He opens his mouth to respond, but the sound of engines cuts him off. Two ATVs emerge from the tree line, Mace driving one, Cade the other. Backup, arriving right on time.
Mace surveys the scene with a practiced eye. "Nice shot."
"He drew on me."
"I saw." Mace is already reaching for zip ties. "Cade, deal with the wrist. I don't want him bleeding out before we hand him to the sheriff."
Cade, our team medic, moves to Derek with the kind of detached efficiency he brings to everything. He doesn't offer comfort, doesn't speak beyond clinical instructions. Within minutes, the wound is packed and bound, and Derek is secured and loaded onto the back of Mace's ATV.
"Sheriff Parker is meeting us at the compound." Mace glances at Sadie, then at me. "You two should come in, give statements. This needs to be official."
"We'll follow."
Mace nods, a knowing look in his eyes, and the ATVs disappear back into the trees. The clearing goes quiet. Just me and Sadie, standing in the bloodstained snow, the adrenaline slowly fading.
"You shot him." Her voice is strange. Not upset, exactly. Processing.
"He drew a weapon. I responded."
"In the hand."
"I could have killed him. Chose not to."
She looks at me for a long moment. I wait for the fear to set in. The realization of what I am, what I'm capable of. The moment she decides I'm too dangerous, too broken, too much like the violence I was trained for.
Instead, she crosses the space between us and wraps her arms around my waist.
"Thank you." The words are muffled against my chest. "For protecting me. For giving me the chance to face him. For not killing him even though he deserved it."
I set down my rifle and hold her. She's shaking, I realize. Delayed reaction. The fear she didn't let herself feel while Derek was here, hitting her all at once now that the threat is gone.
"You're safe." I press my lips to the top of her head. "He's never touching you again. Never coming near you. I promise."
"I know." She tilts her face up to look at me. Her eyes are wet but her jaw is set. "I know, Wolfe. Because you won't let him."
"No. I won't."
We stand there in the cold, holding each other, until her shaking stops and the sun breaks through the clouds for the first time in days. Valentine's Day. A holiday I've ignored for years,dismissed as commercial garbage for people who had something to celebrate.
Now I have something to celebrate.
"Come on." I release her reluctantly. "We need to give our statements. And you need shoes."
She looks down at her bare feet, half-buried in snow, and laughs. It's a watery sound, still edged with shock, but real. Alive.
"I was worried about you. Didn't stop to think about shoes."
"You were supposed to stay inside."
"I'm not good at doing what I'm told." She grins up at me. "You should know that by now."
I shake my head, but I'm smiling. Actually smiling, for the second time today. She's turning me into someone I don't recognize.
Someone I might actually like being.
Back inside the cabin, she dresses properly while I secure my weapons. The drive to the Guardian Peak compound takes twenty minutes, and I spend most of it with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around hers. Neither of us speaks. We don't need to.
At the compound, we give our statements to Sheriff Tom Parker, a grizzled man with sharp eyes who's worked with Guardian Peak before. He takes notes, asks clarifying questions, and doesn't bat an eye at the violence of the encounter.
