They load Hutchins into a security vehicle. Duke watches until the doors close and the vehicle pulls away, then finally relaxes from his alert posture. His job is done. The threat is contained. Pack is safe.
Devlin holsters his weapon and turns to me fully. "You texted you'd be thirty minutes."
"I know. I'm sorry." My voice cracks on the apology. "I thought I was safe. He'd been in interrogation all day. I didn't think?—"
"You didn't think he'd be released on insufficient evidence and come straight here to finish what he started." Devlin's voice isn't angry, just exhausted with the weight of how close this came to ending differently. "You didn't think he'd know exactly where to find you alone doing late field work in an isolated area."
"I needed the survey data before the weather changed." It sounds weak even to my own ears.
"I needed you alive." The words come out rough and raw and honest in a way that makes my chest tight. "Duke needed you alive. Your mother needed you alive. And you walked into a kill zone alone because survey data couldn't wait."
He's right. I took an unnecessary risk because I was tired of being afraid, tired of letting Hutchins control my choices, tired of treating my own workplace like enemy territory. And I almost died for it.
"I'm sorry," I say again, because there's nothing else to say that captures how badly I miscalculated tonight.
Devlin's expression softens fractionally. He pulls me into his arms, careful of my damaged throat, and just holds me while security vehicles light up the marsh around us and wind carries the sounds of arrest and evidence collection and the mundane aftermath of attempted murder.
Duke presses against both our legs, pack complete and protected.
"Never again," Devlin says into my hair. "You don't go anywhere alone until this is completely resolved. Even then, you text me before field work. You wait for backup. You don't take chances with your life because it's not just yours anymore."
The possessiveness in that statement should probably bother me. Instead it feels like safety, like being claimed by someonewho proved tonight he'll do whatever it takes to keep me breathing.
"Okay," I whisper against his chest. "Never again."
Medical arrives. They check my throat, document bruising, clear me to leave with instructions to watch for swelling or difficulty breathing. Statement can wait until tomorrow when I'm not running on adrenaline and fear and the aftermath of staring down a man who wanted me dead.
Devlin drives us back to base housing in silence, Duke in the back seat with his head resting on the console between us like he needs physical confirmation we're both still here. My hand finds Duke's head, scratching behind his ears in rhythm with my breathing.
"He saved my life," I say quietly. "If Duke hadn't tracked me, if you hadn't figured out where I was?—"
"But we did." Devlin's hand finds mine on Duke's head, covering it with warmth and solid reality. "Duke did his job. I did mine. You survived. That's what matters."
Except survival feels different when you've felt hands around your throat and heard someone calmly explain why your death would send an important message. Survival feels like borrowed time and second chances and the terrifying realization that evil doesn't always look like monsters in the dark.
Sometimes evil looks like a bitter middle-aged man in maintenance coveralls who thinks progress is persecution and equality is oppression.
When we reach Devlin's quarters, exhaustion crashes over me like a physical weight. My legs barely support the walk from truck to door. Duke stays pressed against my side, herding me toward safety with gentle insistence.
Inside, Devlin guides me to the couch. Duke jumps up beside me—a breach of training he's never made before—and puts hishead in my lap with absolute determination that he's not leaving me alone.
"Let him stay," I say when Devlin opens his mouth to correct him. "Please."
Devlin's expression softens. "He can stay."
I bury my hands in Duke's fur and finally let myself cry. Not fear, not relief—just the overwhelming weight of being alive when I came so close to not being. Devlin sits beside me, solid and present, one hand on my shoulder while I shatter into pieces and somehow trust that he'll help me find them all again.
Tomorrow I'll give my statement. Tomorrow I'll testify about Hutchins' confession and his hands around my throat and his absolute conviction that my death would prove his point. Tomorrow I'll face the reality that prejudice and resentment and hatred of progress can twist someone into attempting murder.
Tonight I just hold onto Duke and let Devlin hold onto me and breathe through each moment of being alive and safe and protected by people—and one very good dog—who refused to let me become a casualty of someone else's war against change.
10
ANDI
One Week Later
Morning sun streams through my office windows, illuminating the habitat survey maps on my bulletin board. One week after Duke took Hutchins down in the wetlands, I walk into this space and it actually feels like it belongs to me. Not because of ownership, but because I earned it through competence and refusing to let hatred drive me away.
