#gracie witlock

Charlie didn't say any of it out loud.

She waited until the wagon was put away, until the horses were settled, until the noise of Valentine dulled into its usual evening murmur. She waited until Brandon had gone, gone to lay down for the night.

Only then did it start to burn.

It simmered first—low and controlled, the way she'd learned to hold anger like a live coal in her gut. The kind that kept your voice even and your hands steady. The kind that didn't betray you in front of people who had already decided what you were allowed to feel.

Gracie's words replayed anyway.

I need my brother, not a caged animal.

Charlie leaned against the hitching post and closed her eyes, jaw tightening. Not because the words were wrong—because they were careless. Because they landed on a man already broken open and called it motivation.

She could still see Brandon sitting on the cell floor, shoulders curved inward, badge heavy in his hand like it weighed a hundred pounds. Could still hear the way his voice had frayed when he said too late, like that phrase had been living in him for weeks, chewing him hollow.

And Gracie had stood there—scarred, furious, alive—and demanded strength from a man who had been drowning in guilt since the moment her blood hit the snow.

Charlie understood why. God help her, she did.

Gracie had been flayed and stitched and carved and still standing. She had survived something no one should have to survive, and survival had sharpened her into something brittle and bright and cutting. Pain like that didn't leave room for gentleness. It demanded absolutes. Action. Certainty.

But understanding didn't soften the anger.

Because kicking a man while he was down and calling it truth didn't make it right.

Charlie dragged a hand down her face and stared out at the street. People passed. Laughed. Lived. None of them had seen Brandon fold in on himself like he didn't deserve to take up space. None of them had heard him say he should have been caged, like maybe that would have kept everyone safe.

You should have been there for me.

Charlie exhaled slowly through her nose.

As if he hadn't been trying to carry the weight of everyone at once. As if knowing about the letters—knowing about the taunts—had been some kind of privilege instead of another cut.

And that was the part that made her chest ache with something sharper than anger.

The implication that she shouldn't have known.

That Brandon shouldn't have told her.

That his pain was a private failing, to be borne all alone.

Charlie had seen that thinking before. She'd lived it.

The idea that strength meant silence. That needing anyone made you weak. That you proved your worth by how much you could endure without breaking in front of witnesses.

It ruined people.

She pushed off the post and started walking, boots scuffing dust, thoughts pacing faster than her steps. Gracie wanted her brother back upright and armored and functioning. Wanted him fixed—as if healing was something you could bark into existence.

Charlie wanted him breathing.

Wanted him sitting on a wagon watching herds drift across open land, wanted him talking about anything that wasn't guilt or blood or failure. Wanted him alive enough to feel tired instead of empty.

And maybe that was the difference.

Gracie had survived hell and demanded the same of him.

Charlie had watched too many strong men crumble under the weight of being told to endure.

She stopped, fists clenched at her sides, and stared at nothing.

You're not a caged animal, she thought fiercely, like she could send it after him on the wind. And even if you were—animals don't deserve punishment for surviving.

She didn't know if Gracie would ever see that. Didn't know if she ever could, not with scars still fresh and rage still burning hot enough to cauterize empathy.

But Charlie knew one thing with painful certainty.

If Brandon disappeared again—if he folded in on himself and decided the world would be better without him—Charlie would never forgive the people who demanded strength without offering grace.

Charlie spotted Graham before he spotted her—silhouetted on horseback against the dirty white of the snow, reins slack, shoulders hunched against the cold.

"Hey, Graham," she called, already walking toward him. "Come let me in the back door."

She didn't ask if Brandon was inside. She knew he was. The sheriff had said it plainly—locked himself in one of the cells like a wounded animal that didn't trust its own hands anymore. Charlie's jaw tightened at the thought.

Graham swung down from his horse. "Which door?"

"The one nobody watches," she said, already turning away.

Inside, the jail smelled like old iron and damp wool. Voices echoed low and strained from the cellblock.

Alex Ashcroft stood just inside one of the open cells, speaking carefully, like every word was meant to be a handhold.

"…you get yourself better. You get back on your feet," Alex was saying. "At the end of all this healing, you're gonna get out there again. And you're gonna prove to everyone—especially him—that we are not the animals he wants us to be. He doesn't win by making you sit in this cage all day hating yourself."

