Harper didn't realize how long it had been until sunlight touched her face.
For weeks her world had been stripped down to humming bulbs, stale air, concrete that pressed close on every side. Now daylight drove in through the windshield in a slab of molten gold, laying across her skin until her eyes watered. The warmth should have felt like proof the outside still existed, something gentle after all that gray. Instead it crawled over her like a hand searching for weaknesses, glare pouring into every place she'd tried to keep numb. She tried to drag her mind back to the last time she'd seen the sky and came up with nothing, days in the basement blurred into one long smear.
Nolan drove with one hand loose on the wheel, fingers curled easy around the leather, elbow braced against the door. The relaxed shape of him made her skin tighten, that casual comfort wrapped around a man she remembered with his weight on her shoulders, water flooding her nose and mouth. Brock sat in the passenger seat, turned just enough that she could feel his focus even when he faced the windshield. His reflection hovered in the rearview, eyes catching hers whenever she let her gaze drift too high. He was close without touching, presence threaded through the car as firmly as the belt across her ribs and the fabric of the borrowed shirt.
She turned toward the window, cheek settling against the cool glass, and watched the city move without her. Streets lifted and fell under the tires, stretching out in long strips before breaking into quick scenes: a woman hauling grocery bags against her chest, kids chasing a ball across a cracked lot, a dog lunging at pigeons until its leash snapped it short. Sunlight spilled over peeling paint and rusted balconies, flashed along car hoods and broken windows, caught on bright shirts pinned to clotheslines that flapped over narrow alleys. Ordinary things, loud with color and motion after so many days of gray. Each passing glimpse dragged along her chest, too bright and too alive, like she was pressed against aquarium glass while someone else's life swam just out of reach.
Her gaze dropped to the door handle. The metal sat inches from her fingers, close enough that the idea slid in before she could shove it away. Thumb on the latch, door swinging, cold air slamming into her as the road tore past under black tires. She tried to plan the fall in fast fragments—how hard the asphalt would chew through skin if she landed wrong, whether her ribs would hold if she bounced, if she could get her legs under her and run before Nolan hauled the wheel around and came after her. If they caught her, would they drag her back downstairs and leave her under concrete until her head went sideways, or work her over in some quiet hallway upstairs, or just step out to the curb and drop her on the pavement with the sun on her face? The picture swelled until it crowded her throat. She gave her head a small shake, as if she could rattle it loose. A Syndicate-issue SUV like this probably had the back doors locked from up front anyway, some hidden switch she couldn't touch. Trying the handle would pull both men's eyes straight to her, and she didn't have space for what came after that. She let her hand stay where it was and eased into the seat instead, muscles loosening by inches, eyes sliding closed against the light.
The SUV eased down in speed as Nolan guided them off the main road. Asphalt broke into pale gravel, the tires crunching and popping over loose stone while the suspension rolled under her. Dust lifted in the side mirror, a thin cloud that hung in their wake as he pulled into a cramped lot.
The building waiting for them looked tired in the sun. Single story, squat and square, windows covered from the inside with warped boards that left thin slivers of dark between them. Paint peeled in long curls from the siding, exposing gray wood underneath. A rusted sedan sagged near the far corner with one tire low, windshield throwing sunlight straight across the lot in a white smear. Nothing about the place carried neighbors or traffic. It looked like somewhere people came to handle things they didn't want on record.
Nolan cut the engine. The sudden lack of vibration made the air feel too still, the quiet in the cabin swelling around the tick of cooling metal. He stayed where he was, one hand resting loose on the wheel, eyes on the building.
In the passenger seat, Brock unbuckled and twisted around, forearm hooked over the back of his seat. His gaze met hers, steady and unhurried, then dropped to her hands where they rested near the belt.
"Stay put," Brock told her, voice even, as if he were reminding her of something they'd already agreed on. Then he turned away, facing forward again as his hand found the door handle. Light poured in around his shoulder when he pushed the door open and climbed out, gravel grinding under his boots. The door thumped shut a moment later and the sound folded into the quiet, leaving her alone in the back seat with Nolan's profile in the mirror and the rush of her own blood in her ears.
She tracked Brock through the glass as he crossed the lot, gravel shifting under each step. His stride stayed steady, unhurried, like he was walking down a hallway he owned instead of toward a door that might have someone desperate behind it. He reached the entrance of the squat building, checked the handle with a quick pull, then slipped inside without looking back. The frame took him in and shut on him, leaving the lot bare and the SUV sitting alone in the sun.
