Chapter 8: Message Received.

She walked to the kitchen. Her bare feet slapped the cold tile.

Then she heard it.

A crash from the garage—metal on concrete, a sharp clang that echoed through the walls. Then a grunt. Male. Deep. Then another crash, louder, followed by Devane's voice, low and cold.

"You picked the wrong night."

The unmistakable sound of a fist hitting flesh.

Clarisse's hand froze on the refrigerator handle. Her heart stopped. Then slammed against her ribs so hard she felt it in her throat.

She was moving before she could think. Her bare feet slapped the hallway floor. The garage door was slightly ajar—Devane hadn't latched it—and Clarisse pushed it open with both hands.

The garage was chaos.

Devane's motorcycle lay on its side. The mirror had snapped off and skidded across the concrete. A metal shelf had collapsed—wrenches, screwdrivers, paint cans scattered like shrapnel. The single overhead bulb swung wildly on its cord, throwing shadows that lurched and spun and made everything look like a nightmare.

Two bulky men. Leather cuts with a patch Clarisse didn't recognize—some kind of serpent, coiled and fanged. One of them had Devane shoved against the workbench, a forearm jammed across her throat. The other was circling, a tire iron dangling from his fingers, a smirk on his face that made Clarisse's blood go cold.

"Boss wants a word," Tire Iron said. "You've been moving product on our side of the river. You know what happens to thieves."

Devane's lip was split. Blood painted her chin, stark red against tan skin. Her left eye was already swelling shut. But her expression—even pinned, even bleeding—was pure ice. Bored, almost. Like this was a minor inconvenience. Like she'd been through worse and would again.

"I don't move product," she said. Her voice was calm. Too calm. "Tell your boss to check his own people. Someone's skimming and blaming me."

Tire Iron laughed. "Maybe. Don't matter. I still get paid."

He raised the tire iron.

Clarisse didn't think. Her body moved on instinct—years of training, of reacting to music, to cues, to split-second direction. Her hand found the nearest object. A wrench. Heavy and cold her fingers wrapped around it. She hurled it.

She wasn't aiming for the man. She knew she'd miss. She was aiming for the shelf behind him—the cluster of paint cans, the clutter. The wrench hit the metal shelf with a crash like a gunshot. Paint cans toppled. A jar of screws exploded across the concrete.

Tire Iron spun around. His smirk vanished.

"What the—"

He saw her. Standing in the doorway. Soaked and barefoot. Shaking so hard her knees were knocking together.

For one frozen moment, nobody moved.

Then Devane moved.

She slammed her head forward, skull cracking against the nose of the man pinning her. He howled—a wet, horrible sound—and stumbled backward, blood gushing between his fingers. Devane was free. She grabbed Tire Iron's wrist before he could swing, twisted it until something popped, ripped the tire iron from his grip, and drove the handle into his stomach. He folded. She brought her knee up into his face. Cartilage crunched. He hit the concrete and didn't get up.

The first man lunged at her, nose still streaming, blind with rage. She sidestepped, caught his arm, wrenched it behind his back. His shoulder dislocated with a sound Clarisse would never forget. He screamed. She kicked his legs out from under him and let him fall.

It was over in fifteen seconds.

Devane stood over them, chest heaving, tire iron still in her grip. Blood dripped from her chin onto the concrete. Her knuckles were split. Her lip was swelling. The overhead bulb swung. Shadows lurched. The two men groaned at her feet, broken, blood pooling beneath them.

She dropped the tire iron. It clanged on the concrete.

Then she looked at Clarisse.

Her eyes were wild. Not cold anymore. Burning. The mask was gone—shattered—and underneath it was something feral. Something that had just fought for its life and won and hadn't come down from the high yet.

"What the fuck are you doing in here?"

Her voice was a blade. Sharp. Cold. Meant to wound.

Clarisse flinched but didn't retreat. "I heard—there was a crash, I thought—"

"You thought what? You'd help?" Devane laughed. It was ugly. Bitter. "You threw a wrench at a shelf. You could've hit me."

"I was aiming for the shelf."

"You could've missed."

"But I didn't."

They stared at each other. Clarisse's heart was a war drum. Devane's chest was still heaving. Blood dripped from her chin onto the concrete. One of the men groaned and tried to push himself up. Devane kicked him in the ribs without breaking eye contact with Clarisse. He collapsed.

"Who are they?" Clarisse asked. Her voice came out steadier than she felt.

"Nobody."

"Nobody doesn't show up with a tire iron. Nobody doesn't try to—" She stopped. Swallowed. "They were going to kill you."

