Watch the trail. Check the surroundings. Stay alive long enough to deal with the rest.
We're maybe forty minutes into the descent when Morrison's voice comes low from behind me. "Stop."
I freeze mid-step, hand moving toward the Sig. "What?"
"Broken branch at ten o'clock. Fresh. Not from wildlife." His voice is barely above a whisper. "Someone came through here recently. Moving fast."
I see it now—the branch dangling by threads of bark, the white wood of the break still pale and moist. He's right. That's hours old, maybe less. My pulse kicks up a notch.
"Could be hikers," I say, but I don't believe it.
"Could be." Morrison moves up beside me, scanning the terrain ahead. "Let's assume it's not. Different route down?"
I consider the options, mapping the terrain in my head. "There's a steeper path to the east. More exposure, harder going, but it comes out near the ranger station instead of the main trailhead."
"Your call."
I look at him, this Guardian operative who tracked me through miles of wilderness and is now deferring to my judgment about our escape route. There's trust in that, and competence, and something else that makes my chest feel tight. When was the last time someone looked at me like I was capable instead of broken?
"East path," I decide. "If they're watching the main trail, we'll bypass them."
We cut through dense manzanita that tears at our clothes and skin, dropping into a ravine that requires careful footing.
Morrison stays close, moving with the kind of awareness that says he's done this before in worse places. Once I lose my footing on loose scree, his hand shoots out to steady me, fingers firm around my upper arm. The touch lasts barely a second, but I feel the warmth of it, the strength, and then it's gone.
The ravine narrows ahead, water-smoothed rock slick with moisture. I test the first foothold, but my boot slips. Before I can catch myself, Flint's there—hands on my waist, steadying me, his chest against my back.
"Easy," he murmurs, voice low near my ear. "Let me help."
His hands don't leave as I find purchase, fingers splayed across my hips, thumbs pressing just above my belt. The touch isprofessional—practical—but heat blooms where he's holding me anyway, spreading through my body in a way that has nothing to do with exertion.
I make it across, but when I turn back, his eyes are dark with something that isn't tactical awareness.
Our hands meet as he crosses—his reaching, mine extended to help—and our fingers thread together naturally, palm to palm, calluses matching.
The contact holds longer than necessary. Long enough that I feel his pulse against mine, strong and steady. Long enough that the air between us thickens with awareness we're both pretending not to feel.
"Thanks," I manage.
"Anytime." His thumb brushes across my knuckles once before he releases me. "That's what Guardians do."
The words sound like a promise, and something in my chest loosens fractionally. Maybe I'm not alone in this after all. Maybe walking back into my nightmare doesn't mean walking back into it by myself.
We push on, and the mountain slowly releases us toward the world below, where explosive devices tick down to detonation and Marcus Greer waits to see if I'm brave enough or stupid enough to try stopping them.
I don't know which I am. But I'm about to find out.
FIVE
FLINT
The manzanita tearsat my clothes as we push through the dense scrub, branches scratching across my face and arms with enough force to draw blood. Carolina moves ahead of me with the confidence of someone who knows this terrain intimately, picking paths that barely exist, reading the landscape in ways that take years to learn.
I keep my focus split between following her and watching our six, hand never far from my Glock, every sense tuned to the possibility of contact.
The fresh break we spotted twenty minutes ago wasn't an accident. Someone came through here recently, moving fast enough to be careless about leaving a sign of their passage behind.
They're either inexperienced or they don't care about being tracked. Neither option is good. Inexperienced means unpredictable, and not caring means confident they won't be caught—or that catching them won't matter because they'll have accomplished their mission first.
