Chapter 14
Sunshine
The conference room felt larger after everyone else left.
A few empty coffee cups remained scattered across the table, Cipher’s cables still trailed toward the dark television screen, and the faint glow from the hallway slipped beneath the closed door in a narrow golden line.
Only minutes earlier the room had been crowded with voices, maps, photographs, and men discussing the Order as though it were something they could dismantle piece by piece if they remained patient enough.
Now the silence settled around Remedy and me with a weight that was not uncomfortable but impossible to ignore.
His hand remained wrapped around mine.
I looked down at our joined fingers, still surprised by how natural the contact had become.
Months earlier I would have noticed every point where our skin touched, every movement of his thumb against mine, and every possible route toward the door if closeness suddenly stopped feeling safe.
Tonight I noticed something entirely different.
I noticed that he was not holding too tightly.
I noticed he had left enough space for me to pull away without resistance.
Most of all, I noticed that I did not want to.
“You meant that,” I said.
Remedy’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“That I’ve never been anything but useful.”
His expression changed, the faint confusion giving way to something steadier. “I didn’t say useful.”
“You said I’d never been anything else.”
“I was answering the word you used.” His fingers tightened gently around mine. “That isn’t the same thing as agreeing it’s the best word for you.”
I looked toward the blank television screen where the stranger’s photograph had been displayed only minutes before.
“Inside the Order, usefulness mattered. People who were useful received food first, better work, fewer punishments. Women who stopped being useful disappeared into places nobody talked about.”
The words left me more calmly than I expected.
Perhaps the meeting had exhausted the sharpest edges from the memories, or perhaps speaking about the Order in a room filled with people determined to destroy it had changed something about the way I carried the past. For years, every memory had felt like evidence of what had been done to me.
Tonight, some of those memories had become evidence against the men who had done it.
Remedy waited until I looked back at him.
“You matter when you aren’t helping anyone,” he said.
“You matter when you’re tired, angry, frightened, or having a day when you don’t have anything left to give.
You matter when you’re sitting in silence and when you’re laughing with the children.
None of that disappears because you aren’t useful to somebody for five minutes. ”
The conviction in his voice reached places encouragement rarely touched.
People often told survivors they were strong, brave, or inspirational because those words made suffering easier to admire from a distance.
Remedy did not praise me for surviving as though endurance were the only thing worth loving.
He was telling me I would still matter if strength abandoned me.
“I don’t know how to believe that yet,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to believe it tonight.”
“There you go again.”
“Giving you time?”
“Making everything a choice.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I’m consistent.”
“You are.”
His gaze lowered briefly to our hands before returning to my face. “Do you want to leave?”
The question could have meant the room, the clubhouse, or the conversation. He left the interpretation to me, as he seemed to leave almost everything that mattered.
“Not yet.”
He nodded and pulled the chair beside mine closer, though he did not release my hand.
The scrape of wood against the floor sounded strangely loud in the quiet room.
Once he settled beside me, our shoulders nearly touched, and the warmth of him made the fluorescent-lit space feel less like a conference room and more like somewhere private.
“I thought I would recognize him,” I said.
“The man in the photograph?”
“Yes. When Cipher first showed us the image, part of me believed the name would simply appear. I remembered the scar, the wagons, and the way men listened when he spoke, but not his face clearly enough to give anyone certainty.”
“That doesn’t mean you failed.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I gave him a look.
Remedy’s mouth curved slightly. “You say that a lot when you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“So do you.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m usually right.”
The quiet laugh escaped before I could stop it, and the heaviness in the room loosened enough for me to breathe more deeply.
He watched me with the softened expression he wore whenever my laughter surprised him, and the warmth in his eyes made the moment feel more intimate than the hand still holding mine.
“You really do listen for it,” I said.
“For what?”
“My laugh.”
He looked caught for only a heartbeat before honesty replaced any attempt at denial. “I do.”
