“I have to go. I can’t stay here.” Her voice pitched high and thin, fingers twisting the dress fabric hard enough to tear. The bravado she’d presented in the lodge was gone now. “Every second I wait, I lose any advantage. I need to run while I can still?—”
“I know. Believe me, I want you running too.” I pulled the burner phone from my pocket, my fingers clumsy withurgency as I hit Travis’s number. “But we need intel first. The right direction could be the difference between escape and—” I couldn’t finish that sentence. “Just trust me. Please.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Each ring stretched like an eternity while precious seconds bled away. Four rings.Come on, Travis.The man barely slept, spent his nights surrounded by screens and energy drinks and whatever ghosts haunted him from his CIA days?—
“Coop?” Travis’s voice came through thick with surprise. “Wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Thought you were knee-deep in?—”
“Travis, emergency.” I set the phone to speaker, keeping the volume low. “We have zero time.”
The casual tone vanished like it had never existed. “Talk to me.”
No questions, no demands for explanation. Just immediate readiness. That was Travis—brilliant, broken, and absolutely reliable when it counted.
“Need to know the best direction to run from this compound. I’ve got to get Mia out on foot, right fucking now. Assume a dozen hostiles who know the terrain.”
Keys clattered through the speaker—rapid typing that sounded like machine gun fire. “Pulling satellite imagery. Okay, got your location.” A pause. “Shit. You are really in the middle of nowhere. Two options, neither great.”
Mia leaned closer, her shoulder pressing against mine. Even through the terror, she was tracking every word, that sharp mind of hers working the problem.
“Option one—hunter’s cabin five miles south. Structure’s intact, possible supplies.”
“Downsides?”
“It’s a trap waiting to happen. Single access road, no secondary exits. Plus, it’s downhill from you—path of least resistance. Any tracker worth spit checks downhill first.”
My gut clenched. Of course the obvious shelter would be a deathtrap. “Option two?”
“West. Brutal terrain—cliff faces, ravines, sections where she’ll be climbing more than running. But it leads to a gravel road servicing a granite quarry. Occasional traffic, but no guarantees.”
“Distance?”
“Twelve miles of hell.”
“Fuck.” The image of Mia trying to navigate cliff faces in those torture devices Oliver had selected made me want to punch something. “She’s in four-inch heels. She’ll break her ankle in the first mile.”
“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “I wore my Converse to the dance since the dress was so long no one could see what shoes I had on. Those heels were killing me yesterday, so I didn’t want to wear them again if I had another choice.”
I stared at her, processing what that meant. She’d just multiplied her chances of survival.
“Smart girl,” Travis said, and I could hear genuine admiration in his voice. “Changes the entire equation. She can make that distance in proper shoes.”
“Even if she makes it, there’s no guarantee?—”
“Satellite from twelve hours ago shows three vehicles at the quarry. Maintenance trucks. But yeah, they might be gone.”
I made the only decision I could. “Get someone from Warrior Security there. Eight hours from now, that road. Beckett, Hunter, Aiden, it doesn’t matter. Hell, conscript anybody from Resting Warrior if you have to. But someone has to be there to extract her.”
“It’s going to be tight. Might have to secure a plane. Land far enough not to be seen but close enough to?—”
“Trav, just make it happen. We have zero other options. This situation is…bad.”
“Roger that. It’ll happen.”
I believed him. Travis himself wouldn’t be coming, but he’d make sure it happened.
“Mia,” Travis continued, “follow the cliff line north until you hit water—river cuts through a gorge there. Follow it upstream. Gradient’s brutal, basically climbing a staircase of rocks, but it’s a clear path. You’ll hit a bridge where the road crosses. Go west along the road toward the quarry. Don’t stop, don’t hide, don’t second-guess. Just move.”
