I look at Logan.
"She never asks permission," he says.
The door opens again and Adrian steps through, and the room's temperature lifts, the air warming half a degree. He is the front man of the club, and warmth pours off him like sunlight.
He comes straight to the bed. Takes my free hand — the one Logan isn't holding — and raises it briefly to his lips. The gesture is easy and natural, nothing theatrical. Just Adrian.
"Mi reina." He looks at me with his whole face, nothing withheld. "You scared us."
Then his gaze flicks to Logan. Takes in the dried blood at the shoulder, the collar, the smear at the jaw. Lets his expression do a slow professional appraisal.
"Cruz. New look."
Logan doesn't lift his eyes. "You like it?"
Adrian considers this mock-seriousness. He turns to the room, as if seeking a second opinion, then back. "Bold. Dark. Slightly Greek tragedy." He sets my hand down gently and straightens. "I respect the commitment."
Logan, flat: "Thank you."
The Siren arrives next, and she arrives differently than everyone else — not sweeping in, not filling space, just there suddenly, standing near the window in a soft sweater with a quiet black wig tonight, less glamorous than usual. The stage version of herself packed away somewhere. She's softer without it. The elegance is still there, the long neck and the large dark eyes, but quieter.
She moves to the bed and sits on the edge of it briefly — just long enough to brush my hair back from the bandage at my temple with two fingers. I see you. Then she stands and moves to the window.
"I'm glad you woke up," she says. Simple. True.
Then she hums.
It's unconscious, I think — she probably doesn't know she's doing it. A melody under her breath, something without a name, filling the corners of the room without asking anything from it.
Marisol leans across and stabs a fork into one of Sera's containers.
Sera closes her eyes. "I cooked enough for everyone. You don't need to steal mine."
"You're my sister in-law. We share."
Sera opens one eye.
"More like an outlaw."
Nico chuckles. He's looking at the ceiling when he does it, arms crossed, as if the laugh escaped without his permission.
Then the door opens one more time, and the room does something different.
Gunner materializes in the doorway.
He doesn't enter so much as become present — 6'5" of shaved head and neck tattoos and pale gray eyes, filling the frame of the door without apparent effort. The face scar catching the fluorescent light. There's a half-second where everyone in the room becomes aware of him without looking directly at him.
He doesn't come to the bedside.
He crosses the room slowly and takes a position by the Siren near the window where he can see everyone and everything. His pale eyes move around the room, checking faces, checking corners, coming to rest on the window. He looks out at the parking lot below for a moment, his gaze sweeping in slow arcs across what's visible. Then his eyes find mine.
He studies me. Not long. Not warm. Just thorough.
"Good," he says.
I watch Logan's face when he hears it. Something flickers and releases.
"What does that mean?" I ask quietly. "From him."
