But now it leadsout.
Bane takes my arm. Not pulling—supporting. His hand trembles against my elbow. The adrenaline is fading and the sedative ghosts are creeping back in, and I can feel the slight sway in his step as we walk through the door. I press against his side. Equal weight.
The corridor is long and each step makes my stomach curl. Doors on both sides—steel, each one with an electronic lock. Each one a cell. Behind each one, someone breathing. Someone waiting. Someone who doesn't have a Bane.
"Here." I stop right in front of Wren’s door.
The door is already open. Two paramedics are inside—one crouched beside the bed, the other unfolding a stretcher. Aguard stands in the corridor, older, following orders he doesn't like but follows anyway.
Wren is on the mattress.
My legs almost give out.
She's small. So much smaller than her voice through the wall suggested—curled on her side, dark hair matted against her face, her scrubs torn at the collar. Blood. On her mouth. On her chin. A dark smear across her cheekbone that's already swelling purple. Her lip is split—deep, still oozing—and there are marks on her arms. Finger-shaped bruises.
The kind that come from being held down.
This is what I heard through the wall. The slap. The screaming. The silence after.
"Wren." I'm on my knees beside the mattress before I register moving. The paramedic glances at me—assessing, professional—and shifts to give me space. "Wren, it's Max."
Her eyes flutter. Half-open. Glassy. She's there and not there—drifting at the edge of consciousness, her gaze sliding past me, finding me, losing me again.
"Max?" Barely a whisper. Her hand moves—slow, searching—and I catch it. Hold it. Her fingers are ice cold. Her grip is nothing. A ghost's grip.
"I'm here. I'm getting you out of here. Right now. Do you hear me?"
Her eyes focus. Just for a second. Just long enough to see me. To know it's real.
"You... came."
"I told you I would."
Her eyes close. Her hand goes limp in mine. The paramedic leans in—checking her pulse, tilting her head, shining a penlight. His partner locks the stretcher into position beside the bed.
"We need to move her," the paramedic says.
They lift her. Careful, practiced—one under her shoulders, one under her knees. She makes a sound when they move her—a small, broken thing, barely a whimper—and her face turns into the paramedic's shoulder the way a child's would. Instinctive. Seeking safety in the nearest body.
Bane watches from the doorway. His face is unreadable. But his split knuckles flex at his sides and I can feel the violence radiating off him—not the explosive fury from the cell, something quieter. Colder. The kind that files things away for later.
They strap her to the stretcher. I walk beside it. My hand finds hers again—limp, cold, but I hold it anyway. Hold it down the corridor. Past the steel doors. Past the locks.
Through a door. The smell changes from bleach to cold air. To exhaust. To outside.
The loading dock.
Just after dusk. Deep purple light filtering through the gap under the rolling door. The first sky I've seen in—how long? Four days? Five? The air hits my face and I breathe it in so deep my ribs ache.
The ambulance is already backed up to the dock, rear doors open, lights strobing red and white through the pre-dawn gray. A black sedan idles on the concrete apron beside it. Tinted windows. Engine running.
Bane squints at the driver's side. His body, which has been running on fumes and fury for the last twenty minutes, goes still. Then something shifts in his posture—a fraction of the tension releasing, his shoulders dropping by a degree.
"Reyes," he says. Barely audible. To me: "He's ours. Atlas sent him."
The paramedics roll the stretcher toward the ambulance. I keep pace. My hand still in hers.
"Wren." I lean down. Close. My mouth near her ear. "You're going to the hospital. They're going to take care of you. And I'm going to find you. A few days. I promise."
