She didn’t comment on the dog. She didn’t comment on anything. That was how I knew it was bad.
We walked for a while. Long enough that her breathing evened out and some color came back into her face. She kept rubbing her thumb over the inside of her wrist, like she was trying to erase something only she could see.
Finally, she stopped.
She stared at the dirt, hair falling around her face, arms wrapped tight around herself.
“I froze,” she said, voice quiet. “I just… watched. I didn’t help her. I didn’t save her.”
I didn’t interrupt. Not yet.
Her throat worked. “She looked right at me. I heard her cry. And I didn’t move. I stood there like—” She swallowed hard. “Like a coward.”
I reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away.
“You were undercover,” I told her. “If you moved, he would’ve taken you too.”
“That’s not—” She shook her head. “Cap told me to wait. I didn’t. I ran that access script, and when the firewall dropped I thought, this is the moment. This is the break we needed. I thought if I didn’t go in right then, we’d lose it. And maybe they’d move the girls again. Or kill them. Or—” Her voice cracked. “Ithought I could handle it. I thought I knew what I was walking into.”
Ranger paused ahead. Stayed close enough to hear us, far enough to let her talk.
Amanda’s eyes filled but she didn’t cry. She always held herself together until she didn’t.
“I walked past the elevator and saw… her. And I froze. I let her be taken. I let him see me. I’m the reason all of this is happening.”
“No,” I said, sharper than intended. “You’re not.”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “I keep replaying it. If I’d moved faster. Yelled. Hit the alarm. Anything.”
“And then what?” I asked. “You’d be dead or sold. You going still saved your life. And you getting out let us find the building. The hub. The cameras. The logs. Without you, we’d still be blind.”
Her mouth trembled. “It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I failed her.”
Smoke sat up and whined, leaning into her thigh. She finally looked down at him.
“He knows,” I said. “Smoke reads adrenaline like a damn meter. You’re wound tight enough to snap.”
Her laugh was thin and shaky. “I’m trying not to.”
“Don’t.” I stepped closer. “Don’t try to pretend you’re okay. You walked into a lion’s den alone. You saw something that would break most people. And you’re still standing.”
Her breath hitched like she didn’t believe it.
She wiped at her cheek. “I don’t want to freeze again. If something happens, I want to move. I want to fight. I don’t ever want to feel that helpless again.”
I lowered my forehead to hers before she could look away. She stiffened for half a second, then let the breath go, slow and unsteady.
“Then we teach you,” I said. “We teach you everything. And I stay with you while you learn.”
Her fingers curled in the front of my shirt. Not for balance. For grounding.
I’d spent most of my life believing protection meant standing in front of the danger. Taking the hit. Becoming the wall so no one else had to.
That instinct had kept people alive. It had also cost me more than I liked to remember.
But standing there with Amanda trembling against me, fingers fisted in my shirt like she was anchoring herself to the present, I realized something ugly and necessary all at once.
She didn’t need a shield.
