"You will. And if he tells you to stay away—"
"He won't."
"If he does—"
"Then I'll stand outside his door until he changes his mind. I'll sleep in the hallway. I'll wait. However long it takes." I lean forward. "I'm not good at gentle. I'm not good at patient. I'm not good at any of the things Bane is or you are. But I can dostubborn. I can do relentless. And I can do honest, which is more than I've ever given him before."
Atlas holds my gaze for a long time. Then something shifts—not softening, not forgiveness, but the grim recognition of a man who knows he can't change what's already happened and has to work with what's in front of him.
"When we get him back," Atlas says again, quieter now, "and he's safe, and he's home—you and I are going to have a conversation in the yard. Just us."
I blow out a breath, some tension leaving my shoulders.
Good. I’ll bleed for Max.
Then I’ll show him what it feels like to be truly seen.
Chapter 7
Bane
Max sleeps for three hours. I know because I count the minutes.
Not intentionally—there's nothing else to do. No windows, no clock, just the fluorescent tube humming overhead and the boy curled against my chest, breathing slow and steady for the first time since I walked into this room. His face is pressed into my shoulder. His fingers are still laced through mine where my zip-tied hands rest against his sternum. He smells like himself and I can’t breathe him in deep enough.
They come for me while he's sleeping.
The lock buzzes. Two men. Efficient. They pull me from the bed without ceremony—Max jerks awake, scrambles upright, and I say "It's okay, it's just—" before the needle hits my neck and I grunt.
Then the world softens.
Another dose of sedative. Heavier this time. The edges of the room blur and my legs go liquid and when they set me back on the mattress I can't quite remember how to arrange my limbs. Max is there. Hands on my face. Saying something. I can see his mouth moving but the words arrive late, waterlogged, like he's speaking from the other side of a pool.
The two men leave and I blink things back into focus.
"—fine," I manage. "I'm fine. Just fuzzy."
His expression says he doesn't believe me. Smart boy.
Time passes. The sedative settles into my bones like wet sand. Everything is soft. Distant. I'm aware of Max beside me on the bed—his warmth, his breathing, the way he watches me like he's cataloguing my symptoms—but it's all filtered through cotton.
The slot at the bottom of the door scrapes.
Food. Two trays.
I try to stand. Make it halfway before the room tilts sideways and I sway hard enough that my shoulder hits the wall.
"Sit down." Max's hands are on me immediately—firm, steady, guiding me back to the bed. "I've got it."
He retrieves the trays. Two sandwiches. Some kind of protein bars. Two bottles of water. He sets them between us on the mattress and tears open the first sandwich wrapper.
"Open."
I stare at him. "I can feed myself."
"Your hands are shaking."
He's right. My zip-tied hands are trembling—the sedative making my fine motor control garbage. I couldn't hold a sandwich steady if my life depended on it.
