The line at the far wall crept forward, steam curling off dented pans and drifting into the hum of voices. A recruit slid his tray along the counter, shoulders hunched, eyes dragging over her once before he snapped his gaze back to the food. Others weren't as quick. Heads tilted. Conversations thinned. The whispers thickened and spread, carried on the scrape of trays and the rattle of utensils, until the sound pressed against her ribs and sat there. Alive on this floor, in their colors, with all of them watching.
At the counter, Brock caught a tray from the stack, dropped a plate onto it, and stepped into place like he'd done this a hundred times this week alone. He moved with the same steady rhythm he used on the mats, unhurried and sure of his space, like the room already knew to make way for him. He faced forward and moved on, unbothered by whether she was there or not. The line parted around him, and she slid into the thin slice of space behind his shoulder that belonged to her now.
Harper's hand stalled on the metal for a breath, then she pulled her own tray free. The edge bounced against the stack with a clatter that made her spine tense, the sound too bright in the focused quiet around them. A plate slid against the tray with a hollow clink. Grease and starch rolled up from the pans ahead, heavy and familiar, tugging at the same hollow under her ribs that the basement breakfasts had started to wake up. She fixed her gaze on his hands as he moved forward—two ladles of greasy meat landing in wet thuds, a chunk of bread torn from the pile, a scoop of pale potatoes sagging onto his plate, coffee splashing dark into a dented mug—and kept her feet in his wake.
When her tray reached the pans, she copied his choices in smaller amounts. One thin scoop of meat slid onto the plate, grease pooling around it. She tore off a chunk of bread, smaller than the piece he'd taken, and left the potatoes untouched. Behind her, someone shifted closer. The rim of his tray brushed her spine, a light tap that still sent a crawl of heat up the back of her neck. She moved forward too fast, plate rattling against the metal, just to get out of his reach.
At the end of the counter, her hand hovered over the coffee urn. Steam rolled up from the spout, carrying that bitter smell that clung to the back of her throat from every forced breakfast in the basement. Her fingers curled away. She slid her tray to the side instead, caught a tin cup, and tipped it under the juice canister. The liquid ran out thin and pale, almost clear, but at least it wouldn't scrape at her tongue the way the coffee did.
Brock moved on without pausing, tray steady in one hand as he cut through the center of the room. He walked like he already knew exactly where they'd sit. His course ended at an empty table near the middle of the floor, far from the walls, nothing at his back. It was the kind of spot that left every angle open, every stare with a clear line in. He set his tray down with unhurried weight and took the bench as if the seat had been waiting for him.
She closed the space between them faster than she meant to, tray digging into her fingers as she kept tight on his shoulder. The room felt wider away from him, the distance between bodies crowded with too many people she didn't know, too many hands, too many eyes. She followed his line to the table, set her tray down across from his, and the plate and cup rattled when they touched metal.
The quiet felt thicker here. Scraping benches and low voices slid around the edges, sounds that should've blended into ordinary noise and instead drew her attention to every person who didn't quite look away fast enough. She lowered herself onto the bench opposite him, metal cold under her palms and thighs, the table stretching wide between them. Sitting fixed her in place. With her back open to the room and her face turned toward Brock, it felt like the whole floor had a clean view of exactly where he'd put her.
Brock started on his food without a pause. His fork rasped against the metal, bread torn in rough halves and dragged through the grease, coffee swallowed in steady pulls. His attention stayed on the tray in front of him, shoulders loose, like this could've been any other morning he'd spent in this room.
Her tray stayed untouched. Heat rose off the food and curled into her face, but her stomach had closed up, tight against the weight of the room. She could feel attention still dragging across her: men leaning back on benches, heads turned just enough to watch, whispers slipping into the spaces between clinks of cutlery. Sitting there with a full plate and empty hands felt too close to standing on the mats, waiting for the first hit.
She made herself look away from him and took in the room. Tables ran in straight lines, bolted to the floor. Men in dark shirts hunched over identical trays, the air thick with steam and salt and the constant scrape of utensils. The whole thing was organized and stripped down to function, nothing extra. The Vipers had eaten in a different world. Mismatched plates stacked beside a chipped sink, Lena cursing at a sputtering burner while a pot tried to boil over, Harper barefoot on cracked tile with a knife in her hand and a cutting board balanced on the counter. They'd crammed onto the sagging couch with bowls in their laps, shoulders pressed together, trading bites and arguments over routes and movies until the Den felt like the only place that mattered. Here, food was scooped from the same dented pans onto tray after tray, men chewing over bare tables with barely a word, and the way it all ran so clean and impersonal sat wrong in her chest.
She dropped her gaze back to her plate. Fingers gripped the fork, scraping up a strip of meat glazed in cooling fat. Her hand shook once before she forced it steady and brought the food to her mouth. Chew. Swallow. The flavor was heavy, salt ground deep, but it wasn't the taste that twisted in her gut. It was the quiet that followed, the sense that every small motion was being weighed and written down.
