"Another thirty minutes past the site. Old forestry cabin that the service maintains for situations like this." I lean against the counter, studying her. "Weather forecast says we've got until early afternoon before the next system moves in. If we're smart about timing, we should be able to document what you need and make it back before conditions get dangerous."
"And if we're not smart about timing?"
"Then we spend the night at the shelter and head back tomorrow morning." I keep my tone neutral, professional. The prospect of being stranded overnight with her shouldn't make my pulse kick, but it does anyway.
Cara nods once, accepting the parameters. No complaints about the risk, no second-guessing the plan. Just tactical acknowledgment of the variables we can't control.
We finish the coffee in comfortable silence. The emergency pack I keep stocked sits by the door—first aid supplies, fire starter, space blankets, enough food and water to last three days if necessary. Old habits from flying MEDEVAC missions in Afghanistan, where being prepared for the worst meant you survived when everything went to hell.
The truck starts on the first try despite the cold. I let it idle while we load the gear, watching our breath form clouds in the frigid air. The sky is still dark, stars brilliant against the black expanse. Beautiful and unforgiving at once.
Cara climbs into the passenger seat and buckles in without hesitation. Trust, or at least the willingness to take the same risks she's asking me to take. Either way, it matters.
I pull away from the cabin as dawn begins to gray the eastern horizon. The roads are empty at this hour, just me and Cara and the endless forest pressing close on both sides. Snow covers everything in a pristine blanket that won't last once the sun rises.
For the first hour, we drive in silence. Cara watches the landscape roll past with attention that tells me she's memorizing landmarks, cataloging potential threats, running the same tactical assessments I learned during military service. Even relaxed, she's still operating like an agent in hostile territory.
I break the quiet when we pass Eagle Summit, pointing toward the ridgeline barely visible through morning mist. "That peak there is where I saw my first grizzly. Two years ago, making a supply run to a homestead on the far side. Mama bear with two cubs, crossing the road about fifty yards ahead. I stopped the truck and waited while they took their time."
Cara looks where I'm indicating, and I catch the slight smile that touches her mouth. "Did she charge?"
"Nope. Just looked at me like I was an inconvenience, then kept walking. The cubs followed her into the trees, and that was it." I downshift for a steep grade, feeling the truck respondsmoothly. "People think Alaska is all danger and death, but most of the time it's just wild things going about their business. You respect the land and the animals, and they leave you alone."
"Most of the time."
"Most of the time," I agree. "But when it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. No margin for error up here."
She turns that over, then asks, "Is that why you stayed? After you couldn't fly anymore?"
The question catches me off guard. Direct, personal, cutting straight to the thing I do not talk about with anyone except maybe Zeke when he pushes hard enough.
"Partly," I admit. "Afghanistan taught me I am good in situations where there is no room for mistakes. Flying wounded soldiers out of hot zones, making decisions in seconds that mean life or death. When I lost that, I needed something that still mattered. These supply runs are not combat MEDEVAC, but people depend on me to keep them alive through winter. That counts for something."
"I spent years of my life built around being a pilot. Then one piece of shrapnel, and it's all gone. Medical discharge at thirty-two with a future that looks nothing like the one I planned."
Cara absorbs that in silence, and I appreciate that she doesn't try to fill the space with empty platitudes about things happening for a reason or doors closing so windows can open. She just lets the truth sit between us, heavy and real.
"Stormwatch was supposed to be my defining case," she says eventually. "Six months of work, coordination across three agencies, intelligence that should've rolled up the entire West Coast trafficking network in one strike. I led the FBI contingent. Twenty agents, body armor, warrants signed by three different judges."
"But the warehouse was empty."
"Yeah." She's quiet for a moment, staring out at the passing trees. "You know what the worst part was? Not the empty warehouse. Not even realizing someone had burned us. It was watching my team's faces when the reports started coming in from the secondary sites. Hearing that agents were down, that people I'd trained with were dying, and knowing someone had used my operation to set them up for slaughter." Her voice goes rough. "Three of them had families. Kids. And for three years, those families have believed I'm the reason their loved ones aren't coming home."
The rawness in her voice hits me harder than the facts ever could.
"The evidence they manufactured against me was perfect," she continues. "So perfect that even people who'd known me for years started looking at me differently. Like they were seeing a stranger. Like everything we'd been through together was a lie." She finally looks at me. "Do you know what it's like to have everyone you trusted turn their backs on you? To go from respected agent to fugitive in forty-eight hours?"
"No," I say honestly. "But I know what it's like to lose your identity. To have the thing that defines you ripped away and be told you're not good enough anymore."
She nods slowly. "That's exactly what it was. They didn't just frame me for corruption. They erased who I was. Every case I'd worked, every conviction I'd helped secure, all of it tainted by suspicion. And the people who did it are still out there, still operating, still protected."
"So you ran."
"I ran," she confirms. "Because the traffickers we missed that morning were still moving product, still destroying lives. And whoever protected them was still in position to do it again. Staying meant trusting a system that'd already been compromised at the highest levels."
I understand that calculation. The moment when you realize the institution you believed in has failed you, and the only way to make things right is to operate outside the rules that stopped protecting you.
We reach the turnoff for the logging road just after nine in the morning. The pavement gives way to packed dirt and gravel, then to two ruts carved through snow by vehicles that have no business being this far into the backcountry. I engage the four-wheel drive and feel the truck settle into a lower, more aggressive stance.
