Page 228 of Fractured Loyalties

When I step back into the hall, Lydia looks up from the tablet. Her gaze flicks down, takes in the jeans, the shoes, the braid. She nods once, a silent checkmark. Her approval feels nothing like Elias’s. He devours. She measures.

“Better,” she says. “Now pick it up again.”

She means the baton. I reach for it where it rests on the table. Cold weight in my hand, heavier now that I know it belongs to me for the moment. Lydia rises from the couch, taller than I remembered, lean and balanced like someone who doesn’t waste movement.

She sets her stance in front of me and raises a hand. “Hit.”

I blink. “What?”

“Hit. My arm. Not full force. I’d prefer to keep the bone intact. But enough to hear the sound it makes. You need to know how it feels.”

“I don’t—”

“Hit,” she repeats.

The command slices through hesitation the way Elias’s voice does, but where his digs deep into my chest, hers is brisk, stripped of seduction. I swing. The baton makes a crack against her forearm, jarring up through my wrist. Not pain, but impact. Not violence, but survival.

“Again,” she says.

I do. Louder this time.

Her eyes stay steady on mine, not flinching, not backing away. “Good. You’ll freeze the first time it’s a person. Everyone does. But if you already know the sound, it’s easier to push through. Don’t aim for bones unless you have to. Nerves are faster. Here. Here.” She taps her own thigh, her ribs. “Eyes if you’re desperate. The rest buys you seconds. Seconds are gold.”

I nod. My grip sweats against the handle.

“You’re not a fighter,” Lydia says, matter-of-fact. “But you don’t need to be. You just need to be hard to keep.”

The words land differently than Elias’s constant cage talk. Not owned. Not trapped. Just harder to hold onto. Something that can slip out of hands.

The tablet chimes softly in her hand. She studies the screen, expression unreadable, then angles it toward me. The Civic glows in grainy grayscale, parked at the curb outside the clinic from yesterday’s feed.

“That car,” Lydia says. “It wasn’t random.”

I freeze. “You mean Caleb?”

“Not Caleb. Bigger net than him.” She zooms closer. “That car was a placement. They wanted him to see it. They wanted him to chase it.”

My chest hollows. “And he did.”

She doesn’t answer, which tells me everything.

I grip the baton tighter. The weight grounds me, but it doesn’t quiet the storm inside. “So they’re not just circling me anymore. They’re using me to pull him.”

Lydia’s eyes flick up to mine. “Exactly.”

The words settle like stones in my stomach. I think of Elias out there now, following their trail, walking into whatever waits for him. I picture the way his hand closed around my chin beforehe left, the promise in his voice when he said he’d protect me. I should feel safer because of it. Instead, I feel like I’m the rope they’re using to drag him under.

Lydia shuts the tablet with a snap. “Which means you can’t afford to sit here shaking. If he’s their target, they’ll circle you until he bites again. You don’t want to be easy meat.”

I look down at the baton in my grip, then back at her. The towel may be gone, but the marks on my skin are still there. The cage Elias put me in is still here. But for the first time, I wonder if the real danger isn’t outside the door—it’s the fact that he walked into the trap because of me.

The baton suddenly feels heavier. It shifts the balance in my wrist, like it’s testing me instead of the other way around. Lydia studies my grip for another long beat before stepping in closer, her boots quiet on the rug.

“Show me stance,” she says.

I don’t move right away. “I don’t—”

“Now.”