Brock's keycard chirped, the lock disengaging with a muted click. He pushed the door open and stood aside long enough for Harper to step through, a small practiced reflex stripped of any real ceremony, then followed.
The door sealed behind them with a low hydraulic sigh, shutting out the compound's morning noise. Even with the scrubbers running, the range always carried that metallic tang of cordite and solvent, thinned but never gone.
She kept her pace even. The stitches in her side had dulled to an ache, though a deep breath still snagged, nothing she intended to let him see.
The lane stretched long and clean under the strip lights, floor swept down to a concrete shine. Brock moved to the rack, deliberate in every motion, lifting a rifle free and setting it on the bench with the ease of repetition. Chamber flagged, mag well empty. He slid a magazine across the surface with two fingers, then pulled a pair of safety glasses from the wall bracket and settled his own into place.
His gaze slid to her, a single pass that lingered on her stance—shoulders squared, weight set, that measured economy he'd drilled into her. The look barely lasted, but it held long enough for her to make the half-inch adjustment he hadn't asked for.
"Ears. Eyes." He waited while she pulled the muffs down and tapped the frames of her lenses, then flicked the chamber flag clear and rolled the selector to burst. "Three rounds. On my call. You fire when I tell you, and you stop when I'm done."
She seated the mag and gave it a tug-check, then racked the handle. The stock settled into the pocket of her shoulder, cheek pressed firm, finger straight along the receiver. A bit of old brass crunched under her boot as she shifted into line.
"Now."
Three bursts punched the paper, holes close enough to feather the edge of the black. She rolled the selector back to safe with her thumb, finger straight, muzzle steady.
The next call didn't come. The lane stayed quiet except for the scrubbers' low drone, the target waiting under the light. Seconds pulled long, each one laid out tight, until her palms prickled and her trigger finger twitched with the urge to move on its own. He let it ride, stretching the moment thin as wire, as if he were listening to whether she'd snap.
"Now."
The rifle kicked against her shoulder, center mass shuddering the paper. The target fluttered once, then stilled.
He never let the rhythm settle. Two quick calls came, breath stacked on breath, then a silence that stretched until her forearms hummed from holding. Another call dropped right as she hit the bottom of her exhale, breaking the steadiness she'd worked for.
In the gaps she mapped him without looking: the shift of his arms folding and unfolding, the creak of his boots as he changed his angle, the quiet tread when he came in close, close enough she knew he could read her trigger prep by touch alone. Was it just the gun he watched, or was he searching her stance for hairline cracks after yesterday? She was almost certain Nolan had told him about the cafeteria showdown she had with Ryker.
Her sights leveled too soon. She held them there anyway, forcing the stillness, pulse climbing from the restraint while the recoil barely registered.
"Now."
The word landed like a trigger itself. She fired, recovered, and the thump of it rolled down her ribs.
"Fix your base," he told her at last, voice low. The toe of his boot nudged her heel half an inch wider. His fingers brushed her support elbow, steadying, shifting her angle. "Drive the gun. Don't let it drive you."
Halfway through a change he tossed her a fresh mag. She caught it rough, his fingertips grazing her knuckle as metal flashed past her boot and a casing skittered across the floor, dragging the moment off with it.
They worked until the heat bled through the handguard and the lane's air felt thick with it, until the paper finally told the truth: clusters drawn tight, strays cut down to a handful. He reeled the target in, studied it a moment, mouth ticking by the barest margin.
"Better."
She waited for the rest, for the weight, the hard edge, the full measure, but nothing came. He set the sheet aside while she ran through the ritual, movements clean and unhurried: selector to safe, mag out, bolt locked, chamber checked, flag through. The clicks and clacks fell into a steady pattern, rifle tagged and slid back into its rack.
The hall met them quieter, sound softened down to their boots on polished floor. His hand hovered in its usual orbit behind her, that inch of presence she half-expected to close into a grip on her forearm, guiding her forward. The touch never came; the space held, steady, neither of them crossing it.
