"Block."
The word cut across the room, low but edged with command. Harper twisted, ribs screaming protest as Brock's aluminum training blade swept in. She was a fraction late. The strike landed with a hollow crack, pain bursting through bruised muscle. Her breath caught hard in her chest, and she forced it out slow. Shoulders squared, jaw set, she anchored herself against the sting. The pain would fade. His eyes on her wouldn't.
She slashed low at his thigh, her own trainer slick with sweat in her grip. Brock pivoted clear before the blade kissed fabric, movement clean and efficient, fast in a way that still felt unfair.
"Again."
Sweat tracked down the curve of her spine, soaking the back of her tank. Her lungs hauled for air, breath snagging on the deep, coiled ache under her ribs—familiar now, an ache that had settled in and refused to leave. She didn't pause. She reset, the motions coming easier than they had any right to.
Weight forward, blade low. Shoulders squared. Jaw set.
This time, she was ready. She caught the twitch in his shoulders—the kind of tell she never would've seen in those first sessions with metal in her hands. The moment his blade dropped, she met it steel on steel, arms locked, bracing through the hit. The jolt rattled through her frame, muscles straining, but she held her line, refusing to flinch or give ground.
The clash rang out, bright against the walls. Her arms shook with the force of it, yet her stance stayed solid. For a breath, neither of them moved; tension hummed between the blades, between the set of his shoulders and the drag of her lungs. Then he stepped back, granting space without a word, the absence of correction its own verdict.
Across from her, Brock had already settled again—blade low at his side, feet planted, that stillness he dropped into before the next push. His eyes stayed on hers, taking in more than the angle of her guard: the weight in her stance, the fatigue in the line of her shoulders, the sliver of pain she hadn't quite managed to shove out of sight.
He didn't speak. Didn't nod. Just watched.
She moved with him, circling slow, boots whispering over the mats. The pattern had lodged itself into her muscles by now, worn in by long days of the same narrow patterns, day after day. She could feel it even when she tried not to—the way her body kept reaching for the right distance, the right timing, as if the room itself had taught her how to move.
Gradually, the circle tightened. Her steps drew them back to center until they faced each other square again. She felt the air narrow between them, the room shrinking down to the line of his shoulders and the length of her reach.
It had run this way for a week. The same narrow loop, day after day: wake to the chill of concrete, choke down what he brought, drag herself through drills until her muscles trembled, then back to the cell to stare at the ceiling and wait for the next round.
The bruises were fading. Purple had washed out to yellow, the worst of them shrinking around her ribs. The ache there had settled into a slow throb she could work around now, manageable unless he knocked her off balance or drove her through combinations until her lungs burned raw. She still caught her hand drifting to her side whenever his back was turned, thumb pressing along the line of bone as if she could hold it together by touch alone.
He ran her through the same patterns until they blurred together—footwork until her calves cramped, bare-handed blocks that turned the skin of her forearms tender, knife work until the hilt felt molded to her grip. Forward and back across the mats, pivot, guard, strike, over and over until her body started to move even when her head lagged behind.
The cell never changed. Concrete digging into her spine at night, the threadbare blanket useless against the cold that crawled in by dawn. He brought breakfast himself, steam curling off eggs and coffee, bread soft enough to tear with her fingers. Later, the guards still slid in a dented tray of scraps, the same grey mash she'd known before. The scraps fit the cage. What he carried in didn't. Every plate reminded her that he set the limits now—how empty she woke, how much strength she had on the mats, how long her body would hold out for him. Her stomach welcomed every bite, greedy and grateful; the rest of her recoiled from it.
And always, him. Brock's hand closing around her arm. Brock's voice setting the tempo of her days, telling her when to stand, when to move, when to hit, when to keep going past the point her muscles wanted to quit. His eyes never softened. They measured, counted, stripped her down to stamina and failure and whatever passed for progress. She despised the way her nerves pulled tight whenever his boots stopped outside her door, the way her pulse jumped at the scrape of the lock. He wasn't salvation. He wasn't company. He was the weight pressing her down, the one tightening the screws. The bruises she could take. It was the familiarity of his presence she couldn't forgive.
Her foot caught the seam between mats as she shifted forward, weight rolling into readiness, balance finding itself again before she tipped.
