4. Cara
Cara
The message comes through less than ten minutes after Falcon leaves the porch.
A phone I don't remember seeing this morning buzzes on the kitchen counter, loud enough that Sarah jumps before she catches herself. Condor apparently works fast when he's got a reason. I stare at the screen a second too long before I pick it up.
Security Phone:
SECURITY UPDATE: Black SUV stationary on south road outside compound boundary. No breach. Club investigating. Women's house remains secure. Please stay inside until further update.
Underneath it, is another line.
Security Phone:
Reply to confirm received.
I read the message twice, then a third time.
Sarah comes to stand beside me, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she peers over my shoulder. “What does it say?”
I turn the phone so she can read the message for herself. If this system is supposed to give us information, I’m not going to become the next person who decides what everyone else can handle.
Sarah reads it slowly, then looks toward the window. “They’re outside?”
“Outside the compound,” I confirm.
Her arms tighten around her body. “Are they watching us?”
“We don’t know,” I tell her.
Her expression changes anyway, because fear doesn’t wait for facts. I type a reply.
Security Phone Reply:
RECEIVED
Then I set the phone down on the table between us.
“We know they haven’t come onto the property, and we know the club has already seen them,” I remind her. “That’s more information than we would have had yesterday.”
Sarah nods, but her gaze keeps darting toward the window.
Emily appears in the doorway and looks between us. “What happened?”
Sarah answers before I can. “There’s a black SUV on the south road.”
The colour drains from Emily’s face. “Is it them?”
“We don’t know,” I repeat, keeping my voice steady.
Emily grips the edge of the doorframe. “Do you think it is?”
"I think guessing won't help us," I say, and it sounds calmer than I feel, which is exactly the trick and exactly the problem.
Maya wanders in behind her carrying a bowl of popcorn, apparently having decided we're having some kind of crisis and crisis requires snacks. "What's going on?"
Emily fills her in. Maya stops chewing halfway through, and for a second all three of them are looking at me the way they always do when something goes sideways.
Cara knows what to do. Cara stays calm. Cara survived.
As if survival came with a manual. It doesn’t. Most of the time, I’m making it up as I go, just like everyone else is.
“Okay,” I say, pulling out a chair. “Everybody sit down.”
Maya looks longingly at the bowl in her hands. “Can I bring the popcorn?”
“Yes,” I tell her, gesturing toward the table.
“Good.” Maya carries the bowl over. “I panic better with snacks.”
Emily lets out a shaky laugh, and that feels like a small win. We gather around the table, leaving the phone in the middle where everyone can see it.
“We are not going to be hiding information,” I tell them. “If they send another update, we read it together.”
Sarah pulls her blanket tighter around her shoulders. “What if it’s bad?”
“Then we deal with the bad,” I assure her.
Her gaze shifts toward the window again. “What if they come through the gates?”
“They won’t,” I reply too quickly.
Sarah looks straight at me, catching the certainty I don’t actually feel. “So you do think we’re safe?”
I take a slow breath before answering. This is where people usually get it wrong. They promise that nothing bad will ever happen because they want the fear to disappear that badly. I won’t do that to them.
“I think we’re protected,” I explain. “That’s different from promising that nothing can happen.”
Maya places the popcorn in the centre of the table. “That’s depressing.”
“It’s honest,” I tell her.
Emily nods slowly. “I’d rather have honesty.”
“Me too,” Sarah adds, loosening her grip on the blanket.
The phone buzzes again, and every one of us stiffens.
Security Phone:
Patrol doubled. No movement from vehicle. Additional cameras active. No change to lockdown.
Sarah reaches for the phone herself this time, then hesitates with her hand hovering above it. “Can I?”
I nod and pass it to her. Sarah reads the message before handing the phone to Emily, who passes it to Maya.
By the time it completes the round, some of the tension has loosened in the room. We still don’t know what the SUV means, and we’re still scared, but fear feels different when you know what’s happening around you instead of being left to interpret every sound.
“Who’s sending these?” Maya asks, pushing the phone back toward me.
“Condor, probably,” I tell her.
Maya tilts her head. “Which one is Condor?”
“The one permanently attached to a laptop,” I explain.
“Oh.” Recognition brightens her face. “The nerd biker.”
A laugh escapes me, but the front door opens before I can respond.
Sarah grabs my arm. I’m halfway out of my chair when a woman steps inside and freezes at the sight of us.