"Tomorrow we run the corridor," he told her. "Moving fire. Keep your legs under you."
** ** **
Brock shoved the heavy door open into the stairwell, hinges groaning as it swung back. A paper sack hung from his hand, grease darkening one corner, the smell of bread and cured meat trailing behind him. Concrete steps climbed in a narrow stack, carrying a faint draft of night air downward. He started up without checking whether she followed.
Halfway up, his voice carried back over his shoulder. "Couple rules for up here. One, you stay where I tell you. No wandering near the edge without me. Two, if I say we go, we go. No questions."
He hadn't bothered with rules last time he brought her up to the roof. Back then she'd barely been able to stand at the ledge, let alone think about crossing it.
Harper rolled her eyes at the lecture and jogged the last few steps to slip ahead, her shoulder brushing his as she passed. The move came easy enough, a little show of disregard she clung to so he wouldn't see how tight Vex's two-job deadline sat under her ribs. Behind her came the quiet exhale, half sigh and half resignation, the sound of a man who'd seen it coming.
The door bar gave under her palm with a muted clang, and cool air rushed at her at once, edged with asphalt and the lingering trace of rain still trapped in the concrete. Harper stepped out onto the roof, shoes meeting the gritty surface she remembered. The air sat cooler up here, tinged with tar, the compound's hum carrying under it all—steady, mechanical, filling the quiet between them.
Brock let the door fall shut behind him, the hollow thud settling into the roof's gravel hush. His steps stayed steady, instinct carried in every line as he scanned the space even though he already knew it held nothing but shadows.
Harper drifted toward the edge, the low vibration of the generators pulling at her.
"Harper." The warning sat in his tone, calm and solid.
She sank down cross-legged instead, near enough to the lip for the drop to tug at her boots. "Relax," she murmured, her voice coming out thin, as she set her elbows on her knees.
He stood a moment longer, presence a block against the open dark. Then he moved closer, not right with her, but far enough back that the space stayed measured. The bag of sandwiches came down between them, paper crinkling, the smell of fresh bread rising warm into the cool air.
Brock pulled the bag open, paper crackling in the quiet. He set a wrapped sandwich in front of her, kept the other for himself, and dropped a pair of bottles on the gravel between them. He didn't dress it up with any kind of explanation.
Harper tugged hers free of the paper, the smell of bread and onion drifting into the night air. She broke off the end first and chewed slow while the compound hummed below.
Brock ate the same way he did everything—steady, measured—eyes still tracking the roofline between bites.
For a while there was only the rustle of paper and the hum of the compound below as they ate, the night air moving cool across the roof.
Brock broke the silence first. "How's your side?"
She swallowed and wiped a crumb from her thumb. "Sore," she admitted. "Not terrible. I've had worse."
He gave the smallest nod and went back to his meal. The quiet held, broken only by the crinkle of wax paper and the faint grind of gravel under their boots when either of them shifted.
She glanced at him, then back out at the stretch of lights beyond the wall. "Why'd you bring me up here?"
"No ulterior motive," he replied, still steady on his food. "You liked it last time. Fresh air doesn't hurt anyone."
She kept eating, bite after bite, until the silence stretched thin enough that words pressed up anyway. She set the sandwich down on its paper. The view pulled an old habit up with it before she could shove it back down.
"Back with the Vipers… there was this building across from ours. I used to climb the fire escape at night and just sit up there for hours. Watch the city lights, the traffic, all of it. Didn't matter how bad the day went—being up there made it feel like I could breathe again."
The words hung between them. Brock tore another bite from his sandwich, gaze fixed on the dark beyond the wall. When he finally spoke, his tone was even, the same as it always was, only quieter.
"Would you normally sit up there alone?"
Her throat worked once. She picked at the edge of the wax paper, eyes on her knees. "Most of the time. Sometimes… Dante came. He hated the height, kept one hand hooked in the rail the whole time, but he came anyway."
He didn't move. The quiet stretched just long enough to mark that he'd heard more than the story itself.
