“You’re awake,” she said softly, voice hoarse.
“Yeah,” I managed. My throat burned.
She shifted toward me. Didn’t get up. Didn’t even unfold her legs. But she leaned just enough that I could see the caution in her face. Not fear of me, exactly. Just fear. Everywhere. Woven into her posture, her silence, the way her eyes darted to the shadows every few seconds.
“They brought you in a while ago,” she said. “You didn’t wake up for a long time. I thought maybe—” She stopped, pressing her lips together.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. They don’t give us clocks or anything. But…a few hours? Maybe more.”
Her gaze flicked to my wrists. “They used the same ties on me, but I think mine are looser. I already tried the door. It’s metal. Locked from the outside. No vents except that one.” She nodded toward the upper corner of the far wall, where a rusted grate barely clung to the concrete.
Smart girl.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She hesitated. “Hailey.”
“Amanda.”
She nodded, like she already knew. “They were talking about you.”
My skin went cold. Of course they were.
I’d felt it for weeks now. The way the air shifted when we locked down the compound. The way Ghost lingered too long on certain feeds. The way Wrecker’s hand never quite left my back.
This wasn’t opportunistic.
It was planned.
“What did they say?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Just that you weren’t supposed to be brought in yet. That the ‘order got rushed.’ One of them was mad about it.”
I swallowed hard, jaw tight. “Did they say anything else?”
“They said…” Her voice cracked. “They said the redhead was bait. That you were the target. I think—” She cut herself off again. “I think they’ve been watching you for a while.”
I already knew that. But hearing it from someone else made the rage surge.
I shifted my weight, leaning against the wall to brace my back. Every muscle felt like it had been wrung out and stapled back in wrong. But my brain, finally, was clearing.
They didn’t know what I’d learned.
They didn’t know who I’d become.
And they didn’t get to win.
Not this time.
Hailey was watching me carefully now, like she couldn’t quite figure me out.
I couldn’t blame her.
The last time I was locked in a room like this, I didn’t make it out whole. But this time wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the girl they’d tried to break before. I’d been rebuilding every piece of myself since I got to the compound, since I met the Iron Battalion MC. Since I realized I wasn’t weak. I was a weapon waiting to be aimed.
And right now? I was aiming.
