Four brings him around on weekends sometimes. The kid likes sitting on the edge of Torch's workbench, swinging his legs and asking a thousand questions while pretending he understands engines.
Now he's with his mother, who is probably already filling his head with poison. Because someone fed law enforcement a lie.
"Who pushed it?" I ask.
Cypher shakes his head. "I can't trace it yet. Whoever did this… it’s advanced."
So someone planned it, planted evidence.
Razor folds his arms across his chest. "Somebody talked."
Angel's head turns slowly toward him.
"Careful." He growls.
"I'm not accusing anyone of shit," Razor says. But his tone says he is. "I'm saying this doesn't come out of nowhere."
He's loud, amped up. He looks like a man on the edge.
But of what?
"She's gone," Razor adds suddenly. "Mara just fucking disappeared."
The words crack across the yard.
"What?" I gasp.
"I went to bed, and she was there," he says. "I woke up, she wasn't. All her shit is still in the room."
Something twists in my gut, you don’t just disappear from this place.
"You didn't hear anything?" I ask, and then the last time I saw Mara flashes through my mind. "Did anything happen before you went to bed?"
His head snaps toward me. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just asking." I shrug, but something isn’t adding up and I am too fucking tired.
Angel steps forward before Razor can escalate, eyes on me. "We're handling it."
Translation:Drop it.
I scan the lot, seeing both her car and bike are still here.
Which means she didn't plan it...orshe had help.
The compound feels like it's holding its breath.
"We do not fracture," Angel says, voice steady but tight. "That's what they want."
Unity fixes this; it always has.
Because a fracture gets you killed. I learned that young.
Upstairs, the hallway feels wrong. No doors are cracked open, there's no music or laughter.
Just boots pacing somewhere distant and the low murmur of tense voices.
I push open our door and find Bex is sitting on the bed like she's been waiting for impact. Her body jerks when the door opens, and her hand shoots out, reaching under her pillow.