The table stretched straight and unbending—long, scarred wood under a scatter of fresh printouts and yesterday's maps, corners curled from handling—but the air felt altered, rinsed cleaner, edged with the faint bite of disinfectant and the dry heat of coffee steaming from the urn in the corner. Harper sat midway along the run, Cole on her left, Price on her right, their shoulders squared toward the far end where Vex stood with Knuckles and Brock. The three of them formed a fixed silhouette against the pale glow of the monitor, its looping footage washing cold light across their faces.
After the rooftop quiet, they'd drifted back inside—takeout forgotten, her body leaden from the meds he pressed into her hand. He left her at her door with a muttered order to rest, and she remembered little after the mattress caught her. By morning it was routine in its own way: the tray he brought in, the coffee set down beside her without comment, silence holding steady until that brief touch at her elbow when he steered her out into the compound and down to this chair in the briefing room.
Knuckles' voice carried steady. "Two trucks. No losses. Cargo's en route to inventory. Overall timing at the choke point held. Pike's lockdown held. Truck Two tried to push the side lane—reinforcements heavier than intel called for. That stretched the engagement, but we cut it down and both drivers came out clean."
Vex's gaze shifted down the table until it landed on Brock. "I was made aware there was a deviation?"
Brock didn't look at her when he answered. "Voss left her post at Truck One without orders and moved through the containers to my position on the spur. When she got there, she shoved me out of the line of fire from a flanker coming through a container gap and took the hit instead. It gave me the opening to put him down." He let the words hang, then added, "It wasn't in the plan, but it was the right call in that moment."
The silence after was heavy enough to touch. Heat curled in Harper's chest—not pride, not relief, but something tangled with the way he'd said it. The acknowledgment. The fact he'd said it in front of everyone. Her stitches tugged when she drew a breath. A boot tapped against her knee under the table—Cole, a flicker of wry approval before his gaze slid forward again.
Vex's focus cut to her. "Regardless of the outcome, you still disobeyed a direct order. That isn't how we operate." His tone didn't rise, but it carried. "You'll draft the after-action with Knuckles. Every move, every call, in sequence. Learn where the gaps were and why they matter."
Knuckles turned his head just enough to catch her eye, one brow lifting—half challenge, half promise. She didn't look away first.
Vex straightened. "That said—two trucks secured, cargo intact, and no one came home in a bag. That's the job. You did it."
"Everyone else, clear out. Lawson, Knuckles, Voss—stay."
Chairs scraped back, legs rasping against the scarred floor. The shuffle of boots filled the room as the team rose, low voices passing over her head. Faces and shoulders moved past in a loose stream toward the door, some indifferent, some curious. Vale's glance as he passed was brief and cool, the kind that measured and dismissed in the same instant. Mason didn't look at her at all, just tipped his chin at Brock before stepping out. Cole gave her knee a quick tap under the table as he went, a ghost of a grin gone before she could place it.
The door thudded shut behind the last of them. The air felt heavier for their absence, too still, the faint hum of the monitor loud against the hollow quiet. She stayed frozen midway down the table while Brock and Knuckles dropped into seats nearer the head. Vex didn't sit. He braced his hands on the table's edge, eyes fixed on Brock like she was an entry in a ledger they were both reviewing.
Vex's tone was calm, as if he were discussing supply inventory. "Three months was the deal. You've had almost two. The Maw raid gave me more than I expected to see this soon"—his gaze cut across Harper just long enough to remind her she was the subject—"but it also showed me the gaps. She moved when she shouldn't have. That's enough to tell me one thing: the clock doesn't matter if the foundation's still unsteady."
Brock leaned back slightly, one arm hooked over his chair. "Off one op, you're getting half the picture. Give her a few more runs—something clean, no deviation—and you'll have the full measure."
Knuckles shifted, broad shoulders easing against the chairback, his eyes narrowing in what might have been agreement or warning.
Vex studied Brock for a long moment, unreadable, then tipped his chin. "Two more jobs. She completes both, inside her lane, and then I'll make the call. If she doesn't, I don't need the month to know."
Her fingers curled hard against the scarred wood, the words lodging under her ribs. Two jobs. No more cushion of time. No safety in the clock. Just a line she had to hold.
The faintest trace of something like satisfaction flickered in Brock's eyes before it was gone. Harper's grip whitened on the table edge before she eased it back.
