Outside, the construction never stopped. The world kept spinning, and the war wasn’t over. But the house was full of light, and for the first time since the fire, it felt like we could win.
Maybe that’s all you ever get.
Just a chance to try again.
Chapter 21
Parker
Wrecker’s den was a shoebox full of ghosts. The walls hummed with the tick of cooling electronics, the afterimage of blue light still burning my retinas from hours of screen time. The place was a temple for night creatures—cold pizza boxes as altar offerings, coffee rings like ritual stains, that singular absence of sunlight you only get from blackout curtains bought in the “doomsday prep” aisle.
I’d sat there all morning, tracking the digital footprints of Greenbriar’s ghosts, reanimating their every call, every late-night ATM ping, every fake Uber ride and disposable phone. The servers were spitting back results faster than I could read them. By noon, my head was one long error message.
Wrecker checked regularly, bringing me coffee, sandwiches, and anything else he could think of. He replaced the battered gel wrist-rest at my station, and once just stood in the doorway and watched. He didn’t say a word, but I felt the weight of his stare, heavy as a hand on the back of my neck. I was half-aware, half-feral, my body still healing from the last round of fun with Silas. The tape across my ribs pulled and itched every time I turned, and my lungs gave a wet little click if I breathed too deep. My left arm was a roadmap of healing fractures and scattered bruises—turning yellow at the edges, but still a horror show in the right light.
Bronc alsomade several appearances. It felt good to see him, if I’m honest. He was giving off proud dad vibes, oddly enough. Juliet was at his side just looking in to be sure I wasn’t being bullied.
By three o’clock, my vision kept jumping a frame ahead. Lines of code split and re-stitched on the monitor. Voices crackled out of nowhere, little hallucinations born from fever or hunger or the morphine crash I’d been riding all week. At some point, I realized I’d been talking to myself for ten straight minutes. When I finally came up for air, my head weighed as much as a cement block. My spine didn’t so much ache as vibrate.
I must have fallen asleep in the chair. I woke to the sound of water running.
Wrecker’s shadow moved across the hallway. Then he was there—silent as a ghost, big enough to block out half the room. He said nothing, just slid an arm under my knees and scooped me up like I weighed nothing at all. My first instinct was to hiss at him, but he smelled like oranges and oak, and I didn’t have the energy to argue.
He carried me into the bathroom, which was already steaming, lavender curling from the air like the memory of a pleasant dream. The large modern tub was just full enough, white foam rising. He set me down on a small vanity chair by the sink, which hadn’t been there before. It was new, the tag still swinging from the bottom.
“Special for you,” he said, noticing my eyes on it. “Your ass deserves comfort.”
I laughed, and it hurt, but in the way a new tattoo hurts—sweet, sharp, a proof of life. “You gonna join me?”
He grinned, the dimple in his left cheek coming out of retirement. “That’s the plan, Wren.”
He bent to untie my shoes, then peeled off my socks, one slow tug at a time. His hands were always careful, but now they movedwith a kind of desperate reverence. Every patch of healing skin made his jaw tighten.
I tried to stand up to undress, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Let me do it. Please.” His eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
He started with the hoodie, sliding it off and folding it on the edge of the counter. Next, the tank top. The bandages underneath were stained, but mostly dry now. He unwound them with surgical precision, fingers trembling just a little at the sight of the bruises beneath.
His thumb traced the edge of the largest one, still a raw smear above my hip.
“I’m fine,” I said, voice almost steady. “Wolf healing. It’s tons better.”
He said nothing, but I watched his mouth work around a word he couldn’t say.
He knelt, undid the drawstring of my sweats, and pulled them down. My body had never looked so fragile—scarred, ribbed, held together with hope and bandage wrap. But he didn’t flinch, didn’t avert his eyes.
He just breathed, deep and slow, then gently lifted me up and into the tub.
The water was a shock, then a balm. Heat flooded every nerve, dissolving the aches. My head lolled back against the porcelain.
He stripped in silence, which should have been erotic, but was instead profoundly sad. Every scar on his body glowed pale in the vapor—military, motorcycle, maybe the kind you don’t get in a fight but in a bad dream. He climbed in behind me, knees bracketing my hips, arms wrapping around my waist.
For a long time, neither of us spoke. He washed me, hands slow and steady, running the soapy sponge over every inch of skin as if each mark was a secret to decode. His fingers trembled every time he hit a bruise.
I leaned my head back on his shoulder. “You don’t have to be so gentle,” I said. “I’m not going to break.”
“I almost lost you,” he said, voice muffled against my hair. “Forgive me if I’m a little fucked up about it.”
The sponge drifted lower across my thighs. He massaged each muscle, working out the knots from hours at the computer, and I let myself melt into it, for once not needing to be in control of my body. The feeling was narcotic.
