Bringing her home
*Nick*
The clubhouse door bangs open hard enough to rattle the framed photos along the hall.
“Move,” I call, already ducking through sideways with the woman in my arms.
She weighs almost nothing. That pisses me off for reasons I do not have time to sort through. Her head rests against my shoulder, curls stuck to one bruised cheek, and every jolt of my boots on the old concrete makes her fingers clench in my cut.
Zac gets the door behind us. The steel lock throws with a clean, ugly clack.
“Back kitchen,” he says.
I am already headed there.
The Iron Vipers clubhouse is warm with leftover life. Somebody has made coffee, though it has been sitting too long. The dishwasher hums behind the bar. A child’s purple jacket lies over one of the stools, Iris’s, and there is a half-finished coloring page beside it, bright markers scattered around a drawing of a motorcycle with six wheels.
The woman makes a small sound against my chest when I carry her past the open room.
“Easy,” I tell her. “You’re inside.”
Her eyes open at that.
Brown. Big and unfocused, but sharp underneath the fear. She looks at the ceiling lights, then the black-and-gold Vipers patch painted across the far wall, then at me. Her gaze jumps straight past my shoulder to the kitchen’s back door.
Checking exits.
Good instinct. Bad sign.
“Where are we?” Her voice is scraped raw.
“Point Morro. Clubhouse.”
Her face tightens. “Clubhouse?”
“Motorcycle club,” Zac says, moving ahead to clear the long kitchen table. “You’re safe here.”
She flinches so hard at the word safe that I nearly stop walking.
Tom comes through from the hallway, sandy ginger hair still damp from a shower, T-shirt half tucked into his jeans. He takes one look at the woman bleeding through the shoulder of her sweater and loses any trace of sleep.
“What happened?”
“Found her on Harbor Cut,” I say. “Black sedan dumped her out. Came back for her when we stopped.”
Tom’s eyes cut to Zac.
“Gone now,” Zac says. “I got part of the plate. Not enough to run clean, but enough to start.”
“Anybody follow you?”
“Did two sweeps. Nobody on our tail.”
Tom nods once, already thinking three moves ahead. “Put her on the couch. Dylan, get the med kit. Tommy, lock down the side gate and check the rear cameras.”
Dylan appears in the doorway wearing one of Tommy’s old shirts and black leggings, her dark hair twisted up badly like she has only just dragged herself out of bed. Tommy is behind her, barefoot, brown hair sticking up on one side.
He sees the woman and goes still.
“Jesus,” he says quietly.
“Med kit,” Dylan snaps.
“I was moving.”
“You were staring.”
“I can multitask, babe.”
Dylan gives him a look that would skin paint from a wall. Tommy grins once, then disappears toward the hall at a run.
I lower the woman carefully onto the old leather couch against the kitchen wall. Her whole body goes rigid when my arm shifts beneath her knees. I stop before I pull away.
“Need to set you down properly,” I say. “Alright?”
She watches my face like she is waiting for the trick.
Then she gives one small nod.
I ease her back against the cushions. The second I step away, her hands drag the sweater closed at her throat. Her sleeves are too long, covering most of her fingers, but not enough to hide the fingerprints purpled around one wrist.
Dylan brings the med kit over and crouches by the coffee table. “I’m Dylan. I’m going to ask before I touch you, okay?”
The woman swallows. Her eyes never leave Dylan’s hands.
“Okay.”
Tom takes the chair nearest the door, not crowding her. He has always been good at taking up space without making it feel like a threat. “I’m Tom. You got a name, sweetheart?”
The question lands badly.
Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Outside, wind throws salt against the harbor windows. Somewhere beyond the building, a buoy bell knocks against the dark water. The woman presses one hand to her temple, and her breath starts coming too fast.
“I...” Her eyes shine, angry at themselves. “I don’t know.”
Nobody speaks for a second.
Zac rubs a hand over his jaw. “You don’t know your name?”
She looks at him, panic rising quick and bright. “I don’t know anything. I remember the car. I think. There was... I was trying to get out.”
Her voice breaks on the last word.
Dylan sits back on her heels. “You got out. You’re here.”
The woman shakes her head as if Dylan has said something impossible. “Who was driving?”
“Couldn’t see,” I say. “Two men, maybe three. Dark sedan. We’ll find it.”
Her gaze catches on the row of keys hanging near the kitchen door. Zac’s ring is still in his hand from locking up. It shifts when he moves, metal tapping metal.
She recoils into the couch.
Zac notices at once. He closes his fist around the keys, then slowly sets them on the counter behind him.
“Sorry,” he says, lower now. “Didn’t mean to.”
The woman stares at the counter for another long second before her shoulders drop a fraction.
Dylan opens the first aid kit. “Your arm’s cut. Your lip too. Can I look?”
The woman’s eyes go to me.
It is not trust. It is a calculation. I know the look. Which one of us is most likely to listen if she says no?
I keep my hands loose at my sides. “Your call.”
Her gaze drops to the blood drying on her sleeve. “Yes. Please.”
Dylan works gently, peeling the torn knit from the woman’s shoulder enough to see the scrape beneath. Road rash, shallow but nasty. Bruising blooms along her collarbone and upper arm. There is dirt in her hair and under one of her fingernails.
I spot the split seam at the back of her jeans, the red smear where she hit pavement.
