“It does.” I keep my voice level. “But I cannot tell you where.”
The frustration in her expression mirrors something in my chest, the reaching for information that will not come. Images without context. Skills without memory.
“What were you doing out here?” I shift the subject. “When the… iron bird fell from the sky.”
“Iron bird?” Her brows pull together. “Oh! You mean the helicopter?” Her lips pinch. “Don’t they have a word for helicopter in Romanian?”
I shrug, not sure how to answer.
“We were working,” she says. “Geological consultants. Surveying the northern ridges for mineral deposits. Exciting stuff, right? Rocks and more rocks.” The brightness in her voice is forced. “Luke—my colleague—he knew these mountains like the back of his hand. Said they were rich in rare earth elements or something technical. I mostly just documented.”
Consulting. Minerals. Elements.
The words mean little to me, but I recognize the cadence of a story told too carefully. Rehearsed edges, polished by repetition.
She is lying.
Not entirely—pieces of truth threaded through fabrication. But the core is false.
I do not challenge her. We all have things we protect.
“Your colleague,” I say instead. “Luke. He escaped.”
“Yes, you said that they both got out.” Her eyes search mine, looking for confirmation. “He and Ember. The other consultant.”
“Yes.” The memory is clear. Figures moving away from the wreckage before the fire consumed everything. Too distant to identify, but alive. “They escaped before the fire.”
Relief crosses her face, stark and immediate. “Good. That’s—okay. Good.”
“You care for them.”
She nods. “Luke’s solid. Responsible. The kind of person who actually reads instruction manuals.” She picks at the hem of the shirt. “And Ember… She’s brilliant. Young, but brilliant. They’re good people.”
“And you believe they will search for you.”
Something complex moves through her expression. “I don’t know. Maybe? If they get back to safety and think there’s any chance…” She swallows. “But they also might think I’m dead. The crash was… K, you saw it. Nobody should’ve walked away from that.”
“Yet you did.”
“Youwalked me away from it,” she corrects. “Carried me, more like. I was unconscious. Or dead. I’m still not clear on which.”
I don’t say anything. Just study her face—the slight tremor in her jaw, the way she keeps touching her chest like she’s testing her own existence.
“Why?” she says abruptly. “Why did you save me?”
I cock my head. “I…” I pause because I don’t have a clear answer. “Because… I could.”
She frowns, apparently not satisfied. “You could? That’s it?”
“Yes,” I say, still not understanding the strange pull I’d felt when I heard the crash. The overwhelming need to get there.
She huffs a breath. “You really are a fountain of information, you know that?”
“No,” I say because I know sarcasm when I hear it. I don’t offer more, just sit and let the crackle of the fire fill the space between us.
“Where are we?” she eventually asks. “Exactly?”
“The mountains.” I gesture vaguely toward the cave mouth. “High elevation. Perhaps two days’ walk from the lower valleys.”
