For the first hour, we drive in comfortable silence. Not the tense quiet of strangers, but the ease of two people who've moved past needing to fill every moment with words. Finn's hand rests on the console between us, and halfway through the drive, I reach over and lace my fingers through his. He squeezes once without taking his eyes off the road.
The gesture shouldn't mean as much as it does. But after years of operating alone, the simple contact grounds me in a way nothing else has.
Mountains rise on either side of the road, their peaks sharp against brilliant blue sky. Sunlight filters through stands of spruce and hemlock, creating patterns of shadow and light across the snow. Somewhere in the distance, a raven calls, the sound harsh and lonely.
We reach an area with cell coverage just after nine, and my phone erupts with notifications. Seventeen missed calls. Twenty-three text messages. All from Jake.
My blood goes cold.
The messages scroll past in chronological order.
DOJ inquiry into Tom's files. Official channels. Someone's asking questions.
Flag went up on your alias credit cards. They're tracking financial activity.
Recall order issued through official channels. You need to disappear. Now.
The last message came through two hours ago.
They know you're in Alaska. Federal marshals are coordinating with state police. Days at most before they ID your current location. Move now.
A second read-through doesn't change anything. There's no ambiguity. Someone inside the DOJ has connected my investigation to Tom's files. They've flagged my cover identities. And they've issued an official recall, which means the full weight of federal law enforcement will be looking for me within days.
My hands shake. Phone screen blurs as adrenaline dumps into my system, fight-or-flight response kicking in hard. Pulse hammers in my throat. Three years of running, three years of staying ahead of exactly this moment, and now the net is closing with days to spare.
"Cara?" Finn's voice cuts through the roaring in my ears. "What's wrong?"
"Jake." My voice sounds hollow, distant, like it belongs to someone else. "DOJ pulled Tom's files officially. They've flaggedmy alias credit cards, issued a recall order. They know I'm in Alaska." I scroll through the rest, stomach dropping further with each message. "Federal marshals are coordinating with state police. Days at most before they identify my exact location."
Finn's hands tighten on the wheel, knuckles going white against tanned skin. "Days. That's not much time."
"It's enough to run. Get out of Alaska before they narrow down my location. Disappear into a new cover identity, start over somewhere else." The words taste like ash, bitter and wrong. "Leave the investigation to the task force and hope they can finish what Tom started."
"Is that what you want to do?"
The question forces me to confront what I've been avoiding since Jake's messages started arriving. Running has kept me alive for years. Every time the net got too tight, I moved to a new city, a new identity, a new operational theater. Survival through constant motion, never staying anywhere long enough to leave traces someone could follow.
But running now means abandoning the evidence we just collected. It means leaving Finn to face questions about where I went and why he helped me. It means letting the Marshal win, letting Tom's murder go unanswered, letting three agents' deaths remain my fault in the official record.
"No," I say quietly. "I don't want to run. But I don't know if staying is survivable."
Finn pulls the truck over to the side of the road and kills the engine. We're maybe an hour outside Glacier Hollow, close enough to cell coverage that my phone keeps chiming with new notifications I'm ignoring. He turns to face me fully, expression serious.
"You've been running for years," he says. "How's that worked out?"
"I'm still alive."
"Are you?" He reaches across the console and takes my hand. His palm is warm, callused, steady against my trembling fingers. "Or are you just surviving? There's a difference, Cara. Survival is about not dying. Living is about having something worth staying alive for."
The question cuts through every defense I've built. Years of running has kept my heart beating, but I can't remember the last time I felt anything beyond exhaustion and determination and the constant low-grade fear that comes from being hunted. Last night was the first time in years I've felt alive instead of just functional.
"What are you suggesting?" I ask.
"Finish what you started. Use what time we have to get the evidence to Zeke, coordinate with the task force, build a case strong enough that it doesn't matter if they find you. Make them come to you on your terms instead of running scared."
"That's a good way to get arrested."
"Maybe. Or maybe it's a good way to force their hand. They've been operating in shadows, using your fugitive status to keep you isolated and discredited. What happens if you surface with evidence they can't ignore? If you make them either charge you publicly or admit the frame-up?"