Across from her, Brock kept eating.
A laugh cut across the room, bright and high at the end, and her head snapped up before she even knew she was moving. For a breath it could've been Gash at the corner table, shoulders shaking, elbow nudging into her ribs while he tried to get her to crack. The sound belonged to somebody else. Different face, different mouth. Gash lay on the van floor with his eyes open and his shirt gone dark, and some of the men at these tables had helped put him there.
Her fingers squeezed the fork until the handle dug into her skin. She dropped her gaze back to the tray and forced her jaw to work, one bite, then another, meat turning dense in her mouth. Letting her mind slide toward the Den felt like leaning over an open drop. Lena's rough laugh from the kitchenette, Skiv's stupid voices, Wedge calling her kid with that lazy flick of his fingers, Dante's arms looping around her from behind while traffic hummed outside the windows. Just brushing up against those pieces made her hands want to shake and something in her chest start to cave in. She couldn't afford that here, with Syndicate eyes on her and Brock sitting still across the table.
So, she shut the door on it. Pushed the Den, and the couch, and every familiar voice into a box in the back of her head and forced the lid tight. If it rattled sometimes in the dark, that was fine. She'd keep her eyes on the room in front of her and leave it there.
She lifted her cup and took a slow sip, using the motion as an excuse to check the tables again. Trays scraped, voices rose and fell, and for a few breaths she could almost pretend this was just another crowded room she happened to be sitting in.
Harper felt him before she saw him. The air at her back shifted, bootsteps dragging closer with that lazy pace she somehow already knew. Her spine locked a moment before Nolan dropped onto the bench beside her, tray hitting the table in a clatter that made the juice in her cup tremble. Heat rolled off his body and his food, grease and salt mixing with her own plate, and the thin strip of space she'd held at her side vanished.
Her chest clenched down hard. She kept her eyes on her tray, muscles wound so tight her shoulders ached. Brock was danger laid out in clean lines—commands, corrections, blows she could almost chart on a grid if she tried. Nolan was the swing that came from off to the side, the extra shove when she was already down. Memory supplied the rest of him in brutal detail: his fists driving into her ribs while she gasped against the wall, his laugh cutting through concrete and metal, his grip locking her arms while Brock tipped water over her face and nose until the world narrowed to burning lungs and hands she couldn't break.
Later, those same hands had held her jaw in the cell while Brock watched from close range, cloth dragging over her face and wrists, wiping Vex's work from her skin in rough strokes that felt more like inventory than care. Nolan had crouched beside her, steady and solid, calling out what was broken and what would hold while Brock pressed on her ribs. That same heavy nearness pressed against her side now, unchanged, like he'd never really moved away from her at all.
Her fork hovered above the plate, food cooling in front of her while her appetite curled in on itself. Every part of her wanted to shift away from him, to put Brock's broad shoulders between them, and the knowledge that she didn't have anywhere to go made her jaw clamp down until her teeth hurt.
Across the table, Brock looked up as Nolan settled in beside her. Their eyes met over the trays, and something in Brock's face eased, the hard set of his mouth loosening for the first time. The noise of the cafeteria ran on, but the focus between them pulled tight.
"Brother." Nolan grinned as he said it, the word rolling out easy while he reached across to knock his knuckles against Brock's forearm. The gesture landed soft, practiced, like they'd been doing it for years.
Brock's mouth edged into something rare, almost a smile. "About time," he muttered, his voice still rough but carrying a warmth she hadn't heard from him. The words clicked into place with a worn familiarity, an old exchange slotted into a new day.
Then they went back to their food. Brock tore another piece of bread and dragged it through the grease, coffee following it down. Nolan matched him without looking like he was trying to, posture loose, shoulders easy, fork moving in a steady rhythm. At one point Nolan bumped his boot lightly against Brock's under the table; Brock shifted just enough to make room, no comment, the kind of unconscious adjustment that belonged to men who knew exactly where the other would be.
To anyone watching, they looked like a pair on a break, sharing a table the way they always had. Comfortable, assured, a silence between them that didn't need filling. On her side of the bench, every muscle stayed coiled. She sat between a man who had drowned her on concrete and a man who had held her down for it, watching them slide into an easy pattern that didn't have room for the version of them she knew. The normality of it tugged at her nerves more than raised voices ever could.
Harper kept her head down, prodding food she didn't want, moving it in slow circles just to keep her hands busy. Every muscle along her spine stayed taut, braced for the room to turn, for laughter to crest in her direction or for somebody to throw a word meant to cut. The longer nothing happened, the worse it felt, like waiting for a swing she couldn't see.
She didn't notice how rigid she'd gone until Nolan's elbow brushed into her arm. The contact was light, barely more than a bump, almost playful. Her body jolted anyway, a tiny flinch she couldn't stop.