Charlie slowed without meaning to.

Luna, sitting inside the cell, snapped back hard. "Just because Gracie says death isn't good enough for him—that's fucking bullshit. If he wants to know what a caged animal is, he's talking to the wrong fucking Witlock."

She stood abruptly and brushed past Charlie without a glance, boots heavy against the floor as she stormed out.

Alex sighed, rubbing his face. "I don't expect you to just take this and magically feel better," he said more quietly. "Take the time you need. As long as you need. But do not let it keep you here. Okay?"

A gunshot cracked outside—sharp, too close.

Alex straightened. "You know what to do, Witlock," he said, already moving, then he was gone.

Charlie stepped into the cell.

Brandon sat on the floor with his back against the stone wall. His hair hung loose around his face instead of slicked back, too long now. His beard was uneven, neglected. A cast swallowed his leg. One hand was wrapped tight, white bandages stark against dirt and blood. He didn't look up when she sat beside him.

For a moment, she said nothing. Just existed there. Solid. Quiet.

"You told her?" Gracie's voice cut in sharp from outside the cell.

Brandon lifted his head slightly. "What?"

"You told her?" Gracie repeated.

"Told her what?"

Charlie felt it then—that edge in Gracie's tone. Accusatory. Territorial. Like Charlie was trespassing somewhere she hadn't earned the right to be.

"You know exactly what you told her."

"I'm very confused with what you're asking me right now." His voice was tired and weak, like that of a man beaten down.

"Thomas," Gracie said flatly. "Ring a bell?"

Brandon let out a hollow laugh. "What? That he got in my head? That he called me a dumb caged animal who should've been locked up? Is that why I'm sitting in this goddamn cell?"

Charlie's fingers curled against her knee, hard enough that she felt it in the joint. Every instinct in her wanted to step forward, put herself between them, snap something sharp and ugly back at Gracie until she stopped aiming her words like knives at a man already bleeding.

Careful, she warned herself. Careful.

"Do you believe that?" Gracie pressed. "Do you physically believe you're a caged animal?"

Charlie's gaze flicked to Brandon before he answered—saw the way his shoulders drew in, the way the bars framed him too neatly for comfort.

"Do I look it?" he asked.

"No. I never believed that," Gracie snapped. "I never believed Luna was unhinged. Never believed Bobby was a kid playing at marrying into the name. Never believed any of it. I stayed strong on that damn mountain longer than I can remember. I told you I didn't want him killed. I didn't want corruption touching any of us. And as much as I wanted to put a bullet in his head, I didn't."

Charlie swallowed hard. She could hear it—the truth and the fury tangled together, the way pain sharpened everything it touched. If Gracie hadn't earned every ounce of that anger in blood, Charlie would've been on her feet already.

"Did I?" Brandon shot back.

"No."

"I didn't," he said again, firmer.

"But you punched him. You fought Alex to get to him."

Charlie's teeth ground together. And I'd have done the same, she thought. Every time.

"What the hell was I supposed to do while he kept taunting me?"

"You were supposed to be there for me."

That landed.

Charlie saw it hit him like a blow to the chest, watched the fight drain out of him all at once. The words were quieter than shouting, but heavier—because they were the one accusation he already believed.

"Yeah," Brandon breathed. "Like he said. I wasn't."

Charlie's jaw clenched. Her mouth opened, just a fraction, then shut again. Don't you dare let that stand, she thought—and then, just as quickly, Don't. Not now.

"I don't believe his words," Gracie said. "But yesterday I needed my brother, and he was too angry to even talk to me. I understand you're pissed at him—but how do you think I feel? I'm the one with scars. All you got were letters."

Charlie felt heat flare behind her eyes. Letters don't carve skin, she wanted to say. But they can still cut to the bone. She dug her nails into her palm instead, grounding herself in the sting. Gracie had scars Charlie couldn't see, things no one should have survived. That mattered. It had to.

But so did this.

"Don't you dare think I wouldn't trade places with you."

"I'm not saying you wouldn't."

"I would," Brandon said. "Without hesitation."

Gracie exhaled hard. "He wasn't after you. He wanted your blood boiling so you'd do something irrational. I don't know what happened to you—but I had to force myself to talk to you because you wouldn't come to me."

