hate that it lands. “I can go home,” I argue, even though the certainty in my voice isn’t as strong as it was a second ago. “I can lock my doors. I can call the police. I can—”
“They had a folder on you.” The words cut clean.
My chest tightens. “What?”
“They knew your name. Your routine. Where you work.”
The room fades slightly at the edges. That piece. That detail. That changes everything.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means leaving puts you exactly where they expect you to be.”
My breathing shifts again. Not panic. Something else. Something colder.
He takes one step closer. Not aggressive. Measured. Controlled. “They didn’t try to grab you randomly,” he says. “They were waiting.”
My mind runs through it. The walk. The street. The timing. The way it happened so fast. Not random.
Targeted.
That word settles heavy.
My arms wrap around myself without me thinking about it. The gauze presses tighter into my skin. “I can’t stay here,” I say, quieter now.
“You’re not leaving tonight.” There’s no hesitation. No softness. Just fact.
My eyes snap up to his. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I already did.” The words hit differently than they should. Not aggressive. Not threatening.
Final.
That’s what it is.
Something in my chest twists. Anger. Fear. Something else I don’t want to name.
He’s not asking.
The thought hits before I can stop it.
He already decided.
I hate that. I hate how much I hate it. And I hate that part of me… understands it. Because if what he’s saying is true, leaving isn’t freedom. It’s exposure. I look past him. At the room. At the people. At the structure. Then back at him.
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t pushed. Hasn’t touched me. He’s just… there. Holding the line.
I exhale slowly. “I’m not staying forever.”
His expression doesn’t change. “For now works.”
That doesn’t make me feel better. It makes something colder settle in my stomach. Because it sounds like he means it doesn’t matter what I say later. Because it sounds like he already knows how this ends.
I hate that. But I also don’t move. Not forward. Not past him. And that might be worse than anything else. Because it means I chose. Not fully. Not forever. But enough. “For now,” I repeat.
His gaze holds mine for one second longer. Then he steps aside. Not like he’s letting me go. Like he’s letting me return. And I turn back toward the infirmary. Not because he told me to.
Because I know walking out that door tonight isn’t safe.
And that truth feels heavier than the fear ever did.