Harper's fingers curled into her thighs, nails pressing half-moons through the fabric. She listened for raised voices, for any thud or scrape from inside, and caught only the faint rush of distant traffic. The air in the car felt hotter now that Brock wasn't in it, Nolan's presence stretching to fill the space he'd left. She'd started to learn Brock's patterns—the slight change in his tone before he pushed harder, the way his jaw set just before he moved. Nolan stayed a blank slope of relaxed muscle and easy posture, the same shape he'd been when his hands held her down and water rushed over her face.
"He won't take long." Nolan's voice cut through the quiet, mild and almost bored. "Guy's soft. Folds if you breathe hard enough."
He shifted deeper into the driver's seat, arm loose across the wheel, fingers tapping a slow rhythm along the leather. "Jobs like this stay clean. Walk in, knock, remind him who he owes." His gaze flicked up to the rearview, catching her reflection there before he turned his head a little, looking at her over his shoulder. His mouth pulled into a wider grin, teeth showing. "Kind of a waste, really. Means I don't get much out of it."
The words crawled under her skin. Harper turned her head, meeting his eyes for the first time since Brock left the car. Heat climbed into her throat, pride straining for something sharp to throw back at him, something that would land. Nothing surfaced. She shut her jaw around the empty space where the words should have been and gave him only her stare. Nolan held her look a moment longer, grin still in place, then turned it back toward the building, as if her silence were exactly what he'd expected.
"You settle in yet?" he asked after a moment, eyes on the doorway again. "Basement, mats, all that. Brock's got you on a schedule."
She didn't answer. The question hooked into too many places at once. Her hands tightened against her legs instead, fingers bunching the fabric.
"You will," Nolan went on, voice easy. "He's good at his work."
She watched the side of his face, the lazy curve of his mouth, hands still tight on her legs. The words stacked in her chest and stayed there. She kept her tongue locked behind her teeth and let the silence sit between them. If he wanted anything from her, he could listen to that instead. She looked away and watched the building Brock had disappeared into.
The quiet stretched until each breath started to feel like something she had to push through her chest. Sun pressed against the windshield. Heat gathered along her spine. She kept her eyes on the building and tried to decide whether the stillness meant things were going well in there or very, very wrong.
The door finally opened with a dull scrape. Brock filled the frame a moment later and stepped back into the light alone. His shoulders were square, stride steady as he came down the short set of cracked steps. His hands hung loose at his sides, empty. Sleeves shoved to his forearms, collar slightly skewed, a faint line pressed into the skin at his throat where someone's grip might've landed and slid away. No marks that mattered. Nothing that told her what he'd walked out of.
He crossed the lot at the same unhurried pace he'd used going in, gravel rolling under his boots, gaze fixed on the SUV. Whatever he'd said or done inside stayed locked down behind his eyes. He looked exactly like the man who'd closed the door behind him a few minutes ago. The lack of change sat low in her gut, heavy and wrong, until her stomach pulled tight around it.
The passenger door opened. Hot air spilled in as Brock climbed back into his seat and pulled the door shut with a solid, final sound. "Done," he told Nolan.
The engine turned over a second later. Nolan eased them out of the lot and back onto the road, humming under his breath like they were leaving a store instead of whatever sat cooling in the dim rooms behind them.
The building disappeared in the side window as Nolan merged into traffic. Sunlight spilled across her face again, then broke into stuttering flashes as they passed under a stand of trees and low signs, the lot shrinking to a smudge in the glass. Somewhere behind that boarded front door a man was either breathing or he wasn't, and all she had of it was Brock's single word and the easy hum in Nolan's throat.
She'd thought coming along would mean watching something happen, some clear shape she could name and slot into the column in her head where the Syndicate lived. Instead she stared at her own reflection in the window and tried to picture what "done" looked like in a room she hadn't seen. The belt dug into her ribs when they took the next turn. She let her eyes close and held onto the one solid fact she had left: they'd brought her out here and brought her back again, and whatever they were building out of her had just taken another step she couldn't get her hands around.
** ** **
They'd put her back in the holding cell while the overheads still burned bright, sunlight still sitting behind her eyes from the ride. Now, hours later, the fixtures had dulled to their nighttime buzz, threading faint through the concrete, steady as breath. The air had cooled, soaking into the floor until it clung to her skin. Harper lay flat on her back, blanket bunched beneath her skull in a poor excuse for a pillow. One of her legs was drawn up, her knee swaying back and forth as she kept her eyes on the ceiling's cracked plaster.
