The Saints did not come back with noise.
They came back with absence.
By noon, one of our supply routes went quiet. Not hit. Not raided. Just… silent. The runner never showed. The radio never crackled back. No blood, no warning, no message.
That was how you knew it was intentional.
The lair tightened around the news. People stopped pretending. Conversations sharpened. Knuckles rapped against tables, boots paced unevenly. Mace issued orders with clipped efficiency, but his eyes kept flicking toward Cager, like he was measuring her shadow instead of the problem.
Cager absorbed it without reaction.
That scared me more than anger would have.
She sent Nyra and Ash to reroute communications. Pulled three people off perimeter to cover the missing path. Issued quiet instructions that turned chaos into structure. She did not look at me once.
That was deliberate.
I stayed where I was told, near the eastern corridor, watching movement, listening for what wasn't being said. The Creepers didn't panic. They recalculated. But recalculation carried a cost, and everyone knew it.
This was the Saints reminding us they could bleed us slowly.
Nyra returned first, jaw tight. "Route's compromised. No bodies. No signs of struggle."
"Meaning?" someone asked.
"Meaning they walked away," she said. "Or were taken clean."
Silence followed.
Cager nodded once. "We adjust. No retaliation. Not yet."
Mace bristled. "You let them make the first move without response?"
"I let them show their hand," Cager replied calmly. "Now we know the game they want."
"And what game is that?" he pressed.
Cager finally looked at him. "Pressure. Isolation. They want us second-guessing each other."
Her gaze shifted then.
To me.
It was brief. Barely there. But it landed.
The message was clear. They were using me without ever touching me.
By evening, the tension turned personal.
A few of the older Creepers began to watch me openly. Not hostile. Not protective. Curious. Calculating. I felt it in the way conversations stopped when I approached. In the way tasks were reassigned just out of my reach.
I wasn't being pushed out.
I was being tested.
I found Cager in the training room after dark. She stood with her back to me, hands braced against the table, head bowed. Her jacket was off. Sleeves rolled. She looked tired in a way she never allowed herself to look in public.
"They're circling," I said quietly.
She didn't turn. "I know."
"They think I'm leverage."
"Yes."
"And you're letting them."
That made her turn.
Her eyes were sharp, but there was something raw underneath. Frustration. Fear. Guilt. She didn't mask it fast enough this time.
"I'm controlling the fallout," she said. "Not sacrificing you."
"Feels similar from where I'm standing."
She stepped closer. Stopped herself. The space between us felt deliberate now, like a boundary she was forcing into existence.
"You want to prove you belong," she said. "I get that."
"I already do," I replied. "You know I do."
Her jaw clenched. "Knowing doesn't stop politics."
"Then use me," I said. "Don't sideline me."
The words hung heavy.
She looked at me like she was weighing the risk. Not to the gang. To herself.
"They'll push harder if you step forward," she said.
"They already are," I replied. "You just won't let me feel it."
Silence stretched.
Finally, she nodded once. "Tomorrow. You come with me."
Relief surged through me, sharp and immediate.
Then she added, "But if this goes wrong—"
"I won't run," I said.
Her eyes softened, just for a second. "That's exactly the problem."
She turned away, conversation over.
Later that night, alone, I understood the truth.
This wasn't about whether I could survive the Saints.
It was about whether Cager could survive caring.
Cager
Control had always been easy.
People thought it was discipline, training, experience. It wasn't. Control came from distance. From never letting anyone close enough to matter.
Vale was already too close.
The Saints knew it. Mace suspected it. The Creepers felt it, even if they couldn't name it.
And Cager hated herself for the way her first instinct wasn't strategy, but protection.
If Vale got hurt because of her past, because of her choices, because of the way she couldn't cut this tie cleanly, Cager knew exactly what would happen.
She would burn everything to the ground.
That was not leadership.
That was attachment.
And attachment had cost her once already.
She pressed her palm flat against the cold wall, breathing through it, forcing herself back into control.
Tomorrow would test more than loyalty.
It would test whether she could still choose the gang over the one person who had made that choice feel impossible.