Bones was having a shitty night.

The kind of night that reeked of blood, gasoline, and frustration soaked straight through to the bone.

It was supposed to be an easy job—not that anything Reaper handed her ever felt complicated. A local dealer had been shorting the club, thinking he could skim off Legion product and walk away breathing. Normally, something like that would be handed off to a prospect eager to prove himself. But Reaper didn't want a warning delivered. He wanted a message.

So he sent Bones.

And she delivered, like always. The dealer was now a twitching heap in a gutted trailer outside of town, choking on his own teeth and a mouthful of regret.

But not before he managed to get in one lucky swing. A cheap little folding blade, no longer than a steak knife, but it slipped past her ribs like it knew exactly where to land. Deep enough to bleed. Shallow enough to piss her off.

More inconvenience than injury—but it still fucking hurt.

Back at the clubhouse, the mood didn't improve.

Gumbo had sent a pair of jittery prospects out to clean up the body. Then he gave Bones the kind of look that said bad news incoming and told her Doc was out of town for the week.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Now she sat slouched in one of the rickety folding chairs shoved against the back wall of Gumbo's office, one arm draped over the backrest, the other pressing a blood-soaked rag to her abdomen. The overhead light buzzed intermittently, casting everything in a jaundiced glow. The smell of motor oil, stale beer, and Pine-Sol clung to the air like a second skin.

Gumbo was hunched over a dented filing cabinet repurposed as a medical supply locker, grumbling to himself in Cajun French as he sorted through Doc's old medkit. He was elbow-deep in antiseptic bottles and crumpled gauze, muttering something about needing to restock the damned lidocaine.

Meanwhile, Bones nursed a bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey like it was a lifeline. The glass was slick from her palm, her knuckles bruised and still spotted with dried blood.

Her patience was hanging by a thread.

A deep, steady tap echoed from the toe of her boot as it bounced against the linoleum floor—cheap stuff, yellowed and cracked, curled at the edges. Her jaw flexed as she took another sip, expression unreadable even as the whiskey burned all the way down.

"Got too fucking sloppy." she muttered finally, her voice low and gravel-thick. It was the first thing she'd said since stumbling into the office, blood seeping through her shirt and jaw clenched so tight her molars ached.

Gumbo didn't look up, just chuckled under his breath. "You always say that when you're bleedin'. Don't mean it ain't handled."

She didn't respond. She just pressed harder on the wound, her breath catching ever so slightly. Her frustration wasn't with the job. It was with herself. The knife should've never landed. Her head wasn't where it should've been—wasn't anywhere, really.

Should've been sharper, she thought bitterly, tightening her grip around the whiskey bottle until her knuckles whitened. Should've seen it coming.

And then—like a match striking dry flint—her whole body went still.

A voice drifted in from the hallway, soft but unmistakable. It cut through the room like a blade, and Bones snapped upright so fast her chair creaked beneath her.

She heard Gumbo laugh—an old man's knowing bark that she ignored entirely.

She didn't move, just stared at the doorway like it might swallow her whole. Her pulse thudded in her neck. Her blood felt hot again—this time for all the wrong reasons.

And then there she was.

The president's daughter stepped into the doorway, half-lit by the flickering hallway light, framed in smoke and familiarity. Her voice had shifted since the last time Bones heard it—richer, more grown—but the sound still dropped straight into her gut like it always had.

She looked different. Older. Put together. But her eyes were the same. So was that smile—the one that had always been Bones', even when it shouldn't've been.

She was Reaper's daughter. Bright. Sharp. Too good for all of this. And yet somehow, she was standing in the Iron Legion's back office again, surrounded by blood and grime and Daisy's worst instincts.

Bones felt something warm bloom low in her chest, something she'd been suffocating since the day the president's daughter left town with a backpack full of scholarship letters and no plans to look back.

They had grown up together. Back when Bones was still that scrawny, dirt-streaked kid no one wanted around. Everyone else had crossed the street when she came walking. But not the president's daughter. She shared her lunch. Invited her over. Let her wash the smoke and shame out of her hair in their mom's bathroom. Treated her like she wasn't just a body waiting to be thrown away.

Reaper had noticed, of course. He'd always noticed.

What started as a shovel-talk at fourteen turned into Bones's first job with the club—and eventually, her patch. She earned it before she turned eighteen.

And while she was grinding her fists into blood and loyalty, the president's daughter was leaving town to chase something better. Something clean. Something Bones could never follow.

She let her go.

She was still letting her go—every goddamn day.

And yet here she was, standing in the doorway, eyes locking onto hers with that same gentle, unbearable warmth.

And Daisy Hawkins, bloody and bitter and drunk on more than whiskey, felt like she'd just been gutted all over again.