“Drive,” I say. “Your girl is tired. And horny. And hungry. In that order.”
Honey floors it.
Ahead, the night stretches open like a promise.
Behind? The facility burns.
GUARDING THE SPACE BETWEEN BREATH AND DANGER
Bones - Imagine Dragons
Hatchet
The moment Kayla climbs into the van, something inside me loosens with a violence that feels almost sickening. It isn’t relief – not the soft, grateful kind other people mean when they say it. It’s sharper, deeper, like a blade finally finding the sheath it’s been hunting for.
She passes close enough that her shoulder brushes me, a warm, fleeting contact that hits harder than any drug they ever pumped into us, and I track her movements the way an animal tracks heat: instinct first, thought later.
Ghost slides into the back row with me, his hands clenched together despite the calm mask he wears, while Snow sits rigid in the passenger seat, every muscle pulled tight. Nightshade pulls her in beside him immediately, one hand already anchored ather waist, while Bones takes the other side without hesitation. Their bodies bracket her as if they’ve been rehearsing it in nightmares for weeks. Honeymonster starts the van, and we tear away from the building as if it might reach out and drag her back.
The facility shrinks in the rear window, a collapsing skeleton coughing smoke into the night sky.
She did that.
Alone, possibly drugged, swollen with a child none of us know how to protect but all of us would kill for. She walks out covered in blood and doesn’t look fragile; she looks finished.
Completed.
Sharpened.
Radiant.
My pulse settles into a dangerous rhythm as I watch her tuck herself more comfortably between Nightshade and Bones – an unconscious act of claiming from all three of them. But it’s the way her eyelids lower half-mast, the way her breathing steadies, that makes the van feel suddenly too small. Kayla doesn’t sleep so much as drift; she rests with one foot still planted in the world, ready to fight again if she must. Her exhaustion hangs in the air like a scent.
The others try not to stare at her and fail spectacularly. Bones keeps looking at her face and then jerking his gaze away as if embarrassed to be caught caring that much. Snow watches her reflection in the window, jaw tight, eyes bright. Ghost’s expression is impeccable, clinical, but the tension in his wrists betrays him. Nightshade is the worst – too still, too focused, his hand on her stomach the whole way, as if removing it might undo her existence.
Kayla says something low and amused, a sharp little comment that pries reactions out of them like opening a ribcage: Nightshade’s eyes go predatory, Bones chokes on nothing, Snowmakes a startled sound, Ghost’s breath catches. I don’t hear the words; I don’t need to. Her voice alone is enough to bend the entire van’s centre of gravity around her.
When she leans back again, her head settling briefly against Nightshade’s shoulder before drifting toward Bones’s side, the energy shifts. She isn’t unconscious – Kayla never fully lets go – but she melts just enough that everyone in front of me sits up straighter. She feels safe enough to rest. That alone is a miracle none of us will admit out loud.
Nightshade’s spine relaxes. Bones breathes a little easier. Snow closes his eyes in near-prayer. Ghost exhales shakily, shoulders dropping. I watch her chest rise and fall, committing the rhythm to memory. It steadies something feral in me.
The road unwinds under the van in long, dark stretches. Honey mutters at the wheel about potholes and speed traps, but his grip on the steering wheel is fierce. Snow checks maps with trembling hands. Ghost keeps glancing at the side mirror, scanning for headlights. The rest of us stare at her. We don’t mean to; we simply can’t stop. She came out of hell alive, and some part of us is still waiting for her to vanish again, like she’s a hallucination stitched out of adrenaline.
A cheap neon hotel sign appears ahead, flickering against the black sky like a failing heartbeat. Honey slows, the brakes whining. The van rolls into the gravel lot, the building looming squat and shadowed. Bones leans forward instantly, already in motion before the tyres fully stop. Nightshade opens his door without a word, the two of them moving in sharp tandem – one toward the office, one toward exits and blind corners. The choreography is instinctive: secure the perimeter, secure the room, secure the girl.
Kayla stirs at the sound of the doors shutting, her lashes fluttering once before she opens her eyes. She scans the hotel, the darkened windows, the rust stains under the gutters. Notfear – just assessment. Measuring threat. Measuring promise. Measuring whether she can walk without help and whether she feels like allowing any.
And then she looks at me.
It’s brief. Barely more than a flick of her gaze. But something hot and heavy settles in my chest, and I realise my hand is already halfway extended toward her – not grabbing, not demanding, simply offering. A lift. A steadying arm. A signal: I’m here. I won’t crowd you, but I won’t let you fall.
She smiles at that. Slow. Knowing.
It hits harder than any explosion we left behind.
Ghost slides the van door open. Snow reaches to help her down. Honey kills the engine. The entire world holds still as she adjusts herself, pushes to her feet, and swings her legs toward the exit. She doesn’t ask for support. She doesn’t need to. But she takes my offered hand anyway, a light touch that sends heat through my ribs like someone lit a fuse in them.
Outside, the night smells of cold air and relief. Bones and Nightshade reappear from the office with keys in hand – grim, purposeful, barely holding themselves together.