My jaw locks.
Tom sees it. His eyes narrow, but he says nothing.
“Hospital,” he says after Dylan finishes cleaning the worst of the wounds. “We need to get you checked over. Head injury, internal bleeding.”
The woman goes white.
Dylan reaches into the med kit and pulls out the local hospital’s ambulance brochure. It is standard stuff, something Ben leaves around whenever he gets tired of patching up idiots who should have gone to an emergency room. She sets it on the table where the woman can see it.
The woman stares at the picture of the ambulance.
Then she shoves herself backward into the couch so fast her shoulder smacks the wall.
“No.”
Her voice is loud enough to cut the room.
Tom doesn’t move. “Nobody’s forcing you.”
“No hospital.” She is shaking now, both hands wrapped around her middle. “Please. Please don’t call them.”
The fear in her face is too specific to argue with. It is not ordinary dislike of hospitals.
Dylan sets the brochure facedown.
“Fine,” she says. “No hospital tonight.”
Tom looks at her.
“She said no,” Dylan adds with a shrug.
He holds Dylan’s stare for a beat, then looks at the woman again. “You feel dizzy? Sick? Trouble seeing?”
She hesitates. “My head hurts.”
“Did you black out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Any pain in your stomach?”
Another pause. “Everywhere.”
That gets a brief, humorless twitch from Tommy as he comes back through the doorway.
“Fair answer,” he says. “Side gate’s locked. Cameras are clean. Nobody parked on the road.”
He crosses to Dylan and rests a hand on the back of her neck, just for a second. She leans into it without looking away from the couch.
The woman watches them. Something passes over her face so quickly I almost miss it. Not envy exactly. Grief, maybe. Or the memory of wanting to lean into somebody and learning better.
I walk to the sink, fill a glass with water, and bring it back. I set it on the coffee table where she can reach it.
“You want help sitting up?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow a little, confused by the question.
“You’re hurt. I’m not grabbing you without asking.”
The room goes quiet again.
She looks at my hands. Grease ground into the cuticles despite washing, a crescent scar near my thumb from a busted chain years ago. Then she reaches for the glass herself. Both hands are shaking.
“I can do it,” she says.
“Alright.”
She manages a sip. Water runs from the corner of her mouth and she wipes it away fast, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for drinking water.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
I have said too much. Or maybe just enough to make her wonder what kind of man I am, which is fair. Hell, I am wondering too. An hour ago I was running perimeter with Zac, checking old roads and harbor access points for Wraith movement. Now there is an injured stranger on our couch, and somebody has already tried to take her once tonight.
Tom leans forward in his chair. “We can call Ben. Local doctor. He works with the club, and he can check you here.”
“Will he tell anyone?”
“He tells the people in front of him what they need to know,” Dylan says. “That’s about all.”
The woman presses the heel of her hand to her temple again. “He won’t make me go?”
“No,” I say. “But if he thinks you’re in real danger, he’ll tell you straight.”
She nods slowly.
Zac picks up his keys, then catches the way her shoulders jerk and puts them back down.
“I’ll take the truck,” he says.
Tom glances at him. “You know where Ben is?”
“Probably asleep above Doyle’s pharmacy, pretending he doesn’t own a phone.”
“Wake him up.”
Zac looks at the woman one more time. His voice softens. “You need anything before I go?”
She seems startled by the question. “No… Thanks.”
“Alright. I’ll be back.”
He heads for the hall, then pauses at the steel door. He locks it behind himself from the outside, leaving us sealed inside the clubhouse.
The woman watches the door close.
“Who are you people?” she asks.
Tom leans back. “Complicated question for this hour.”
“Tom,” Dylan says.
He exhales through his nose. “Iron Vipers. We look after our own.”
Her fingers tighten around the water glass. “I’m not one of yours.”
“No,” I say.
Everybody looks at me.
I pull a chair over, turn it around, and sit facing her without getting too close. The leather under my palms is cracked and familiar. Beyond the windows, Point Morro is black sea, wet pavement, and a road full of places a dark sedan could disappear.
“You’re not, but we also help people in need of it” I say again. “But somebody threw you onto a road and came back to collect you. Until we know who they are, you’ve got a roof. That’s all.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
“That’s all?” she asks.
“For tonight.”
The answer seems to settle somewhere in her. Not comfort. She is nowhere near that. Her breathing eases, though, and she takes another careful drink.
Tom pushes to his feet. “We’ll figure out sleeping arrangements once Ben’s had a look. Nick, stay with her. Dylan, get Isabella. I want plates, missing persons, anything tied to that road. Tommy, pull the camera footage from the harbor turnoff.”
Tommy nods. “On it, boss.”
The title still sits new on him, but he wears it easier every week.
Dylan is already reaching for her phone. “If the county has an active missing woman, Isabella can shake it loose before breakfast.”
“Keep it quiet,” Tom says. “No social posts. No calls outside this room unless we need them.”
His gaze cuts briefly to the stranger. Then he walks out, taking the tension of command with him.
She watches the empty doorway.
“I don’t know my name,” she says, almost under her breath.
I look at the water in her hands, at the bruise spreading beneath the dark curls along her temple, at the scrape of blood on her knees.
“Then we don’t need one yet,” I say.
Outside, an engine growls somewhere down by the harbor.
Every muscle in her body locks.
So do mine.
