Page 53 of Make Them Pay

“I did.”

“I know.” Her voice softens. “I’m really glad you did.”

I reach out and take the tablet from her, set it on the ground, then pull her against me. She comes without hesitation. Her arms go around me under the vest and she presses her face into my chest the same way she did the night I pulled her out of that container. Only this time there’s no panic in it. Just the solid fact that we both made it through.

I rest my chin on top of her head and hold her while the last of the adrenaline drains out of both of us.

“We did it,” I say into her hair.

“Yeah,” she answers, voice muffled against me. “We did.”

Behind us the facility sits quiet under the emergency lights. The crew is in the vehicles. Her brother is safe. For the first time in over a week, there’s nothing left to fix in the next five minutes.

I tighten my arms around her.

“Let’s go see Poe,” I say eventually. “He’s waiting.”

She nods against my chest, then pulls back just enough to look up at me. There’s a small, tired smile at the corner of her mouth. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

We pick up the tablet and the antenna and walk toward the vehicles together. Side by side. No space between us this time.

21

Enley

Dean Maddox’s primary safehouse looks like it belongs to a retired couple who argue about the lawn.

White clapboard siding. Green shutters. A wraparound porch with rocking chairs that never get used. The driveway is gravel, and the garage hides two vehicles that have nothing to do with the aging pickup the neighbors think belongs here. Inside, behind all that domestic calm, is a fully stocked operations center with medical supplies, solid communications gear, and enough weapons to outfit a small team.

Dean built this place the same way he builds everything: in layers. The friendly face for the neighbors. The functional core for the work. And underneath both of those, a third layer only a few people ever see. The layer where the people he cares about come to get put back together.

We roll up in the BRAVO transport just before four in the morning. The crew comes through the door in stages. Poe first, leaning on Arrow on one side and Render on the other. His legs are working, but his face tells a story that’ll take weeks to rewrite. Then Gage, carrying Ozzy whose left knee has swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Rae calls it a ligament tear from the captivity. Lark walks in under her own power, eyes sharp, already studying the new space the way she’s been forced to study every room for the past two weeks.

Knight stays one step behind her. Close enough to catch her if she stumbles. Far enough to let her walk in on her own terms. The careful distance is almost hard to watch after everything they’ve been through.

They make it three steps inside before Lark stops, turns, and walks straight back to him. She puts both hands on his face. He settles both hands on her waist. They stand like that for five full seconds. No words. No kiss. Just contact. The kind that says everything language can’t.

Gage watches his sister touch the man he once warned about hurting her, and his jaw does something complicated. Love and relief and that fierce older-brother protectiveness all mixed together.

“Don’t make it weird, Gage,” Lark says without looking at him.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His voice cracks on the last word.

Dean’s waiting in the operations room. I haven’t seen him in weeks, and the time shows. He’s thinner. The lines around his eyes run deeper. He carries the look of a man who’s been shouldering the knowledge that his people were locked in cells and the responsibility for the operation that put them there.

He doesn’t make a speech. I’ve been told by Render that he never does. He just stands in the doorway and watches his people come through it, counting heads the way someone counts the people they love most.

“Medical first,” he says. “Then we debrief.”

The next hour is careful triage. Diaz brought a combat medic named Singh who’s clearly treated worse injuries in worse places. Poe gets the most attention: fluids, wound cleaning, a thorough check of the damage to his face. No broken bones. Nothing structural. Just layer after layer of deliberate hurt. Orchid never leaves his side.

I’m meeting the woman who stole my brother’s heart for the first time. She’s nice and I can see why Poe’s in love with her. She obviously cares for my brother. The same way I care about Render.

Arrow sits out on the porch while Singh works on a cut on his forearm he never mentioned during the extraction. He’s calm in a way that makes my chest tight, because Arrow is almost never quiet. The silent version of him is the one that shows up when something is too big for words.

Gage sits beside him without saying anything. Just sits. Years of friendship have taught them that sometimes the most useful thing you can offer is simply being there.

Ozzy is on the living-room couch with his knee elevated and a bag of frozen peas from Dean’s freezer pressed to the swelling. The captivity shows on him the most. His hands shake when he reaches for the water bottle someone left beside him. He’s trying to hide it. He’s not succeeding.