Jason snapped the wire.
The timer froze. Blinked once.
Then went dark.
Silence swallowed the dam, heavy and absolute. The only sound was water roaring beneath us and my heartbeat pounding like it was trying to break free.
Jason sagged back on his heels, eyes wide, chest heaving. “Cut it… at three.”
Forest exhaled hard, lowering his rifle. “Remind me never to let you cook dinner.”
Despite the ringing in my ears, I laughed—wild, shaky, half hysteria. Forest pulled me into him, just for a second, grounding me against the quake still rolling through my chest.
We were alive. The valley was safe.
For now.
Because when I glanced back at the ridgeline, through the haze of smoke and gunpowder, I swore I saw him.
North. Watching. Smiling.
And then he was gone.
23
Forest
The echo of Jason’s cutters snapping the wire was still ringing in my ears when I caught the glint of movement on the ridge. Tall. Confident. That smile I’d know anywhere.
“North,” I muttered.
Zoe followed my gaze. Her breath hitched. “He’s taunting us.”
Not for long.
I was already moving, rifle tight in my grip, boots slamming over concrete as I vaulted the barricade. Gravel sprayed under my boots as I hit the service trail that snaked up the ridge.
“Forest!” Zoe called, chasing me without hesitation.
Jason’s voice cracked over comms. “Are you insane? You just ran a sprint marathon on adrenaline!”
“You can yell at me later,” I growled. “He’s right here.”
Zoe
Branches whipped my arms as we crashed through the treeline, Forest ahead of me like a relentless force of nature. My lungs screamed, my legs begged to quit—but quitting wasn’t in me, not with North dangling like a ghost just out of reach.
A shadow darted between trees ahead, deliberate, fast but not fleeing. Leading.
“He’s drawing us in!” I hissed.
Forest didn’t slow. “Good. Let him.”
Gunfire snapped behind us—Lane’s deputies clashing with the wolves at the dam—but I shoved the noise out. There was only North now, and the fire in my blood demanding we end this.
We crested the ridge, and there he was.
Standing on a rock outcrop, moonlight painting him silver, North looked like a man born from the mountain itself. Calm. Smiling. Waiting.