Vex straightened from the table. "That's it for now. Lawson—with me." He didn't wait for an answer, just started for the door.
Brock's gaze cut to her, the hesitation subtle but there. She was never out of his sight unless there was a door locked behind her. Vex caught the pause, one brow ticking. "Knuckles will keep her on task. She's got her report to begin."
Knuckles leaned back in his chair, the slow curl of a grin settling under his stubble. "Lucky me."
Brock's eyes stayed on her a moment longer—the silent kind of check-in she'd learned to read—before he pushed up from the table and followed Vex out. The door shut behind them, leaving only the hum of the lights and Knuckles' amused stare.
"Alright, Firefly," he said, dragging a stack of printouts and a folded map from down near Brock's end. Papers whispered across the table as he worked them into a loose pile, then scooped the whole thing up and dropped into the seat beside her.
The chair creaked under his weight, close enough that she felt the air shift with him. The nickname prickled, not playful in his mouth but something that pinned her in place. She kept still, eyes flicking to the edge of the papers instead of him, every muscle tuned to whether this would tip toward menace or something else.
"Let's make your side of this read clean."
He flipped the map open between them, smoothing the crease with the side of his hand, and slid a pen her way. "Start here—Truck One's hold. Structure it: objective, timeline, positions, comms, deviation, outcome. Full sentences."
She hesitated a fraction, then leaned in, elbow settling on the table, fingertip tracing the lane. Better to focus on the page than on him. "Cole on the rear, Price on the—"
The shift in her chair tugged at her ribs, pain bright enough to steal her breath. She swallowed hard to cover it.
"You good?" His tone was light; his eyes weren't.
Her jaw clicked. For half a beat she waited for the jab, the smirk. It didn't come. "It's fine," she said, eyes fixed on the paper. "Stitches just hate me."
"Yeah, well, hate 'em back by not tearing 'em open." His pen tapped the map, brisk. "And don't write 'I felt.' It's 'I observed' or 'I heard.' Driver's or passenger side—pick one."
The tension in her shoulders eased, not gone but shifted. She adjusted the page under her hand. "Driver's side. I observed Cole covering rear approach, Price on the driver's side close to the bumper. Objective was to hold Truck One until relief arrived."
"Better." He opened a radio log, thumb marking a line. "Timeline: you moved when?"
Her pen hovered, the hesitation obvious.
"Mark it," he said, eyes scanning. "Overwatch called the push at 05:46. Make your departure 05:58 and note why."
She wrote, slow and uneven. "Okay… 05:58, fire came in from the stacks on the passenger side of Truck One. I moved to find the shooter, and one of them rushed me—close enough to grab. I put him down. After that I heard heavier fire from the spur, so I cut through the containers to back them up."
Knuckles' pen froze. His head lifted, eyes on her. "Close enough to grab you?"
Her jaw went tight. "He tried. Didn't land it."
For a moment he didn't write. His stare weighed, as if he was sorting the fact of it—her being alone, the fight itself—into a new category. Then his pen moved again. "We'll call it 'engaged at close range, neutralized.' Clean."
He spoke as he wrote, voice back to even. "Positions: Team Two forward of Truck Two's bumper; Gunner floating passenger side; Vale rear. Comms: brief callouts only, fire covering movement."
Harper nodded, sketching routes and cover points in uneven lines while he mirrored the cleaner version beside hers. Every so often he cut in—"call it driver, not near," "name the shooter if you saw a patch," "don't assume—if you didn't see it, leave it out"—never making it sound like a test, never letting it slide either.
When she reached the moment she'd shoved Brock into the panel, her pen stilled. "I yelled at him—then pushed him out of the way. Took a graze on my left side. He dropped the guy coming through the gap."
Knuckles angled the page toward himself, dictating as he wrote. "Deviation: left assigned post without orders; upon arrival, issued verbal warning, physically displaced Lawson from active fire lane; enemy flanker emerged through container gap; Lawson engaged and neutralized target." He flicked his pen toward her. "Chain of care."
She pressed the pen down again. "Graze to the ribs, left side. Graves patched it when we got back." Her breath snagged on the words, the tug of memory sharp as stitches pulling.
"Noted." He underlined Outcome, nodding at her page.
