I hovered in the doorway for a second. The noise rattled in my skull, but the silence upstairs had been worse.
I shifted my weight, feeling the solid press of the tile under my feet. Cold. Real. The smell of burnt coffee and grease clung to the air, sharp enough to cut through the lingering haze in my head. My pulse was still a little too fast, my shoulders a little too tight, but my body wasn’t folding in on itself the way it had upstairs. Down here, there was nowhere for my thoughts to echo unchecked.
I focused on small things. The scrape of a chair leg. The rhythm of boots crossing the floor. Smoke’s nails clicking as he paced like he was tracking invisible orders. Each sound anchored me, stacking one on top of the other until my breathing slowed without me consciously telling it to.
Noise meant people. People meant witnesses. Witnesses meant I wasn’t alone with my own fear.
I pushed my fear away the best I could and stepped fully into the room, choosing chaos over quiet. Choosing this over hiding.
“Morning,” I called out.
No one looked up. Typical.
Smoke noticed me first.
I still wasn’t used to the dog. He was big, bigger than he needed to be, with solid black fur, high pointed shepherd ears and these sharp, intelligent eyes that tracked everything. Ranger had rescued him from a military kennel years ago, and onceSmoke imprinted on someone, that was it. They were marked. His.
Apparently I’d been added to his list.
He let out this low excited bark and charged toward me, nails clicking hard on tile. I braced myself as fifty-something pounds of muscle and anxiety skidded into my legs. He pressed his head into my stomach like he was checking I was still breathing.
“Hey,” I whispered, rubbing behind his ears. “I’m okay.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Ranger sat at the counter behind him, sharpening a knife with long, steady movements. I’d learned yesterday that Ranger didn’t cook much, but he cut everything, meat, vegetables, the occasional intruder. The man had a talent.
He nodded once at me and went back to the knife. That was basically a hug from him.
Brutus scowled into his pot again. “It’s stuck.”
“That’s because you burned it,” Doc said from his chair across the kitchen. He had a medical magazine open but wasn’t reading a single word. “Maybe don’t put the heat on high like you’re trying to weld it shut.”
Brutus ignored him and kept stirring.
“Where’s Ariel?” I asked.
Cap had moved her back to the clubhouse yesterday. He said there was too much heat at the safe house and wanted her protected by the entire club, which was understandable given what she’d been through.
The bruises she’d tried to explain away still flashed behind my eyes. The way her voice went flat when she talked about the worst parts, like distance was the only way to survive remembering them. Before the elevator, before the Watcher’s gaze locked me in place, that had been enough to steady me. Enough to make me believe I could walk straight into the fire and drag the people responsible into the light.
Now, all I could think about was the moment my body hadn’t listened. The way my feet had rooted to the floor while a girl was pulled screaming out of sight. Ariel had survived worse than that, and I’d frozen. The anger was still there, hot and vicious under my skin, but it no longer felt clean. It tangled with shame and doubt, with the terrifying question of whether wanting to take them down was enough if my body couldn’t back me up when it mattered.
“Upstairs,” Doc said cutting through my spiral of thoughts. “Cap doesn’t want her going anywhere without an escort.”
“I’m sure Ariel loves that,” I replied. Knowing my sister, I had a feeling she had been complaining about that since Cap brought her back here.
“She’s pissed,” Ranger added. “Keeps trying to sneak out the side porch. Cap caught her twice this morning.”
I laughed. “She’ll try again.”
“Yep,” Ranger said, stone-faced. “She’s upstairs right now planning new routes.”
That actually sounded right.
A mug clinked lightly on counter beside me. Wrecker must’ve slipped in while I was distracted; he had a way of filling a room without making noise. He handed me the mug without comment.
“You need to drink,” he said.