Across from her, Brock stood steady—trainer low at his side, body still, eyes fixed on her.
"Strike."
The command landed and her body moved on its own, muscle faster than thought. He didn't offer an opening or a lead-in, just the word, and it pulled her forward—one moment she held guard, the next she was already driving toward him.
She faked left, just enough to let his attention follow, then dropped low and twisted through the ache in her ribs, pushing up off her back foot. It wasn't clean, closer to a street fight than the drills he'd hammered into her, but the same rhythm carried her through.
Her trainer smacked flat against his side, a quick slap of contact against fabric and muscle. Not the kind of hit that would've put a man down, not even close, but it still counted. She'd touched him first.
He stepped back.
The silence that followed landed harder in her chest than the clash of metal. That thin pause after contact, the space between one breath and the next, stretched just a fraction too long and came loaded with things he didn't bother to put into words.
She held her stance, blade angled, lungs scraping at the edges of her throat. Every nerve waited for him to close the distance and remind her exactly how far she still had to go.
Instead, he reset. Shoulders loose. Stance solid. His gaze steady and flat, giving her nothing—no approval, no visible irritation, just the same unreadable focus as before.
"Again."
The word was barely out before she moved. Tight steps, blade low, every thread of anger and stubbornness driving her forward.
This time she skipped the feint. She drove straight in, closing the space until there was nothing left between them, trainer cutting a tight arc. It clipped low at his hip where his stance had opened on the reset, a glancing touch more than a proper hit, but it landed all the same.
His hand found her elbow a breath later. Not a grab meant to wrench or throw, just a solid catch, fingers firm over the joint, a jolt that brought her up short. A check. A reminder that he'd felt every inch of that exchange and let her have exactly as much as he chose.
His fingers loosened and dropped away, leaving her arm suspended for a moment in the space he'd claimed. Something in the air shifted when he let go—subtle, but enough to raise the hairs along her forearms. Whatever line he'd been holding until then had slipped. He was done holding back.
He moved before she could adjust.
His shoulder crashed into hers, the contact driving sideways through her frame and throwing her balance off. It didn't quite take her down, but it shoved her weight to the edge of control, one foot skidding on the mat as she fought to stay upright.
She caught herself, barely, muscles screaming to pull her stance back under her. Her trainer started to rise, arm dragging it up toward guard—
Too slow.
He rolled through the collision, never giving her a full second to recover. By the time her weight settled, he had already slipped past her flank and out of her sightline, the shift so fast her eyes couldn't follow it, only the drag of air and the brush of fabric as he slid behind her. An arm locked across her waist, just under her ribs, and the pressure tore her feet off the floor.
Her boots left the mat. For a suspended instant her body hung in his grip, weight tipped backward into nothing, and her muscles fired with a memory that wasn't the training room at all. Fence under her palms. Wire chewing into skin. His arm locked around her waist and the world tilting out from under her while his voice climbed up after her: you're done.
The memory vanished as the ground rushed up to meet her. Her spine hit first, the impact blasting the air from her lungs and sending pain streaking up through bone and muscle. The back of her skull slapped the mat a breath later, a dull shock that rang through her teeth.
Her trainer tore free from her hand, fingers jolted open. It spun out across the mats, metal clattering as it skidded away and settled somewhere out of reach.
He didn't stay standing. Brock followed her down, driving his weight into the opening he'd made. One knee hit the mat beside her hip, the other dropped across her upper thigh and pinned her legs before she could twist. The pressure clamped her in place, the joint of his knee biting through muscle, locking her hips to the floor.
Instinct dragged her shoulder toward where the knife had gone, hand stretching along the mat, fingertips scraping for it, reaching for anything she could turn back on him—
Cold metal touched her throat first.
His trainer angled in close, the flat of aluminum resting beneath her jaw, braced with enough intent that the next breath caught halfway. It didn't break skin. It didn't even press hard enough to leave a mark once he moved it. It didn't need to.
Every part of her knew the fight was over.
Brock held above her, weight grounded, breath steady, the solid line of his body boxing her in without a shred of strain. Nothing frantic in it, nothing wild — just absolute control, the same precise intent he'd used in every correction all week. It felt less like victory and more like placement, as if he'd simply put her where he wanted her and waited for her to understand it.
"Don't get cocky."
