"About?"
"Doors closing."
He looks at me. His eyes move across my face the way they move across rooms.
"Good ones or bad ones?"
"Both."
His thumb strokes again. "Yeah."
The afternoon settles. The urgency drains out of the building, replaced by a steady hum. Laptops close. Phone calls end. People stretch, rock back, looking at each other with the expression of workers who've hit the end of a long shift and know there's more tomorrow but not tonight.
McKenzie turns to me from her spot at the bar. She sets her phone face-down and looks at me.
"The girls from the Blackwell are placed," she says. "All of them. Safe houses, family reunification, or independent housing. Every one of them chose."
My throat closes. I nod.
"There's a woman named Claire," McKenzie continues. "She asked about you. She was on the prep floor. Said a nurse checked her vitals years ago at one of the auctions and told her she was brave. She said she never forgot it."
My coffee goes blurry. I blink the sting away.
"She wanted you to know she got out," McKenzie says. "That's all. She just wanted you to know."
I grip the edge of the bar. Knox's hand covers my knuckles. McKenzie touches my arm once, briefly, walks back to Phoenix.
I breathe. The coffee is cold. Maggie's banana bread is gone. The plate is clean.
Knox tips toward me. "You ready to go home?"
"Yeah."
We stand. He takes my hand. We walk through the clubhouse and the room lets us go. Candace lifts her glass from her stool as we pass. East nods from the far table. Through the open war room door, Malachi watches us cross the room with an expression that's close to soft for him.
Outside, the air is cool and clean. The compound is still. Bikes parked in a row, chrome catching the late afternoon light.
Knox walks past the truck.
He stops at his bike. Unclips my helmet from the back.
I watch him hold it, turning it in his hands, and my chest unlocks. This is how we started. A bar in Chicago. A bike. A man who drove too fast, held too tightly, and showed up every time I needed him to. Even when I told him I didn't.
He fits the helmet over my head. Tugs the strap snug. His knuckles trail down my jaw, certain, the way he's done it a hundred times. The way he'll do it a thousand more.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
He pulls his own helmet on. Swings his leg over. The engine turns and catches, rumbling low, the sound settling into my chest the way it always does.
I climb on behind him. My arms lock around his waist. My cheek finds the space between his shoulder blades. His hand drops to my thigh. Squeezes once. Both hands go back to the grips.
He pulls out of the compound. The gate passes. The road opens.
Wind hits my face. The club shrinks behind us. The sky is wide and pale and washed clean.
I hold on.
