“Sunshine fought,” Scout said.
A low, vicious sound came from Brutus’s chest.
“They didn’t like her,” Scout continued. “She caused problems. Got other girls to resist. Tried to keep track of routes. Guards said she was trouble.”
My stomach twisted.
“They separated her,” Scout said quietly. “After the escape attempt.”
Cap’s jaw flexed.
“Where?” Cap asked.
Scout shook his head. “Didn’t say. Just that she was ‘handled.’”
The word felt like acid.
“They used her name,” Scout added. “Used it to scare the others. Said resistance gets you remembered.”
Silence slammed down hard.
Ghost’s hands were flat on the table now. Knuckles pale. Still not looking at anyone.
“They asked about the club,” Scout said. “A lot. Wanted names. Structure. Ranks. Wanted to know who made decisions.”
“And you told them?” Cap asked evenly.
Scout snorted. “I told them Brutus cooks, Ranger babysits, and Ghost jerks off to surveillance feeds.”
Brutus huffed despite himself. Ranger smirked.
Ghost didn’t react.
“They wanted Amanda,” Scout continued, and this time the room shifted. “Not just because she saw something. Because she mattered. Because it rattled you.”
My chest tightened.
The urge to stand had been instinctive.
Not anger—ownership.
The kind that lived in my bones, not my mouth. The kind that didn’t roar or posture, just locked down and decided. Hearing her name in their mouths made something primitive tighten in my chest. Not because she was fragile.
Because she was chosen.
Because they thought they could use her as leverage.
They were wrong.
Amanda wasn’t a weakness. She was a line they’d already crossed, whether they understood that yet or not.
I forced myself to sit back down, hands flat on the table, grounding the surge before it turned reckless. Cap was right. Wecouldn’t afford blind rage. Not now. Not when the enemy was watching for it.
But I filed the feeling away anyway.
The quiet, dangerous certainty that if they reached for her again, there would be nothing measured about my response.
That wasn’t a threat.