The words dropped into the space between them, quiet and level. They carried neither mockery nor temper, just the flat certainty of a man stating something he considered obvious.
The blade lingered a moment longer, resting there while her chest hitched around it, then he eased it away and pushed to his feet. Pressure lifted from her leg as he took his knee off, the sudden absence almost as jarring as the slam that had put her down. He stepped back into his own space with that same stripped-down efficiency, offering neither gloat nor comfort, only distance.
She stayed where she was. Breath rough in her throat. One arm curled tight over her ribs, the other spread flat on the mat, palm pressed down like she could hold the rest of her together by force. The room blurred at the edges and dragged back into focus, every part of her buzzing from the impact—spine, shoulder, ribs all chiming in at once.
Movement brushed the corner of her vision.
Brock's hand slid into sight beside her shoulder, fingers open, palm turned up so the overhead light glanced off scraped knuckles. He didn't call her name or order her to get up. The hand simply waited there, steady and unhurried, an offer she could either take or refuse. It held no warmth, no reflexive kindness. It felt like any other drill he'd set in front of her, another angle of pressure, another way to see which way she'd break.
She stared at the hand.
Her ribs burned with every breath, sweat cooling in uneven patches along her spine, muscles still shuddering from the slam. One arm throbbed from how she'd hit, and every inch of her felt wired and overused, buzzing with the echo of his weight and the restraint that followed. She could've hauled herself up on her own, made a point of it. She could've stayed flat and let the silence do the talking. Neither felt right. Not here. Not with him watching like this.
She let her gaze climb past his palm to his face. He hadn't shifted. His expression sat in the same calm lines as before—no crease of annoyance, no hint of triumph. He wasn't waiting to be thanked or testing her patience. He was just there, holding the space between them and seeing what she did with it.
Her fingers flexed once against the mat, then again, slower. Pride knotted under her ribs, hot and stubborn, and under that ran something cooler, steadier, a line she recognized now when she felt it. This wasn't about giving in. It was about choosing how to stand.
She didn't take his palm.
She reached up and wrapped her hand around his wrist instead, grip closing with intent. Not a scramble for balance. A claim. His skin felt warm under her fingers, tendons solid, the muscle in his forearm shifting as he adjusted, just enough to brace without taking over.
With one hard pull she brought herself up, using the steadiness of his arm as leverage and nothing more. Her boots planted on the mat, legs shaking but locked under her, spine stacking itself upright piece by piece. She kept hold of him a fraction longer than she needed to, long enough to make it clear that the release, when it came, belonged to her.
He didn't pull back. Didn't shake her off or break the grip. If anything changed, it was in the faint set of his jaw, the smallest acknowledgment that she'd answered his test in a way he hadn't entirely scripted.
They stood there in the quiet, the weight of the takedown still hanging between them, her hand on his wrist, his arm a line of unmoving support. For a few breaths the room narrowed to that single point of contact, the rise and fall of their chests almost in sync, her legs still trembling under her.
She let go.
Air slipped into the space where her grip had been, cool against skin that still remembered the heat of his forearm. Her fingers curled once at her side, as if they couldn't quite decide what to do with themselves now that they weren't dug into him.
Brock watched her for a moment longer, gaze steady, then let the tension of the stance bleed out of his shoulders. Whatever he'd wanted to see in that exchange, he'd seen enough.
He turned away without a word and crossed the mat. He stooped to retrieve her fallen trainer, slid it back into the rack with the same efficient ease he brought to everything in this room, then walked back toward her. He stopped close, a subtle reclaiming of space, and his hand closed around her arm—firm, unyielding—as he drew her toward the door. He didn't bother to dismiss her or bark a command; the simple pull of his grip made it clear the next part of the day had already been decided.
The door sealed behind them, the heavy latch catching with a sound she felt more than heard. Their boots struck in tandem on the concrete, his grip steady on her arm as he guided her into the stairwell. She caught herself readying for the drop downward—toward the basement, toward the cell that still sat in her mind like a bruise—but the angle of his pull shifted her the opposite way.
Up.
She matched his pace without hesitation, breath steady despite the dull ache running under her ribs. The climb tightened the muscles along her side, but she kept the rhythm, too focused on the direction to register the strain. At the landing he let go. For a moment her arm just hung there, skin cool where his fingers had been. Every time he'd moved her between rooms, his hand had stayed locked above her elbow, a constant reminder of who held the lead. Standing there without that pressure felt wrong; her arm went oddly weightless, the space between them loose in a way it had never been.