"Dante," he repeated, turning the name over once. The sound of it in his mouth tripped something in Harper's chest, a small jolt she felt all the way down to her hands.
Brock's jaw feathered, the muscle working once before it eased. He didn't speak right away. He finished the bite in his hand, then set the rest of the sandwich aside. For a moment he sat there, gaze fixed past the wall like he was weighing whether to press.
When he did, his voice stayed even, but lower than before. "The porch. The man you threw yourself over. That was Dante."
Her nod came small, hesitant, eyes dropping to the gravel at her boots. She dragged in a breath, chest tight, lashes burning before she could stop it. Another moment passed before she forced the words out, rough in her throat. "Yeah. It was."
Brock didn't move, but when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its weight. "He must have meant a lot to you, for you to do something like that."
Her breath snagged, the truth climbing higher than she could hold it down. A tear slipped hot down her cheek before she could stop it. "They all meant a lot to me, but Dante… He was… everything. My partner, my family, my—" Her voice broke. She swallowed and tried again. "Dante was all I had." She dragged her sleeve across her face quick, but the wet still caught the light.
Brock saw it. His hand shifted once on the gravel between them, a small movement that never closed the distance. He let the moment sit and drew in a slow breath of his own, gaze tracking the lights beyond the wall instead of her face. Whatever passed through him stayed behind his teeth.
Harper kept her head down, worrying at the corner of her sandwich instead of eating it, working her breathing back into something steady. The raw edge of it had eased, but the hollow it left sat heavy in her chest.
After a while he spoke, tone back to even. "How long you been in this life?"
Harper stopped picking at the bread. Her gaze lifted, steady now, something guarded in it. "You know who my father was, right?"
Brock didn't flinch. He gave a single nod. "Of course." His voice dropped slightly. "When'd he start training you?"
Her eyes didn't leave his. "Five, maybe six. First time he let me chamber a round." She glanced down, thumb brushing a crumb from her thigh. "By ten, I could strip a rifle blindfolded. Knew how to hold a knife before I could spell it." She didn't say it with pride—only fact, like listing parts of a machine. "Didn't get a childhood. Training was it."
Brock didn't move at first. He sat there with his shoulders tight, eyes fixed somewhere just past her shoulder. "That young," he said finally. The words came out low, edged with something bitter, like it didn't sit right in his chest. He leaned back slightly, arms folding over his chest. "Silas Voss really put a gun in your hands at five?"
When she didn't respond, he shook his head once, unease edging his features before his focus turned to the view.
Harper's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not even close. Just a shift. "What about you?" she asked, nudging the question back as she picked her sandwich up again.
Brock's gaze stayed fixed on the skyline, jaw working like he was chewing the question itself. "Since I was fourteen," he said finally. "Started just with muscle work. Freelance. No crew." He paused, thumb grinding crumbs across the paper between them. "Then a job went sideways. Thought I was hitting some courier in East Halworth. Turned out it was Syndicate."
He didn't look at her. "I took two of their guys down before they dropped me." He leaned back further, arms folding. "Could've killed me. Vex didn't. Said if I had that much fight in me, I'd do better inside the walls." His eyes lifted to hers, flat and steady. "So I stayed. Learned to do it their way."
She didn't answer. Her sandwich hung loose in her grip, the crust soft against her fingers, forgotten. Beside her, Brock had gone still again, like saying the words had scraped something raw he didn't usually touch.
She felt it now, clearer than she wanted to. Fourteen. A kid pulled into something too big, too brutal to refuse. Vex saw something in him—something dangerous, something useful—and instead of killing him, repurposed it. Offered survival like it was mercy. Taught him how to weaponize it.
And wasn't that what Brock was doing to her now?
He could've put a bullet in her head in the shipping yard. Could've executed her beside Lena and Wedge when the rest of the Vipers fell. Could've let Vex finish what he started after the massacre. He hadn't. He'd dragged her to his quarters. Trained her. Fed her. Watched her. Pushed her. Spared her. It wasn't empathy that kept her breathing; it was recognition. She was being shaped into something the Syndicate could use, pushed along a pattern he already knew. Kindness didn't cover it, and neither did cruelty. It was function. She was becoming what he'd become, and the realization felt like someone had dragged a wire brush down her ribs.
