She nodded, just barely.
I released her mouth and caught her before she fell. She nearly collapsed, knees gone, so I hoisted her upright with a grip under her arms. I didn’t carry her. Didn’t want to hold her so intimately.
We hurried down the alley, tailing Big Papa and Wrecker to the van. Her scent, even masked by the reek of perfume and city filth, was enough to drive me mad.
Big Papa looked at her with something between rage and pity. “Let’s move, brother.”
Wrecker took point, scanning for movement. We broke left, through the chain link, past the dead security light, and made for the Sprinter. Parker already had the rear doors open; Aspen stood inside, hands up, eyes blazing emerald. The moment we crossed the threshold, Aspen hissed a word that crackled with raw power, and the world shimmered. For a second, I thought we’d stepped out of time. The city noise went hollow, and the light shifted blue. A ripple went through me, head to toe, but Harper didn’t flinch. She just went boneless, arms dangling.
Oscar, Aspen’s familiar, sat on her shoulder, prairie dog nose twitching. He studied Harper with a little tilt of his head, then chittered to himself. “She’s very brave,” he said, accent crisp and British. “Very brave indeed.”
I set Harper gently on the bench seat, hands on her shoulders to steady her. She didn’t look at me, not at first. Her eyes were wide, glassy, fixed on the far wall of the van.
Parker slammed the doors shut, hit the locks, and called out, “We need to roll.”
Wrecker did a circuit, checking every window, then turned his attention to Harper. “Need to do a sweep,” he said, voice low and even. He pulled a scanner from his bag, ran it behind her neck, down her arms, over her dress. The machine went red.
“Fuckers chipped her,” Wrecker spat.
He fished a small knife from his belt, glanced at me. “You want to do it?”
I nodded. “Where?”
“Behind the ear.”
I crouched in front of her, brushed her hair aside. She didn’t flinch, just stared through me. I found the bump—hard, round, right at the hairline. It took five seconds to cut it out. Harper didn’t even make a sound. Wrecker held out a sterile pad; I pressed it to the wound, wiped the blood, then tucked her hair back.
“There’s another one,” Wrecker said. “Purse.”
He opened the clutch bag slung across her chest, rifled through the lining. He found the tracker—about the size of a pea—sewn into the seam. He yanked it out, crushed it under his boot.
Harper blinked finally and looked at me. Her eyes weren’t bluebonnet-bright anymore, but dark, rimmed with red. She tried to say my name, but nothing came out.
“You’re safe,” I told her. “You’re with me now.”
Big Papa found a wool blanket and placed it over her lap. He didn’t say anything, just held her hands for a long minute. She leaned into him, eyes shut, and for a second I thought she might break down. But she didn’t.
Parker started the engine, and the van pulled away from the curb, silent as a dream. Aspen came forward and knelt in front of Harper, and grabbed her hands. “You’re safe,” she said, soft asvelvet. “You’re goin’ to a place where nobody’s gonna hurt you.” Her sweet Georgia accent shone through as it always did in tense situations.
Harper nodded, but her jaw shook. She turned to look out the window, arms locked tight around her stomach.
I watched her, feeling the old helplessness creep up my spine. I wanted to hold her, fix her, kill every bastard who’d touched her. But I knew better. You can’t fix the kind of broken that comes from a place like Eyrie. You can only get them out alive.
Wrecker sat next to me, elbows on knees. “You good, Arsenal?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Never seen you freeze like that before,” he said.
“I didn’t freeze.”
He grinned, humorless. “Whatever you say.”
Harper didn’t look back at us for the rest of the drive. The team worked around her, efficient as always—comms checked, escape routes mapped, next steps briefed in shorthand. We were a machine. She was the mission, but she wasn’t part of it.
She sat shivering in the middle of the van, surrounded by warriors, a witch, a prairie dog in a suit jacket and plaid vest, and looked like she’d never be warm again.
I wanted to tell her it was over. But I knew better than to lie.