She bent back over it. "Outcome… both trucks secured. No Syndicate dead. Cargo intact. Fight ran longer 'cause they brought more men than we thought."
"Good. Add: 'Lessons learned—maintain comm discipline; confirm relief ETA before leaving hold; flanker risk on lateral gaps higher than expected.' Keep it simple."
They worked through the map piece by piece, filling the seams between what she'd seen and what the team had logged. His notes stayed neat, angled and deliberate, each page stacked in order before they moved on. She found herself matching his pace, the rhythm settling into something steady—point, mark, write—until the wall clock's buzz marked hours instead of minutes.
When her shorthand clipped into fragments, he tapped a finger on the blank space and didn't move on until she filled it properly. If she wrote vague, he leaned back and waited, pen idle, until she rewound and wrote it clear. He didn't hurry her, but he didn't let her slide either, pulling her up into the language line by line.
By the time they closed the last folder, her side ached from sitting too long in the same position, and the edges of her concentration were fraying. Knuckles stretched, rolling his shoulders until they cracked, and gathered the stack into a tidy pile.
"Not bad, kid," he said, sliding the top sheet straight. "Could've written it worse for you, but I'm generous like that."
She gave him a side look. "That the story you're going with?"
"Positive," he said, mouth ticking. "Now let's get food in you before I hand you back to your shadow."
Her stomach answered first, a low twist that reminded her she hadn't eaten yet today. She pushed up, the pull in her side flaring, and his gaze flicked away—not ignorance, but the courtesy of pretending not to see.
The cafeteria buzzed the way it always did—low conversation under the clatter of trays and the scrape of cutlery—but it hit different without Brock beside her. Knuckles led the way through the double doors, past the fry-stale air and the dull gray walls she already knew, straight to the service line.
She kept pace, tray in hand, head angled down while the weight of the room pressed in. Eyes cut her way and didn't cut back. Some were quick, almost reflexive; others lingered, gauging, like they couldn't decide whether to dismiss her or take her measure. A ripple of words rolled through one table, pitched low but aimed squarely in her direction.
Knuckles didn't say anything, just loaded a sandwich and coffee onto his tray. She picked a plate of eggs and toast—safe, plain, something she trusted under the heat lamps—and followed when he steered them to a two-top against the wall. His chair angled with the room in view, back covered, attention split between her and the space around them.
"You'll get used to it," he said once they sat, nodding toward the room.
She gave him a look. "Been stared at before."
"Not like this." His tone stayed flat, but his eyes flicked over the tables, sharp on the ones still watching. "Before, they were staring at Lawson's prisoner. Now they're staring at you."
The word landed different this time. Prisoner. For a second she blinked at him, the line catching somewhere she hadn't expected. Not a chain around her neck, but a door cracked open. Her fork slipped into the eggs, movement for the sake of it, the taste secondary to the quiet shift still settling in her chest.
They ate in relative quiet—supplies, weather—until his phone buzzed against the table. He glanced down, jaw set, then pushed back his chair.
"Garage." The word was for her as much as whoever was calling. He stood, tray abandoned, already angling toward the doorway. "Two minutes. Don't go anywhere."
He stopped just inside the entrance, half-turned, phone to his ear, his gaze flicking the room and then fixing back on her. A line of sight, deliberate.
Still, the space felt thinner without him at the table. She kept her eyes on her plate, fork scraping against eggs gone cool, the sound louder against the low churn of voices around her.
That was when a shadow cut across the table, long and deliberate.
"You're Voss, right?" A Syndicate enforcer, late twenties, nose set crooked like it had been broken more than once. His voice was casual, but there was an edge under it. "The one Lawson's been babysitting."
Her fork froze over the plate. The weight of the eyes around them pressed closer, thicker now that Knuckles wasn't in reach. She let herself take a breath, steadied her shoulders, then lifted her gaze.
"That what they're calling it?"
"That's what it looks like." He hooked a chair from the next table with his boot and dropped into it backward, arms folded on the backrest. Two of his buddies angled their seats just enough to watch, grins flickering like they were waiting for the show. "Everyone knows you're a Viper. Everyone knows you were in a cage not too long ago, the whole compound heard about him dragging your sorry ass in here bleeding all over the floor. Now, suddenly you're sitting here like you earned a place at this table."
Her fork slipped down onto the plate, pulse thudding at her throat. She forced her chin up, tried to steady her voice. "Maybe I did."