Brock's voice cut through, dragging her back.
"Your father wasn't a Viper," he went on, his gaze staying fixed on her, tone even. "He was freelance. Smuggler first, dealer second." He paused, long enough to make it clear he was weighing more than the words. "So how'd you end up with the Vipers? When did that start?"
Her grip tightened around the sandwich until the paper crinkled. "I joined them when I was fifteen," she replied. "They found me after Silas was killed. I didn't have anywhere else to go." Her thumb pressed harder into the paper. "The Vipers took me in. From then on, that was my life."
Brock stilled, fingers tightening on the paper, but he didn't speak. Not right away. He did the math. Silas Voss hadn't been gone long—just a few years. Brock hadn't been there, but he knew what had been left behind. Nolan had laid it out once, late and off the record: Silas stretched in his own blood, his kid screaming while Nolan and Kellar dragged her back, then leaving her curled over the body, still breathing. Back then it had been another story tossed on the pile. He'd never stopped to count how young that kid would've been until tonight.
He looked at her. Really looked. "How old are you?"
Now it was her turn to freeze.
Harper picked at the seam on her pants, scratching dirt from the fabric. "How old are you?" she asked back, the words coming out before she could stop them.
One corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, more a flicker of recognition. "Twenty-five."
That landed. In her head she'd always pushed him older, filed him in with the men who felt already set in stone instead of anywhere near her bracket. Twenty-five yanked him closer. Fourteen stopped feeling like some distant story and sat just behind him. It meant Vex had had his hands on Brock for almost half his life.
"Your turn," he said quietly.
The silence stretched, taut and unyielding, until her shoulders ached from holding it. The number waited on her tongue, small and exposed. When she finally looked up, her gaze had gone flat and distant, like she had to shove the answer past something in her chest.
"Eighteen," she answered. The word left her mouth flat, final.
Brock stilled like the number had knocked the air out of him.
Eighteen.
His jaw shifted, something flickering behind his eyes—there for a second, then gone. He shifted his weight and never quite settled, silence hanging between them as he stared at her like she was something entirely new, like he'd been reading the wrong blueprint this entire time. The look made the number sit even heavier, like speaking it had stripped off more than she meant to give.
She sniffled as she dragged her sleeve across her face, the motion smearing salt across her skin. Fresh tears slid hot after her hand. A laugh tore out anyway, jagged and thin, breaking on the edges. "The worst part… my birthday was two days before the ambush in that yard." The words shook, half-swallowed, like forcing them into the air cost her. She gave a wet, crooked sound that wasn't quite laughter. "Eighteen. Two days in. Then everything—" Her voice cracked as she pressed the heel of her hand hard against her eyes. "Hell of a way to celebrate."
"Eighteen," he echoed quietly, like the word itself scraped his throat. "Two days." His jaw tightened, hand closing on a piece of gravel until it ground under his palm. For a moment his gaze slid past her to the dark beyond the wall, like he was seeing that yard again—concrete, crates, her crew strung out across it before his line cut through. "Christ." His eyes came back to her, something raw flickering there before it shuttered again. "You're just a kid."
Her chest tightened, breath shuddering out uneven. She tried to meet his stare, but her vision blurred; the tears came faster than she could blink them back. A sound left her—half laugh, half sob—as she shook her head.
"This is it," she whispered, gesturing vaguely at the city below. "All I've ever had. Guns, knives, orders… bleeding. Pain and sacrifice. There's nothing else." Her fingers worried at the crumpled paper in front of her, grip unsteady. "So maybe I'm a kid. But all I've ever been is this."
Brock stayed quiet. He watched her, his food forgotten, shoulders set but not pulled away. The space between them thickened, not with anger or distance, but with everything neither of them had words for.