Not his voice, not yet.
The sound of boots in the hallway outside Wrecker’s room had a different rhythm than the others. Slower. Uneven. Heavy in a way that wasn’t just exhaustion. I felt it before I understood it, my chest tightening like my body recognized something my brain hadn’t caught up to yet.
I sat up in bed, heart thudding.
Wrecker was gone. Had been for a while. Ranger had checked on me twice, Doc once. Ariel had stayed until I fell asleep, curled on the edge of the bed with Smoke pressed against her legs like a living anchor. At some point she’d gone too, leaving me alone with the quiet and my own thoughts.
Now the quiet shifted.
A voice murmured in the hall. Low. Rough. Familiar in a way that made my throat close.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed before I could talk myself out of it.
The floor was cold under my feet. My arm ached where Doc had wrapped it, a dull reminder that my body had been throughsomething it hadn’t fully processed yet. I stood slowly, testing my balance, then padded to the door and cracked it open.
The hallway light spilled in.
Scout stood at the far end, leaning heavily against the wall while Doc talked at him in a voice that sounded calm but was clearly threaded with fury. Scout’s shirt was gone, chest wrapped in fresh bandages, bruises blooming dark and ugly along his ribs and shoulder. One eye was swollen, the skin around it yellowing already.
He looked wrecked.
He looked alive.
My knees went weak with it.
Not relief exactly, relief came later, but something closer to my body finally catching up to what my brain already knew. That he was here. That he was breathing. That the worst version of this moment hadn’t happened.
My hands trembled at my sides, useless and aching with the need to do something. Touch. Fix. Anchor.
The part of me that had survived the warehouse stayed sharp and alert, cataloging injuries automatically. Bandages. Swelling. Bruises that hadn’t finished blooming yet. The way he favored one side when he shifted his weight.
Alive didn’t mean unhurt.
Alive didn’t mean untouched.
I hated how familiar that felt.
A pulse of anger flared in my chest. Not wild, not explosive. Cold. Focused. The kind that sat low and steady and didn’t burn out fast.
They had done this.
Not fate. Not bad luck. Not mistakes.
People.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathed through it, grounding myself in the moment. The hallway light. The hum of electricity. The solid weight of Wrecker’s hand when it brushed my shoulder again, silent and steady.
Scout was alive.
That mattered.
Everything else could come later.
My breath left me in a rush that made my vision blur.
Scout laughed softly, the sound rough and broken, like it hurt to get out. “Doc, I swear to God, if you poke me one more time?—”
“You don’t swear at God in my hallway,” Doc snapped. “And you don’t tell me when I’m done.”