"Relax, Firefly." His voice slid out easy, lighter than she'd ever heard from him. Not mocking. Close to gentle. "They're gonna stare whether you twitch or not."
The nickname slid under her skin before the rest of the words caught up. Firefly. Close enough to firecracker that Lena's voice rose in the back of her mind, tossed from the kitchenette when Harper ran her mouth or tried to juggle three things at once. That name had come with warmth: a hand brushing hair out of her face, a mug nudged toward her, laughter wrapped around the word. This one landed cold. Too bright, too small, pinned under Nolan's mouth instead of Lena's. It crackled along her nerves and she went even stiller, shoulders locking under the warmth of him at her side. Nobody here had earned the right to name her. The Vipers already had, in all their different ways—kid, trouble, smartass—and hearing something new from Nolan of all people twisted deep in her gut.
She kept her eyes on her plate and her jaw clamped shut. If she opened her mouth, she wasn't sure what would come out, and she refused to give him anything that sounded like thanks. Or fear. Or the crack in her voice that would give away how hard that box in the back of her head was shaking. The memories she'd shoved down thudded against the lid, and she pinned it closed with everything she had, fingers locked around the fork until the metal bit into her skin.
Nolan felt the tension run through her and let out a quiet breath that might've been a laugh, then glanced across the table. Brock met his eyes without slowing his fork. One steady look, nothing on his face and too much packed into the space between them. Agreement, maybe. Warning. A simple acknowledgment that Nolan was close enough to touch her and Brock wasn't moving him.
Whatever passed between them settled as quickly as it rose. Brock went back to his food, pace unchanged. Nolan speared another piece of meat and ate, shoulders loose, as if dropping a new name on her was nothing at all. Harper sat pinned between them, the word Firefly still humming in her ears, trying to decide whether it felt more like a threat, a joke, or something worse.
After a few breaths, the lock in her fingers eased by a fraction. She scraped up a small strip of meat, brought it to her mouth, and forced herself to chew. One swallow. Then another. The food sat heavy, but the act of eating gave her something to do with her hands, something to count besides the seconds.
The three of them ate while the room slowly remembered its own business. Voices rose a little, trays slid, chairs shifted. Eyes still flicked their way, but the stares didn't cling as long. Harper kept her shoulders square and her focus on the plate, counting out each bite like it might be the last one she got to finish in peace.
Nolan tipped his mug back for the final swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he spoke, his tone stayed casual, aimed at Brock as if she weren't wedged between them.
"You still good for this afternoon?" he asked. It sounded like he was asking about an errand, not something that made the air around them feel heavier.
Brock finished chewing, fork ticking against tin as he set it down. "Yeah. Guy's overdue. We'll handle it quick."
Guy. Overdue. Handle. The words slid together in her head, picking up images as they went. A door slammed behind someone who didn't come back out. Footsteps on concrete. Water. Blood. Vex's voice threading through all of it. Whatever was waiting this afternoon, it wasn't a delivery run.
Nolan speared another chunk of meat, chewed once, then asked, "Same spot as before?"
"Mm." Brock drained the rest of his coffee and set the mug aside, fingers resting loose on the handle for a moment before he let it go. "He'll fold fast enough."
A moment stretched between them while Brock's gaze stayed on the empty cup. When he lifted his eyes, they didn't stop on Nolan. They tracked past him and landed on her instead, steady and deliberate.
"She's coming."
The words slammed through her. Her fork stalled halfway to her mouth, grease shining on the tines. For a second she couldn't move. Heat crawled up the back of her neck and her chest felt too heavy to pull air in all the way. Out there. He meant outside the walls that had held her since the raid.
Nolan's brows climbed, surprise showing cleanly before he smoothed it out. His gaze slid to her, took in the frozen fork, the tension in her shoulders, then returned to Brock. "Since when are we bringing passengers?" he asked.
"Since now. She stays in the car."
Harper's fingers clenched around the fork until the metal dug into her skin. The car. A rolling box with locked doors and Syndicate muscle between her and every exit. Her breathing thinned, too fast, and she couldn't quite hide the flicker in her eyes when she looked up—the hitch between wanting fresh air and knowing what kind of work needed extra hands in the afternoon.
Brock caught it. Of course he did. His attention fixed on her like they were alone on the training floor.
"You'll sit in the car," he told her, voice even, as if they were discussing stance work. "You'll hear it, see it, feel it. Better with us than blind later. That's how you learn."
The fork finally touched her plate again with a small click. The cafeteria blurred at the edges, tables and faces smearing into a dull backdrop. She'd wanted to get out of the basement. Off the mats. Out of the walls that smelled like concrete and bleach and blood ground into grout.
Now she was going.
Not home. Not anywhere that sounded like safety.
Out with them.