Because I wanted to stand with her.
And if the ring thought they could keep taking people, keep leaving scars behind, keep turning fear into control, they were about to learn something.
Iron Battalion didn’t forget.
And we didn’t leave anyone behind.
Not anymore.
32
AMANDA
The quiet didn’t scare me the way it used at first.
It still made my chest feel tight sometimes. Still made my thoughts spiral if I let them run too far ahead of me. But tonight, the quiet felt… softer. Like something I could sit inside instead of something that hunted me.
I woke up just before dawn.
Not because of a nightmare. Not because of a sound. Just because my body decided sleep was done with me for now.
Wrecker was beside me, stretched out on his back, one arm bent behind his head, the other resting loosely across my waist. He wasn’t asleep. I could tell by the way his breathing stayed too even, too controlled.
We’d both been doing that lately. Lying still. Pretending rest.
The room was dim, the curtains barely holding back the early light. Dust motes floated in the air, slow and harmless. For a moment, everything felt normal enough that I almost believed it.
Almost.
I shifted slightly, testing the ache in my shoulder, the faint soreness along my ribs. Healing pain. The kind that reminded you something had happened, but that you’d survived it.
Wrecker’s hand tightened reflexively at my waist.
“You okay?” he murmured.
His voice was rough with disuse, like he hadn’t planned on talking yet.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
I glanced up at him. His eyes were open now, focused on the ceiling, jaw relaxed but alert. Always alert.
For a second, the old instinct flared, the urge to reassure him. To tell him I was fine, really fine, so he didn’t have to hold so much tension in his body.
I didn’t.
I let the silence sit.
That was new.
He turned his head toward me. “You want to talk?”
The question wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t careful either. Just open. Like he was offering something without needing me to take it.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Maybe.”
He nodded once. Didn’t press.