Charlie looked at Brandon again—at the cast, the bandages, the way he sat folded inward like he was trying to take up less space in his own skin. You broke trying to hold all of it, she thought. And she's asking why you cracked.

"Same goes for you," Brandon said to Gracie.

Charlie let out a slow breath through her nose, staying seated, staying silent. She hated it. Hated every second of holding her tongue. But she knew if she spoke now, it would be a fight Gracie couldn't afford—and neither could Brandon.

So she stayed where she was. A witness. A wall. Waiting for the moment she was allowed to speak.

She paused. Then nodded, tired. "Yeah. Maybe. I need my brother—not a caged animal. Because you've never been that. Everything he's said—to you, to Pops, to Luna, to Bobby, to Ryan—it's all false. And I know I'll never get an apology."

Charlie stayed still, back straight, hands folded like restraint alone could keep her from stepping in. Gracie was right—and wrong—in ways that tangled together so tightly Charlie couldn't pull one thread without tearing the rest apart. She understood the anger. She understood the exhaustion. She understood that Gracie was speaking from scars that went deeper than bone.

But god, she was flaying him alive.

"You know what hurts the most?" Brandon asked quietly.

Charlie felt her chest tighten before Gracie even answered.

"What?"

"That one line he wrote. That I was supposed to protect you. And I didn't. I came too late."

Charlie closed her eyes briefly. Don't you dare carry that too.

"I didn't need a knight in shining armor."

"That's not what I mean. When it mattered," he said, voice breaking, "I wasn't there."

Charlie's fingers twitched. She wanted to tell him that being late wasn't the same as failing. That sometimes survival itself was proof enough. But this wasn't her ground to speak on—not yet.

"The only thing I believe," Gracie said slowly, "is that sometimes when I need you, you storm off. Everything else—you've always been there. What happened on that mountain was my mistake. I chose to be the hero."

Charlie inhaled through her nose. You shouldn't have had to be one.

"You did what you thought was right."

"Yeah." Gracie answered the first soft break in anger Charlie had heard.

"You tried to get away so no one else would get hurt," Brandon said. "I wasn't there. That's what hurts."

"If you were too late," Gracie snapped, "I wouldn't be standing here."

"You were unconscious when I found you."

"And yet I'm alive," she shot back. "So how is that too late?"

Charlie's jaw tightened. She could picture it too clearly—Brandon finding her broken and bloodied, thinking he'd failed while she was still breathing. That kind of moment didn't leave a man. It nested.

"You had skin flayed off your arm," he whispered.

"And 'debt paid' carved into my back," Gracie said sharply. "And I'm still standing. So stop calling that too late."

Charlie swallowed hard. Jesus Christ.

Brandon folded in on himself, shoulders caving. "Pops taught me to stop the bad guys."

"No one can stop him," Gracie said. "Not you. Not Pops. Not Luna. He's clinically insane. This is not the man I married." She reached through the bars and gripped Brandon's sleeve. "I'm annoyed—but not at you," she said. "I'm annoyed at myself. And I can't watch you become what he called you."

Charlie watched Brandon's face crumple, tears finally breaking through. She stayed where she was. Didn't touch him. Didn't interfere. Gracie needed to say this—and maybe Brandon needed to hear it—even if it hurt like hell.

"I can't see you like this," Gracie finished. "Get up. Clean yourself. Put your badge back on. Until then, I don't want to hear it."

She turned and walked away.

The sound of her boots faded.

Brandon stared after her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he unpinned his badge and lowered it into his palm.

That was when Charlie moved.

Not fast. Not sharp. Just enough to remind him he wasn't alone.

"So," she said lightly, like she hadn't just watched him get torn open, "you made me spend a whole night in the snow just to find you in Valentine?"

He huffed a weak breath. "Didn't mean to. Was gonna come get you. Go huntin'."

"You wanna go now?" she asked softly, careful with every syllable, like a hand offered to a skittish horse.

He gestured vaguely at himself. "Broken leg. Broken hand. Fractured skull."

"We could sit on the wagon."

"I can't shoot."

"You don't have to."

Charlie let a small, steady smile touch her mouth. "We don't even have to hunt. Just look. See where the herds are moving."

Brandon nodded, slow and thoughtful. "I like that."

"Want me to get the wagon?"

He nodded again.