"No, they weren't."

"They had you pinned. He raised a tire iron. He was going to—"

"They were sending a message." Devane wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. It came away red. "You don't kill someone in their own garage. You hurt them. You scare them. You make sure they know you can get to them." Her eyes met Clarisse's. Cold. Flat. "Message received."

Clarisse stepped forward. Her bare foot crunched on broken glass. She didn't look down. "You need to call the police."

"No."

"Devane—"

"I said no." Devane's voice was hard. Final. "No cops. No ambulance. No nothing. This doesn't leave the garage."

"There are two men bleeding on your floor!"

"And in twenty minutes they'll be gone. My crew's already on their way. They'll clean this up. They'll dump these two back on their own turf. And tomorrow it'll be like this never happened."

Clarisse stared at her. At the blood. At the swelling eye. At the way Devane was holding her ribs—the same ribs Clarisse had bandaged days ago. Fresh red was seeping through her shirt.

"You're hurt," Clarisse said.

"I've been hurt before."

"That doesn't mean—"

"Go inside, Clarisse."

The name landed like a slap. Not Bright. Clarisse. She only used her real name when she meant it.

"No." Clarisse planted her feet. Crossed her arms. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to stand in my doorway and block my boyfriend and tell me I know what I want and then shut me out when you're the one who's bleeding. That's not how this works."

Devane's jaw tightened. A muscle twitched below her ear. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then tell me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of your business." Devane pushed herself off the workbench, wincing as her ribs protested. She grabbed a rag from the shelf—dirty, oil-stained—and pressed it to her bleeding side. "This is my life. This is what I do. It has nothing to do with you."

"They came to our house."

"It's my house. My problem. My blood." Devane's eyes were ice. "Not yours."

Clarisse stepped closer. Close enough to see the split in Devane's lip, the swelling around her eye, the way her knuckles were already bruising. Close enough to smell the copper and sweat and something sharper underneath—gasoline, maybe. Or fear.

"You're an asshole," Clarisse said. Her voice was quiet. Steady. "You know that? You stand there and you act like you're the only one who's allowed to protect people. Like you're the only one who gets to care. But I'm standing in your garage, barefoot, with glass in my feet, and I just threw a wrench at a man with a tire iron. So don't tell me this has nothing to do with me."

Devane stared at her. The silence stretched. The rain had stopped. The garage light swung. One of the men groaned.

"Go inside," Devane said again. Quieter this time. Almost tired.

"Not until you let me look at your ribs."

"I don't need—"

"I don't care what you need."

Clarisse reached out. Her fingers brushed the edge of Devane's shirt, just above the bloodstain. Devane's hand shot up and caught her wrist. Not hard. Not painful. Just... stopping her. Holding her there.

Their eyes met.

"Don't," Devane said. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Please."

It was the "please" that broke something open in Clarisse's chest. Devane didn't say please. Devane didn't ask. Devane took what she wanted and walked away and never looked back. But she was looking at Clarisse now, and her eyes were wild, and her hand was shaking around Clarisse's wrist.

"Then talk to me," Clarisse whispered.

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

Devane let go of her wrist. Stepped back. The mask slammed down—ice and stone and nothing.

"Both."

She turned. Limped toward the door that led back into the house. Her hand found the frame. She paused but didn't look back.

"Don't follow me," she said. "And don't ask again."

She was gone before Clarisse could answer.

Clarisse stood alone in the garage. The two men groaned at her feet. The motorcycle lay on its side. The rain had stopped. The silence was deafening.

She looked down at her feet. They were bleeding. She hadn't noticed.

She looked at the door Devane had disappeared through. It was closed. It was always closed.

Clarisse grabbed the wrench from the floor. Wiped it clean. Set it back on the shelf. Then she walked back into the house, locked the garage door behind her, and stood in the dark hallway with blood on her feet and a name on her tongue that she didn't dare speak.

Devane.

She didn't go to the kitchen. She didn't go for the apple. She didn't do anything but climb the stairs, one slow step at a time, and pause outside Devane's door.

The light was on. The shadow of feet moved under the crack. Clarisse raised her hand to knock.

Then lowered it.

Whatever war Devane was fighting, she wasn't ready to share it. And Clarisse wasn't ready to force her way in. Not yet.

But she would be.

She turned. Walked to her room. Closed the door. Sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her bleeding feet.

And for the first time all night, the voice in her head was silent.

Not because it had nothing to say.

Because Clarisse had finally found something louder.