Wyatt laughs warmly. “No. The cards didn’t doom us. They warned us. Hickok got shot because he trusted the room. Sat with his back to the door. Thought he was safe.”
Jake adds, “Dead Man’s Hand means don’t assume safety.”
“Still sounds like you’re saying it’s an omen,” I grumble.
Wyatt spreads his hands. “More like a reminder,” he says. “Don’t sit with your back to the door.”
I look down at the two black aces and two black eights in front of me, thinking about everything I still don’t know about these men. The years they spent together in battle, the waiting, the injuries, the suffering, the struggle. They’ve been through things I can’t even imagine. But then, I guess I’ve been through things they can’t imagine, either.
“Speaking of our past,” says Damian. “It’s Hellbent Night in two days.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“We celebrate the anniversary of that first mission every year,” Jake explains. “Super dorky. Ryder thinks it’s dumb, but it’s to remind ourselves of what we went through, what we shared, what we will do for each other.”
“I don’t think it’s dumb,” Ryder protests. “I think it tends to be an excuse to get drunk more than anything else, but I think it’s…charming.” He gives me a wry smile.
“All right,” says Jake, clapping his hands. “Enough cowboy lore. Someone bet something.”
“Okay,” I say. I reach into the licorice bag and throw a twist on the table on top of Wyatt’s. “I see Wyatt’s licorice and I raise.”
Jake slaps the table. “Hell yes.”
We play a few more quick hands while Ryder goes back to the kitchen and continues cooking. He likes to cook for the enjoyment of it, and makes it clear that anyone else stepping into his space will break the rhythm he’s building. I think he just wants some time alone. Pots clink, the sound of a wooden spoon tapping the side of the pan, the windows fog up with steam. Finally:
“Dinner,” he calls.
He sets a pot on the table, and we settle around it. We used to eat together like this before I was taken—“family dinner,” they always called it. It feels good to be seated among the four of them, eating Ryder’s sausage pasta. He says he threw it together, but it tastes like one of the fanciest meals I’ve ever had.
Conversation drifts over the sound of forks scraping plates. We talk about the day, the interminable rain, praise Ryder’s cooking. Damian says he’ll go feral if we stay here another day, but Ryder just answers with a laugh that makes me think we aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
Only Jake barely touches his food. He has Silas’s tablet in his hand, his head bent over it. He’d been waiting on a decode this afternoon, he explains—whatever that means—but now that the progress bar has finished, he’s back at it, typing one-handed while twirling pasta with the other.
“If the connection holds,” he says, eyes glued to the screen, “I might finally finish unpacking these logs.”
“Cool, bro,” says Damian nonchalantly. Wyatt swats his arm.
“I’m more worried about what Max’s card hand means for us.” Damian winks at me. “If I get bit by a snake again, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Is that why you all have that snake tattoo?” I ask, suddenly piecing it together. Wyatt and Damian both nod.
“Yup,” says Wyatt. “Around a dagger—symbolizing the one we used to release the venom.”
But before we can get into it any further, Jake sits up straighter, his whole body going still.
“That’s weird.”
“Hmm?” says Wyatt, only mildly interested.
“I just reconnected to the diagnostic,” Jake says slowly. His fingers fly over the keys, eyes narrowing at the screen. “And it’s…responding. Or trying to.”
“Isn’t it supposed to?” asks Wyatt.
“No, this is different,” says Jake, his attention fevered. “This is external. It’s like it recognized me. Some kind of handshake request.”
The attitude of patient tolerance among the men shifts. Ryder frowns.
“It’s live,” Jake continues. “And it’s not local.”