“Why?”
The question sounded more vulnerable once spoken aloud. I had not meant to ask for reassurance, yet some fragile part of me needed to understand what he heard when I forgot to guard myself.
“Because you don’t always let it happen,” he answered. “When you laugh like that, you aren’t remembering where the doors are or wondering whether somebody is watching. You’re simply happy. I like knowing you can feel that here.”
“With you?”
His eyes held mine. “Especially with me.”
The air seemed to change between us.
Nothing dramatic happened. He did not move closer or lift his hand toward my face.
The fluorescent lights still hummed overhead, and muffled voices drifted through the wall as the brothers continued discussing patrols in the hallway.
Yet the quiet truth in his answer settled through me more deeply than any practiced declaration could have.
I had spent years becoming careful enough not to need anyone’s approval. Wanting Remedy to see me happy felt dangerously close to wanting his affection, and I no longer possessed the energy to pretend I did not.
“I was frightened in the woods,” I said.
“I know.”
“Not only because I thought the man might recognize me.”
Remedy waited.
“I was afraid you would look at those photographs and finally understand how much danger follows me.”
His expression hardened, though not against me. “Sunshine—”
“I know what you’ve said. I know I didn’t bring them here, and I know their decisions belong to them. But knowing something and feeling it aren’t always the same.”
“No,” he agreed. “They aren’t.”
“I kept thinking about Charlie. About the way she ran into my arms this morning and believed I would come back because I promised. If something happened to her because men from my past came here—”
“It would destroy you.”
I looked away.
Remedy’s voice softened. “It would destroy me too.”
The admission pulled my gaze back to him.
He leaned forward, resting his free forearm against the table.
“That’s why I’m afraid. Not because I think you’re dangerous to Charlie, but because you already matter to her enough that losing you would hurt.
And you matter to me enough that the thought of those men watching you makes it hard to think clearly. ”
My heart beat faster, though not from fear.
He had admitted he was afraid before, but this felt different. There was no abstract concern about relationships or caution surrounding Charlie. This was personal, immediate, and raw enough that I could see how much effort it cost him to say aloud.
“What did you think when Cipher said the man might be watching someone inside Harbor House?” I asked.
Remedy’s jaw tightened. “I thought about getting you and Charlie as far away as possible.”
“Together?”
“Of course together.”
The answer came so quickly that he did not seem to realize what it revealed until after the words were spoken.
Something inside me softened painfully.
“And then?” I whispered.
“Then I remembered you would hate me if I decided where you were going without asking.”
“I might.”
“You definitely would.”
“I’m glad you remembered.”
“So am I.”
We sat in silence for several moments while the truth stretched between us.
His first instinct had been to protect us as a unit, not Charlie first and me as an afterthought, but he had still stopped himself from turning protection into control.
I had never known a man capable of both instincts at once.
“Remedy?”
“Yeah?”
“What happens if I remember more tonight?”
“Then you tell me.”
“And if I have nightmares?”
“I’ll answer the phone.”
“What if it’s three in the morning?”
“I’ll still answer.”
“What if I don’t know what to say?”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
My throat tightened. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t simple. It’s just true.”
He lifted our joined hands and brushed his thumb slowly across my knuckles, the movement careful enough that I could stop it with the slightest shift. Instead, I turned my hand beneath his and laced our fingers more securely together.
“Will you take me back to Harbor House?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I hesitated. “I don’t want to be alone yet.”
His entire attention sharpened, though he did not interpret the words beyond what I had offered.
“You won’t be.”
“I mean after we get there.”
“I can stay.”
The immediate answer warmed and frightened me at once. “You have Charlie.”
“She’s staying at the clubhouse tonight with Daisy. Toxic wants the kids here until we finish checking the property.”
“I didn’t know.”
“We decided during the meeting. I was going to tell you in the truck.”
“So you could stay.”
“If you want me to.”
The room seemed too quiet again.