2. Cara
Cara
Mornings in the women's house start quietly. It’s not peaceful by any means. It feels careful. They are very different things. Peace feels open, like sunlight on bare skin. Careful feels like walking across ice and pretending you can't hear it thinking about cracking.
I move through the kitchen slow enough not to startle anyone, even though there's nobody to startle yet. The kettle ticks as it cools from someone being up during the night for a hot drink. Someone left a mug in the sink, there’s lipstick smudged on the rim, and as small as it is, that counts as evidence.
Proof that a woman in this house chose an ordinary moment yesterday and didn't flinch through it.
I used to take mornings for granted. Coffee. Laughing at nothing. Falcon's arm heavy across my waist while he complained about getting up for work he loved.
I don't let myself finish that thought. Before is where hope lives, and hope is a fragile thing when you're still learning how to breathe on your own again.
By the time I get back to the house properly, breakfast at the clubhouse is over and Sarah's helping Emily pick through a mountain of donated clothes in the living room.
It should look ordinary maybe one day it will.
For now, I still notice things other people wouldn't. Sarah's chosen the armchair with a clear line of sight to both doors.
Emily's sitting on the floor with her back to the wall instead of the sofa.
Someone's left the curtains open only halfway, enough to see out without feeling seen.
There's a baseball bat tucked behind the bookcase. I noticed it three days ago and haven't moved it.
Safety doesn't arrive just because someone tells you that you have it.
Your mind can understand there are armed men on the gate, and nobody gets through without being seen, but your body still won't believe it.
Your body remembers locked doors, footsteps in hallways, and the sound a key makes when you know nothing good is waiting on the other side of it.
It takes longer to teach your body the danger's passed. I'm still working on mine.
"Well?" Sarah asks, not looking up from the sweater she's folding.
"Well what?"
"Did you talk to him?" I don’t need to ask who she is talking about.
Emily's head comes up fast enough that I know she's been waiting for this exact moment since I walked in.
"Have you two considered minding your own business?"
"Frequently," Sarah says. "I'm not very good at it."
She adds the sweater to one of three piles on the coffee table. I've no idea what the piles represent, though judging by the purple sequined thing sitting on top of one of them, I'm hoping at least one pile is headed for a bin.
Emily holds up a tiny silver dress by two fingers. "Who donated this?"
"Someone who hates women," Sarah says, laughing.
The sound loosens something in my chest that's been sitting tight since I woke.
A few weeks ago, Emily barely spoke above a whisper.
Sarah wouldn't sit with her back to an open room, and she flinched at a raised voice outside.
Now they're arguing about a dress while trying to get information out of me, healing doesn't always look profound. Sometimes it looks exactly like this.
"I spoke to him," I say, because they're not going to let it go otherwise.
"And?" Sarah asks, folding another item of clothing.
"And nothing." I don’t have anything to give them, our conversation was very short.
"That's disappointing."
"For you, maybe."
"Definitely for me." Sarah looks at Emily and just shrugs her shoulders.
I head for the kitchen before either of them can ask anything real, because the truth is I don't have an answer even if I wanted to give one.
I spoke to Falcon. That's all it was, except it isn't, because for the first time since I came back here, I told him something I needed and he actually listened.
Show up. Two words that shouldn't mean as much as they do.
Falcon's spent years being the man who shows up for everyone.
His brothers, the club, strangers who needed protecting and who he probably never saw again.
It was one of the things I loved about him even when it drove me insane, because he'd walk through fire for anyone he considered his.
He just never learned how to let anyone walk through it beside him.
That man's still in there. I've seen flashes of him since I came back.
I've also seen the other one, the one who disappears inside himself and climbs on his bike and rides until whatever he's feeling turns into exhaustion instead.
I can't fix that for him. More importantly, I don't want to.
If Falcon and I ever find our way back to each other, it can't happen because I make myself responsible for keeping him whole.
I spent too many years surviving other men's choices to build a future where my happiness depends on managing another man's.
Even if that man is Falcon. Especially if it's Falcon.
