Page 18 of Jax
That wasn’t me. I could shape steel, bend fire, twist metal into something solid and whole. But right now I was brittle, fragile, and already splintering in a house where I could not afford to crack. Because if I broke, my sister broke with me.
The second I was alone again, the room changed.
It wasn’t the lighting, and it wasn’t the temperature. Whatever had shifted settled deeper than that. Subtle as breath, but more intimate. The air pressed against my skin with a familiarity that felt sentient, like it had memorized the shape of me, the rhythm of my thoughts, the tension in my spine. The door stayed closed, the bolt untouched, yet something stirred beneath it all; a pull that curled under my ribs, old and restless, like a song I couldn’t forget no matter how long I’d tried.
I moved. Not fast, but with purpose. Standing still made me feel like prey. Motion helped. Cataloging helped. Breaking things into tasks helped. The closet was shallow. Just a few hangers and a folded blanket above. No clutter. No missed details. I didn’t touch anything. Not out of fear, but because I didn’t trust it.
I crossed the room slowly, counting steps, re-orienting. If the walls were going to close in, I needed to know which directionto run. I wasn’t planning a midnight escape. Not yet. But I’d survived too much to ignore the instinct to prepare.
I approached the window again, not to check it, but because sometimes control means rechecking the lock you already know won’t budge. The alternative was admitting nothing about this place would.
I scanned the view—thirty yards of open ground before the tree line. A single camera, angled too perfectly to be coincidence. No cover. No freedom. Just a flawless kill-box if someone decided I wasn’t worth protecting anymore. I didn’t need to touch the glass to know it was reinforced, sealed tight to trap the quiet in and the world out. It was never an exit. Just another boundary pretending to be one.
I stepped back slowly. No false hope. No soft edges. If I wanted out, it wouldn’t be clean. I’d have to go through someone. Or with someone. And somehow, that scared me more than the glass.
I couldn’t leave. Not yet. I didn’t know what lay beyond the trees or how far this compound stretched. I didn’t just need escape, I needed access. A phone. A car. A signal.
And I needed Violet.
The second her name crossed my mind, the ache sharpened.
If I could make it to a road, I could find help. If I could find help, I could get her out. That was always the plan. The thought that kept me alive when everything else gave out: keep moving, don’t pause, don’t let hesitation sink its teeth in. But now, I had. Not because I was afraid. Not because I couldn’t. Because some dark, traitorous part of me didn’t want to. Not yet. Not before I understood what I’d be walking away from. What these men were really capable of. Who Jax was, and why being near him felt like standing under a spotlight I hadn’t agreed to step into.
I turned from the window and sat on the edge of the bed, pulse thudding at the base of my throat. My hands twitchedin my lap. The window was latched, but it had never been an exit, just a barrier dressed like one, polished and see-through, pretending not to be a wall.
I needed a plan, and I didn’t have one.
The darkness outside sank deeper, filling the room with a heavy kind of quiet. The house seemed to change with it, breathing in a slower rhythm, as though night gave it permission to stir.
I didn’t turn on the lamp. Darkness settled in, slow and steady, climbing the walls like it belonged there. I stayed upright, spine locked, body rigid in the posture of control, but inside something shifted. Not strategy. Not survival. Something older. Instinct.
My eyes flicked back to the window before I could stop them, and I froze, breath catching.
He was there. Jax. A faint glow from some sort of screen marked his place at the tree line, a steady glow in the dark. He wasn’t pacing. Wasn’t fidgeting. Just still, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear. He didn’t look like a guard on duty, but he didn’t look casual either.
Not a threat. Not a welcome. Just a reminder.
I hadn’t left the perimeter. I’d been folded into it, a cage disguised as shelter.
5
Jax
It was justpast 2 a.m. That dead space between midnight and dawn when the world gave up pretending to be awake. The house had gone quiet, but not asleep. Not really. People didn’t really sleep in a place like this. You just learned how to pretend your mind wasn’t constantly running diagnostics.
So I sat in my cave, surrounded by humming servers and blinking status indicators. Bare feet on the desk. The last of my coffee, cooling out of reach. Half a dozen screens glowed like patient ghosts. Security feeds cycled automatically, night vision casting the woods and walkways in grainy green. Most people hated night vision, said it made everything look haunted. I preferred it. You learn more from shadows than from faces.
I wasn’t expecting much tonight. The perimeter was locked down, motion lines tagged, and the only suspicious movement since sunset had been Sully sneaking into the pantry to steal one of Maddy’s protein bars.
But when the feed cycled to the upstairs hallway, I looked anyway. Stella’s door was still closed. I let my gaze linger, then smirked. “She’s thinking about it,” I muttered to the blinking server light beside me. Not a guess. Some people sleep likethey’re tired. Stella slept like it was a negotiation. Like the bed hadn’t earned her trust yet.
She’d been too quiet—scared, sure, but not shattered, just... calculated. Every movement measured. Every breath tucked neatly between beats. Stillness like a loaded spring. She reminded me of certain operatives I’d worked with overseas—ones who didn’t smile much, but could wire a compound to blow using a paperclip and bubble gum. I’d clocked it the second she stepped out of the SUV: the way her eyes kept scanning, how she moved like she already knew where every door was. She was smart. And smart girls don’t pace. They map. And theyneverstay put.
I took a sip of coffee. Grimaced. Lukewarm. Should’ve topped it off an hour ago, but I got distracted rerouting the motion sensor on camera nine. Dead angle in the laundry room. It bothered me. I don’t like holes in things—systems, stories, people. It’s always the blind spots that get you killed.
Something flickered on camera four. I leaned in, chair creaking under my weight. Not out of alarm. Curiosity. The frame held. Then shifted, barely. You wouldn’t catch it unless you were already watching.
I tapped a few keys. Rewound. Froze the frame. There, bottom right. The window above the dryer eased open half an inch. Then another.
