And Colt Harrison is going to answer.
That's the promise we made.
The one we're both going to keep.
Two years.
I touch the dog tags one more time, feel the worn metal, the engraved name that isn't mine.
Sofia's reminder became Colt’s penance, then became my promise.
Some promises are made in silence. In the space between choosing wrong and choosing right. In the moment when someone looks at you and sees a person instead of a product, strength instead of fragility, worth instead of price.
Colt saw me. Really saw me. Not the sister Tyler sold, or the medic who patched up casualties, or the daughter trying to be what her mother wanted.
He saw Magnolia and Maggie and whoever I'm becoming, and he chose all of it.
Two years.
I'm going to survive them.
And then I'm going to call thatnumber.
And he's going to answer.
Because some promises are worth keeping.
And this one—this one I'm going to keep even if it kills me.
The sedan carries me away from the desert, from the violence, from the man who saved my life and changed everything in six hours.
But I'm not gone.
I'm just waiting.
Two years.
Then I'm coming back.
And Colt Harrison better be ready.
Because I'm choosing him too.
NINE
MAGGIE
Six months.
I'm sitting at the kitchen table in my Portland apartment—not my apartment, Emma Richardson's apartment—with cold coffee and the dog tags warm against my chest. Rain streaks the window, typical for November in the Pacific Northwest, and the sky is that particular shade of gray that makes you forget what sunlight looks like.
Emma Richardson serves coffee with a smile that never reaches her eyes.
The regular at table four—the professor who always orders a triple espresso and tips exactly 18%—doesn’t notice the smile is fake. Nobody at Roasted Beans notices much about Emma Richardson.
She’s pleasant, efficient, and utterly forgettable.
Perfect for witness protection.
