I yank open the passenger door and drop into the seat, slamming it shut behind me with enough force to make the whole frame shudder. Leaning forward, I brace my elbows onmy knees and lace my fingers together behind my neck, forcing my lungs to pull in slow, steady breaths.
The urge to hit something rides just under my skin as the shadows slither in at the edges of my vision, cold and familiar.
Breathe.
You’re in control.
A minute later, the driver’s side door opens and Wes climbs in beside me, his expression carved from stone. Ford and Ava are still outside, positioned a good ten feet apart and staring each other down like they’re in the world’s dumbest standoff.
“She’s not coming,” Wes mutters, glowering at them through the windshield.
“She’s coming,” I grunt. “She just wants us to beg.”
Wes turns toward me, clearly ready to argue, but I shoot him a look that shuts him the fuck up.
It’s not a guess. I know her tells– the angle of her shoulders, the way she plants her feet when she decides to dig in. Just because I avoid spending time around her doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what she’s doing. I’m always paying attention, even when I don’t want to be.
Outside, Ford finally runs out of patience. He marches across the gravel and clamps a hand onto Ava’s shoulder. She reacts instantly, shoving at him and twisting away with more force than I expect, but Ford only laughs like she’s giving him the exact reaction he was hoping for.
He starts steering her toward the Escalade, and she pathetically fights him the whole way. The more she protests, the wider his grin stretches, like every move of resistance is a love letter addressed to his ego.
He wrenches open the back door and all but tosses her inside before siding in after her. Ava winces and immediately scrambles for the far side of the seat, pressing herself against the window. Ford parks himself right in the center of the back seat,legs spread, arms thrown up on the backrests to take up as much space as possible. She glares at him, then at Wes, and finally at me.
Our eyes meet for a brief second before she looks away again, her jaw tightening.
Wes cranks the engine and the stereo roars to life,kiss kissby mgk blasting loud enough to rattle the dashboard. He jerks the Escalade into gear and punches the gas, gravel spraying behind us as we tear out of the lot.
For the first few miles, nobody says a word. The music fills the silence, drowning out everything else while trees blur past the windows in long green smears. I focus on that instead of the tension coiled inside the car, forcing my attention outward while keeping a tight lid clamped over everything simmering under my skin.
Wes finally reaches over and flicks the volume down, glancing back at Ava through the rearview mirror. “For the record, we didn’t know you were there until yesterday,” he says. “We thought Gideon took you home.”
Ava lets out a quiet scoff, turning her face toward the window like she doesn’t believe a word out of his mouth.
“It’s true,” Wes continues, a raw edge of regret creeping into his voice. “The second we heard you were at the Dollhouse, we made a plan to get you out.”
“My heroes,” she mutters under her breath.
Ford bumps his shoulder into hers. “You could at least pretend like you missed us, Ava baby,” he croons, flashing her a grin that’s all teeth.
She whips around to face him, eyes burning with mirth as she flips him the bird.
He barks a laugh. “Now there’s the little hellcat I’ve been missing.”
Wes clears his throat, glancing back at Ava in the mirror again. “Did they… do anything to you there?” he asks carefully. “Did they hurt you?”
My fists tighten, fingernails digging crescents into my palms. Drew already told us about everything he’d seen in her Dollhouse file– that she underwent a physical examination upon arrival, that she was being held in solitary confinement while they prepped her for auction– but we need to hear it from her, just to be sure.
Ava’s gaze drops to her lap. “My training was supposed to start tomorrow,” she mutters, wringing her hands. “The only thing they did so far was start tattoo removal.”
The atmosphere in the car shifts as Ford goes eerily still. “Show me,” he demands, eyes darkening.
When she doesn’t immediately comply, he grabs her by the waist and hauls her onto his lap, dragging the waistband of her leggings down just enough to expose the bandage secured over our brand on her ass. He peels it away, revealing a patch of raw, blistered skin where his ink has been burned away.
A strangled sound catches in his throat. He stares at the faded tattoo for a long moment, jaw tightening until the muscle in it starts ticking.
“How dare they,” he growls, temper barely leashed. “I’ll fucking kill them for tampering with my art.”
Ava shoves his hands away and scrambles back to her side of the seat, tugging her pants up with shaking fingers.