His mouth ticked—not a smile, something colder. "Funny thing about this place. You don't get handed a seat—you earn it. And if you're sitting here after coming in in cuffs…"
Her eyes flicked, quick, toward the doorway. Knuckles was still on the phone, head angled away, the line of his shoulders turned from her. The room pressed tighter when she looked back.
"…feels like the answer was between Lawson's sheets."
The fork hit her tray harder than she meant it to. "You want to say that again?"
Sensing the bite, he grinned "Didn't think you'd need it repeated. Must be nice—other people bleed, you just open your legs and call it even."
Her chair scraped as she shoved back from the table, the sound cutting through the room. "Careful. You're starting to sound like you've been picturing it."
A ripple of laughter rolled from his table, low and ugly. He leaned in anyway, elbows on the chair back, grin widening. "Oh, I'm picturing it, sweetheart. Him bending you over and you moaning loud enough the whole floor knows why you're still breathing."
She was on her feet before she registered moving, heat spiking through her stitches. "Say that again and see what happens."
The man's grin widened at the way she was standing, stitches tugging under her shirt, fork clenched tight in her fist. "Touchy. What's the matter, sweetheart—you fuck your way upstairs and now you blush when the room knows it?"
The words rolled through the room, louder now, a few heads turning. Her jaw locked, a retort loading on her tongue—
—and then Knuckles cut his call short. He stepped away from the doorway, eyes already on them, reading the tilt of her shoulders and the smirk plastered across the other man's face. He crossed the space without breaking stride.
"Ryker." His voice carried flat, edged steel under it. "Fuck off."
Ryker's mouth twitched like he had more filth ready to spill. Knuckles closed the gap, not fast, not loud, just close enough that the air shifted heavy between them. The grin faltered. Ryker tipped his chin in a mock salute, the scrape of his chair legs grating as he shoved back and drifted toward his table.
Knuckles dropped into his seat across from her, gaze steady. "Don't bite when they're fishing. You give 'em a show, they'll circle back for more."
Harper eased down into her chair, pulse tight in her throat. Her hand found the fork again, grip not quite steady. "Yeah," she said, eyes on the plate.
He didn't push it—just picked up the half-eaten sandwich on his tray and took a slow bite, watching long enough to be sure she'd steadied before turning his attention back to his food.
─•────
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—habit, not ceremony—then followed after.
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, scrubbed 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 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 flicked to her, a single pass that lingered on her stance—broad shoulders, weight balanced, that measured economy he'd drilled into her. It was only a glance, but 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. Nothing before, nothing after."
She seated the mag, gave it a tug-check, then racked the handle. 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 eased back to safe, finger straight, muzzle steady.
The next call didn't come. The lane stayed silent except for the scrubbers' low drone, the target waiting under the light. Seconds pulled long, not weighted but held taut, 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, like he was listening to whether she'd snap.
"Now."
The rifle thudded into her shoulder, center mass shuddering the paper. The target fluttered once, then stilled.
The rhythm never evened out. Two quick calls, breath stacked on breath. 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 built.
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 was watching… or was he searching her stance for hairline cracks after yesterday? She was almost certain Knuckles had told him about the cafeteria.
Her sights leveled too soon. She held them there anyway, forcing the stillness, pulse climbing with the restraint more than the recoil ever managed.
"Now."
The word landed like a trigger itself. She fired, recovered, and the thump of it carried down her ribs.
"Fix your base," he said at last, voice low. The toe of his boot nudged her heel half an inch wider. A brush to 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. 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 sharp edge, the full measure—but nothing came. He set the sheet aside, the ritual clean and unhurried: selector to safe, mag out, bolt locked, chamber checked, flag through. She mirrored each motion, the clicks and clacks falling into sync, rifles tagged and stowed in their racks.
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. It didn't. The space held, steady, neither of them crossing it.
"Tomorrow we run the corridor," he said. "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 swung 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 the faint draft of night air downward. He started up without looking to see if she followed.
Halfway, 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."
Harper rolled her eyes at the lecture and jogged the last few steps to slip ahead, her shoulder brushing his as she passed. Behind her came the quiet exhale—half sigh, half resignation—that said he'd seen it coming.