The day hadn't let go of her. Her ribs ached from the mat, her throat still felt scraped dry from cafeteria salt, sunlight lingered behind her eyes like a burn she couldn't blink away. On the drive back she hadn't spoken, just listened to Brock and Nolan's voices drifting between the front seats—low and easy, two men rolling through debrief and bullshit on the way home from work. Their talk had followed her down the hallway in scraps even after the lock slid home, fading out until all she had left was the steady hum above and the cold pressing up through her spine. She could picture the rest of their night without trying: door swinging shut behind them somewhere upstairs, real food that didn't come on a tray, a screen throwing color at their faces, the slow uncoil of muscle into mattresses that weren't poured out of concrete.
It was the way it all sat together that hollowed her out. Brock walking her up to the training floor like a runner reporting for drills. Brock dropping her into a chair in the cafeteria, a tray in front of her while people stared. Brock hauling her out to the car for a job like she was part of the crew. For a few hours at a time, he moved her through their spaces as if she belonged there, something in motion at his shoulder instead of a body in a cell. Then the day ended, and he walked her right back to the same four walls and the same slab, turned the key, and left her on the floor while he went on with his night somewhere that had furniture.
He could get her upstairs food, clean clothes, even sunlight. He could pull a vehicle and another man and a target with a single order. Down here, where she actually slept, nothing had shifted. The floor waited bare. The blanket stayed thin, the same strip of fabric between her and the chill leeching out of the concrete. The gap lodged under her ribs and sat there. If he'd planned on her being around for long, he would've changed this. Leaving it like this was an answer all its own.
She sighed through her nose and rolled onto her side, the slab biting into her hip. The chill sank deeper there, needling bone until a small shiver ran through her shoulders. Her knees drew up on instinct, curling toward her chest. Her blanket stayed bunched under her head, thin and useless, a small cushion against the hardness. She had to choose—keep it at her skull for comfort or drag it down for warmth. Pillow or heat. One or the other. Never both. Cold had settled in as part of the deal anyway, a layer that lived under her skin now. Warmth belonged to other rooms, other people.
Her eyes slid shut, breath evening out. The day lingered at the edges of her mind—cafeteria stares, sunlight through glass, Nolan's grin over his shoulder in the front seat—but exhaustion dragged heavier. Muscles loosened, her curled frame sinking closer to the concrete as thoughts blurred. Sleep pressed close, shallow and fragile, but enough to pull her under.
Sleep had just started to blur the edges of the cell when footsteps pulled her back. Faint at first, boots against concrete somewhere up the corridor. Her eyes stayed closed a moment longer out of habit. Most nights, after the building settled, she heard a single set of steps come down the hall. Brock would walk past without stopping, fingers catching the switch at the far end. Lights out, lock already in place, footsteps fading again. No words. No pause at her door. Just a silent reminder that when the lights went off, it was time to sleep.
More steps answered the first. Her eyes snapped open.
The sound thickened, overlapping, three sets of boots now, not one. Different weight, different length of stride, threads of rhythm tangling as they drew closer. The realization slid in all at once, cold and complete. Her stomach pulled tight. Sleep fell away so fast it left her dizzy.
She pushed up fast. The slab bit into her bare soles, the chill racing up her legs as she got her feet under her. Muscles jolted awake, pulse kicking hard against bruised ribs while the footsteps drew level with her cell and stopped.
Plastic brushed metal, followed by the flat chirp of the reader cutting through the quiet. A heavy clunk rolled through the door as the mag lock released. The sound threaded straight through her chest. For a moment her mind still tried to slot Brock into the frame, his hand on the switch, that flat look he wore when he was just doing what had to be done. The door swung wide.
Light from the corridor cut in, a harsher strip laid over the dull wash from the overhead, bleaching the concrete in front of her feet. Three bodies filled the frame, broad shoulders and work jackets blocking most of that new glare as they stepped inside.
Her chest seized. She knew them.
Showers. Tile slick under her bare feet, wall hard against her chest, steam closing in while three bodies pinned her there. She remembered the scrape of cloth on raw skin, the press of a thigh locking her legs apart, the moment something inside her snapped and she drove her skull back into a nose that gave under the impact, blood spraying hot across her neck.
The same three stood here now, a little looser without Brock at their backs. The one whose nose she'd broken carried it crooked, old bruising still shadowed along one cheek. All of them wore the same look she'd seen in the tile and steam—a hungry, settled certainty—only this time there was no doorway behind them for anyone else to fill.
The tallest one shifted forward, blocking more of the light. His grin spread slow, teeth catching the glow from the hall.
"Brock's done babysitting," he told her, voice thick with satisfaction. "Figure that makes you ours for the night."