I fill the kettle and switch it on. Somebody swapped the heavy curtains in here for pale blinds last week, and I still don't know whose idea it was, but it means we can let in as much of the outside world as we're ready for without shutting it out completely. I know some people just think it’s a blind, but it means more than most people would guess.
The Saints gave us walls, gates, cameras, and enough weapons on this property to invade a small country.
They're very good at physical safety. The rest has been a learning curve for all of us.
A knock sounds at the back door. My shoulders lock automatically, then release when Knox's voice comes through it.
"Cara?"
"Come in."
He steps inside carrying a medical bag in one hand and a cardboard box under the other arm, closing the door carefully behind him. "Everyone decent?"
"Depends on your definition."
"Clothes."
"Then yes."
He sets the box on the table and looks at me and I know he looks at everyone the same way, he takes in posture and breathing and whatever else medical people notice that the rest of us miss.
"You sleep?" I know he’s asking for medical reason, but I still appreciate the thought.
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Enough."
"That's not a number." He looks at me, knowing that I don’t want to talk about it.
"Wasn't supposed to be." His mouth twitches.
He asks about headaches, nightmares, gets a flat ‘Knox’ out of me for the second one, and gives up with more ease than I trust.
"You didn't come over here to interrogate me about my sleep," I say.
"No. Emily asked for more dressings." He opens the box. There’s bandages, antiseptic, painkillers, and a few things I can't identify inside. "Apparently my first-aid system is unacceptable."
"Your system probably is unacceptable."
"My system's worked for years." He’s mildly annoyed Emily is dissing his first-aid system.
"Your system is throwing things into a bag."
"I know where everything is."
"That's not a system, Knox."
"Tell her that. You'll make her day."
I lean against the counter and watch him unpack for a second. "How long are they supposed to stay here?"
His hands still. "Who?"
"The women."
He looks at me properly then. "I know nobody's trying to throw anyone out," I say, "but this can't be the whole plan."
"It isn't."
"What is?"
"We're working on it."
"That's not a plan, either."
"No, it's the part before a plan, where everyone argues about what the plan should be."
I almost smile. "Very reassuring."
"Welcome to the Saint’s Outlaws."
He goes back to the box, but the question doesn't go away that easily.
This house is safe. But that isn't the same as free.
Eventually some of these women are going to want jobs, homes, relationships, even children, or maybe nothing except an apartment where they get to decide who comes through the door.
Some will be ready before others. Some might never want to leave the club's protection completely, and none of those choices are wrong, but they need to be choices.
"I think we need somewhere in between," I say.
"Between here and completely independent?"
"Yes. This place is inside an MC compound. That's good right now. Eventually it's going to become another kind of wall if we're not careful."
He doesn't argue, which surprises me enough that I keep going.
I tell him what I've been hearing. Some of the women hate the sound of boots outside their windows at night.
Others feel safer knowing a brother's there.
Two of them still won't get into a vehicle with a man driving, which makes appointments complicated.
Sarah wants a job eventually but has no identification left.
Emily needs a counselor who understands trafficking, not a well-meaning therapist telling her to journal her feelings.
Knox listens without interrupting except to clarify, and by the time I stop he's got his phone out, taking notes.
"There's a property," he says finally. "A house outside the city. Vulture's been looking at it with Sterling."
"Why didn't anyone tell us?" I’m surprised.
"Because we don't own it yet."
"You're still doing it," I say, and when he looks confused, I continue, "making decisions about what happens to these women without asking what they need."
His expression shifts, not defensively, just thoughtful. That's something I've noticed about this club. They're not used to being questioned, but the good ones actually listen.
"I didn't think of it that way," he admits.
"That's the problem."
"I gathered."
I soften. "Sorry."
"Don't be." He leans back. "Tell me what you think they need."
So I do, the whole list, and he's still writing it down when a scream cuts through the house and every thought in my head disappears.
Knox moves first. His bag hits the floor and he's through the kitchen door before I've even pushed back from the table. I'm right behind him, and there’s another scream, and it's coming from upstairs. Sarah comes out of the living room, her face gone pale.
"What happened?" she asks.