The door bar gave under her palm with a muted clang, and cool air rushed at her at once, crisp and edged with asphalt and the faint tang of rain still trapped in the concrete. Harper stepped out onto the roof, shoes meeting the gritty surface she remembered.
The night air hit cooler up here, tinged with tar and the faint bite of rain that hadn't burned off the concrete. The compound's hum carried 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 were steady, instinctive, scanning the space 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 but anchored.
She only sank down cross-legged, near enough to the lip for the drop to tug at her boots. "Relax," she said, more breath than bite, 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 landed 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. No comment, no ceremony.
Harper tugged hers free of the paper, the smell of bread and onion drifting into the night air. She broke off the end first, more habit than hunger, chewing 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. They ate steady, the night air moving cool across the roof.
Brock broke it first. "How's your side?"
She swallowed, 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 said, 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.
"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 was—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—but quieter somehow.
"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 it, but he came anyway."
Brock didn't move, but there was a pause—long enough to mark that he'd heard more than just the story. "Dante. He a Viper?"
She nodded, then corrected herself, voice low. "…Was.
His jaw feathered, the muscle working once before it eased. He didn't speak right away, 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 was even, but lower than before. "The porch. The man you threw yourself over. That was Dante."
Her nod came small, hesitant, eyes breaking from his to fix on 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, ragged in her throat. "Yeah. It was."
Brock didn't move, but when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its weight. "You don't throw yourself over just anyone."
Her breath snagged, the truth pressing up harder than she wanted it to. A tear slipped hot down her cheek before she could stop it. "He was… everything. My partner, my family, my—" Her voice broke. She swallowed, tried again. "Dante was all I had." She dragged her sleeve across her face quick, but the wet still shone.
Brock saw it. He didn't comment, didn't shift closer. Just gave a single nod, then picked his sandwich back up.
Harper kept her head down, tearing at the corner of her sandwich more than eating it, steadying her breathing.
After a moment he spoke, tone back to even. "How long you been in this life?"
Harper stopped picking at the bread. Her gaze lifted, steady now. "You know who my father was, right?"
Brock didn't flinch. Just nodded once. "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. Just fact. Like listing parts of a machine. "Didn't get a childhood. Just the training."
Brock didn't move at first. Just sat there, shoulders tight, eyes fixed somewhere just past her shoulder. "That young," he said finally. Not a question—something bitter under his breath, 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. Not angry. Just… unsettled. "Christ."
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 plate. "Then, a job went sideways. Thought I was hitting some courier in East Halworth. Turned out it was Syndicate."
A pause. 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 flicked up 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 cost him more than he expected. But 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. But he didn't. He'd dragged her to his quarters. Trained her. Fed her. Watched her. Pushed her. Spared her. Not out of empathy—but out of recognition. She was being shaped into something the Syndicate could use. A familiar cycle. Not kindness. Not even cruelty. Just a function. She was becoming what he became. And the realization scraped deep.
Brock's voice cut through, dragging her back.
"Your father wasn't a Viper," Brock said. His gaze stayed 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. "Fifteen," she said. "They found me after Silas was killed, I didn't have anywhere else to go. The Vipers took me in. And from then on… that was it."
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 remembered the aftermath, the way Knuckles had told it later: a traitor left in a pool of his own blood, his kid screaming as Knuckles and Kellar held her back, then leaving her curled over the body, still breathing.
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. For a long time, she didn't speak. The silence stretched, taut and unyielding. When she finally looked up, there was no fire in her eyes—just something flat and distant, like the words had to be forced through. "Eighteen," she said. The word came flat, final.
Brock stilled like the number had knocked the air out of him.
Eighteen.
His jaw shifted, something flickering behind his eyes—fast, then gone. He shifted his weight but didn't settle, didn't speak. Just stared at her like she was something entirely new, like he'd been reading the wrong blueprint this entire time.
She sniffled quietly as she dragged her sleeve across her face, but the tears kept sliding hot over her skin. 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, splintering as she pressed the heel of her hand hard against her eyes. "Hell of a way to celebrate."
"Eighteen," he said again quietly like the word itself scraped his throat. "Two days. Christ." His gaze locked on her, something raw flickering in his eyes before it shuttered. "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 didn't respond. Didn't nod. Didn't move. He just watched her, his food forgotten, the silence between them heavier than before—not hostile, not cold. Just full of everything neither of them had the language for.