“Oh, shit,” the woman blurts.
She immediately backs outside and pulls the door shut behind her. A second later, she knocks.
Another laugh escapes me despite everything. “Come in,” I call.
The door opens again, and the woman cautiously peers around it. “Better?”
“Much,” I tell her, settling back into my chair.
This is Frankie, though I don’t need to introduce her to anyone in this house. She’s one of Vulture’s and has been in and out of the compound longer than most of the patched brothers. She has a way of walking into a room in the middle of a crisis and making it feel survivable simply by being there.
Frankie looks around, taking in our faces and the phone sitting in the centre of the table. “I heard about the SUV.”
“Apparently, everybody has heard,” I reply.
“The whole clubhouse went from annoying to armed in about forty seconds.” Frankie places a bag on the table and opens it. “I brought cookies.”
Maya’s face lights up. “This is why you’re my favourite.”
Frankie raises an eyebrow at her. “I thought Cara was your favourite.”
“Cara makes me drink water,” Maya complains.
“Because you should drink water,” I point out.
Maya gestures toward me as if I’ve proven her entire case. “See?”
Frankie slides the bag toward her. "Trauma support through baked goods. It’s very underrated.
" Sarah smiles faintly, her shoulders coming down another inch.
Frankie has that effect on people. She doesn't mother them, she just moves through the room like whatever's happening can be survived, and there's something reassuring about a woman who answers a potential security threat with chocolate chip cookies.
The phone buzzes again. Nobody jumps as hard this time. That's progress too.
Security Phone:
Vehicle moved approximately half a mile east. Rook and Ice Pick tracking from inside boundary. No approach toward compound.
Emily frowns. "What does that mean?"
"That they're following it without leaving the property."
Frankie looks at me. "Is that Falcon's idea?"
"I don't know." She looks like she doesn't believe me, and I let it go.
Sarah reaches for a cookie. "Yesterday they'd have just gone after it, wouldn't they."
"Depends which idiot saw it first," Frankie says.
"Accurate," I say, and it earns a smile out of me I don't fight.
"Falcon would," Sarah adds, and the table goes quiet the way it does whenever his name lands in a room I'm sitting in, it’s like the universe has decided this is going to be about him whether I want it to be or not.
I pick up my tea. "Falcon's learning."
Frankie looks at me. I regret saying it out loud immediately, and let it go, because there's a lockdown plan that still has holes in it and this isn't the time for anyone in this kitchen to start reading into my voice.
Sarah and Emily start talking through what happens if this turns into a real lockdown, whether everyone should be downstairs, and which bedrooms feel safer than others.
Maya suggests the living room because it's got two exits.
Frankie points out it's also got the biggest windows.
I start writing things down without anyone telling me to, because suddenly I can see the hole in our own plan.
It assumes everyone experiences safety the same way. We don't.
“Wait.” I hold up a hand before anyone can move on. “If this becomes an actual lockdown, where do we go?”
Maya glances toward the hallway. “The living room?”
“Why?” I ask.
Her forehead creases. “That’s where we went last time.”
“Exactly,” I tell her. “We went there because somebody told us to.”
Understanding settles across Frankie’s face. “You want choices.”
"I want zones. Some women feel safer together, some panic in groups.
Some need to see an exit, some need a room with no windows.
" I turn the notebook around and let them add to it.
Medical access without a crowd blocking Knox if someone needs him.
A way to request a female driver. Documents kept somewhere secure but reachable.
The list grows and I like that it does, because for years somebody else decided everything for me, what I ate, when I slept, whether I was allowed to speak, and choice feels almost embarrassingly small until you've lived without it. Then it becomes everything.
The phone buzzes.
Security Phone:
SUV has left immediate area. Plates obscured. Condor reviewing road cameras. Lockdown remains until Church confirms clear. Next update in fifteen minutes.
Maya releases a long breath and lowers the phone. “They’re gone.”
“For now,” I remind her.
Emily’s face remains tense as she looks toward the window. “That doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”
“No,” I agree quietly. “It doesn’t.”
Emily looks at me, waiting for reassurance. I let the silence sit between us instead of filling it with a promise I can’t keep. After a moment, her shoulders relax slightly.
“Okay,” she says with a small nod.
There’s no false comfort required. Just the truth, and she accepts it better than a lie would have landed.
Frankie reaches into the bag for another cookie. “Can I ask something that has nothing to do with suspicious vehicles?”