Something breaks and mends inside me simultaneously. I step forward and wrap my arms around him, breathing in his scent of pine and gunmetal.
"Go," I whisper against his chest. "Bring her back."
He kisses me—hard and fast, like he's trying to pour everything he can't say into that single moment of contact. Then he's gone, leaving nothing but the ghost of his warmth and the echo of boots on metal stairs.
I don't sit.
I can't.
Instead, I pace the war room like a caged animal, the comm unit in my ear picking up nothing but tactical silence.
Asa's pulled satellite drone feeds onto the split screens, giving us a bird's eye view of the operation, but watching without being able to help is its own kind of torture.
My mind won't stop spinning.
Lucia is just a child. An innocent child.
She's in that chair because of me—because I couldn't let go of the story, couldn't stop digging even when the ground started giving way beneath my feet.
Is the truth worth this? Worth putting a twelve-year-old girl in the crosshairs of a man who treats human lives like chess pieces?
I grip the edge of Asa's desk so hard my fingers go white, trying to ground myself in something solid. The metal is cool against my palms, real in a way that nothing else feels right now.
Then Asa's voice cracks the silence like glass.
"We've got a breach point. Entry in five." He pauses, and something in his tone makes my skin crawl. "And Sloane?—"
"What?" The word comes out sharper than I intend.
He turns the monitor toward me, and my blood runs cold.
"Granger left something else behind. A second file."
31
LOGAN
The firewatch station looms ahead like a crooked headstone jutting from snow-dusted pines.
My breath crystallizes in front of me as I hold up a closed fist—the signal to halt. The team freezes instantly, years of training kicking in without conscious thought.
Through my scope, I study the condemned structure.
Two stories of weathered wood and rusted metal, windows mostly broken, paint peeling like dead skin. The observation tower lists slightly to one side, as if gravity's been slowly claiming it since the station was abandoned.
Perfect place for an ambush.
I signal with two fingers, and the team fans out with fluid precision.
Ryker sweeps wide left, using the treeline for cover. Knox circles to secure the rear ridge, rifle balanced against his shoulder with the same steady hands that once saved all our lives in anotherlifetime. Caleb advances in a practiced crouch, his usual jokes locked away behind mission focus. And Eli guards my six.
They move like we never left the field.
Like Echo-13 was yesterday instead of years ago.
But the air feels different now. Heavier. More personal.
The old ghosts are whispering.