He didn't step back, staying close enough that the air between them still felt claimed. The corridor stretched ahead—brighter, broader, the lights colder than the floors below. She'd never walked this hall. The only other time she'd been taken higher than the training floor, she'd been hauled to Vex's office on five. Her body registered the unfamiliarity of this floor before her thoughts caught up, something in her posture tightening, bracing without permission.
Her gaze cut sideways, the flicker of confusion slipping through before she could bury it.
Brock caught it. His voice came level, uncolored. "Cafeteria."
His hand brushed her elbow again, enough to set her forward. The corridor funneled them toward a set of heavy double doors at the end, steel panels dulled from years of use, the kind of doors built to feed a building full of Syndicate men who'd never once wondered what waited on the other side.
Her chest tightened the closer they drew to the doors. Sound bled through the seam where the panels met—voices layered over the scrape of chairs and the dull clatter of trays. Each step pushed her nearer to it, to the heat of bodies and the crush of attention waiting on the other side. She'd taken hits from him, hit back until her muscles shook, slept on concrete that leeched the warmth out of her bones, but this pressed on a different fault line entirely.
This wasn't pain or confinement. This was being seen.
Brock caught the way her shoulders climbed, the almost-imperceptible drag in her stride. His voice came low, iron threaded through every word.
"Keep walking. You don't get to hide. You go in, they look. Let them. Every stare is a reminder of what you are here—alive on my word, safe while I stand beside you. That's the weight you carry. Learn it now, or it'll crush you later."
The words hit and lodged. Pride rose in her throat, thick and bitter, her jaw locking against it. The shape of his truth settled in beneath the protest anyway. Alive on his word. Safe only inside the reach of his shadow. Every face on the other side of those doors would drive that deeper, one glance at a time.
She hated him for laying it out so clean. Hated the tremor of fear crawling under her skin even more.
The doors swung wide at his push. Sound rushed out, sudden and thick—metal on metal, boots on concrete, voices layering over one another in a grind of conversation and laughter. The air carried grease and salt and the bitter trace of coffee left too long on the burner.
Rows of steel tables stretched wall to wall, benches packed with Syndicate enforcers and recruits bent over trays. At the far side, a food line snaked past battered counters and steam trays sweating under heat lamps—meat ladled out in heavy portions, bread stacked lopsided on dented pans, coffee sloshed from urns into tin mugs. Men with sleeves rolled back moved through the motions with practiced ease: tray down, scoop, slide forward. The hiss and clatter of the line cut through the room beneath the chatter, steady as machinery.
Some men leaned over their meals, eating fast and silent. Others slouched in knots, laughter cracking loud across the tables. One by one, heads lifted as the pair crossed the threshold. Conversation thinned. Forks stalled midair. Trays met tabletops with dull thuds. Gazes hooked onto her—tracking the sweat still damp at her collar, the yellowed bloom of half-healed bruises along her face, the way Brock's shadow framed her. The shift ran through the room like current. They remembered. The girl who'd been dragged in bleeding and bound. The Viper who hadn't stayed dead. The thing being turned into something else in their midst.
Brock didn't slow. He cut straight down the main aisle, boots carrying them through the center of the room as the noise collapsed into a low murmur. The scrape of benches and the rustle of sleeves filled the space where talk had been. Her own footsteps sounded too loud against the concrete, every one of them measured by the eyes that tracked her passage.
She fixed her focus on the food line ahead, the dull glow of heat lamps over battered trays. From the edges of her vision, faces slid into focus in quick, jagged flashes—men she knew from the hall that night, when Brock had hauled her in zip-tied and bloodied, his fist tangled in her hair. Their stares tracked her now, measuring the difference: not on her knees, not dragged like cargo, but walking beside him on her own legs, held in place by something they couldn't see.
Murmurs rose in her wake, bleeding from table to table. Some low and cutting, some buried under forced laughter, all carrying the same weight of recognition and judgment. The sound ran along her skin until she felt stripped bare, every step through that room another reminder that the whole Syndicate was watching while he remade her into whatever came next.