“Montana. Livingston. Where I grew up.” His eyes find mine, and somehow, he looks younger. I can almost picture him as the cowboy of his youth. “Global Dynamix wants to turn the ranch into a museum someday. TheVanguard Experienceor some shit. But I own it, and it’s still mine—for now. Still real.”
“Montana,” I repeat. “That’s not next door.”
“No, it ain’t. But Danny can take us in the hover car. I’ll leave the watch behind. I mean, they’ll still track me through the vehicle, but at least I won’t be pinged every five minutes.” He pauses. “I want to show you who I was, before all this. Before I became their property.”
The word lands heavy between us.Property.
I think about my mission, about the intel I’m supposed to be gathering, the reports I owe London…the lies I’ve already told. I think about Kat’s warning:when this is over, someone will have to put him down.
And I think about the man in front of me. The one who turned off his surveillance to see me. The one who wants to show me his childhood home, his real self, the person he was before they turned him into a symbol.
Or maybe even a weapon, a voice speaks up.
“Okay,” I say.
His face lights up, actually lights up, like a boy who’s just been told Christmas is coming early. It’s bloody adorable.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I lean in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “Take me to Montana, Nate Whitaker. Show me who you really are.”
His arms tighten around me, pulling me close, and I feel his smile against my hair.
This is dangerous, I think.This is so fucking dangerous.
But I’m already in too deep to care.
CHAPTER 25
VANGUARD
Home,sweet fucking home.
Danny sets the Meridian down in the field where we used to let the horses graze, and I sit there for a moment, watching the dust settle around us. The house is maybe a hundred yards away, with its weathered grey siding and sagging porch, the windows like empty eyes. The barn behind it has collapsed on one side, the roof caved in from years of neglect that makes my heart twinge with guilt.
Big Sky Country. That’s what they call Montana. And it’s true—the sky here is enormous, stretching from horizon to horizon in a blue so deep, it makes your chest ache. When I was a kid, I used to lie in that field and stare up at it for hours, pretending I could fall into it somehow, pretending I could vanish. If only I’d known that one day, I could fall into it by flying up, that I could literally disappear. I would have thought it would have solved all my problems.
I would have been very wrong.
“Nate?” Mia’s hand touches my arm. “Are you okay?”
I realize I haven’t moved or said a word. I’m just sitting here, staring out of the car at a house I haven’t seen in years.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.”
Danny stays with the car. He knows better than to ask questions about why we’re here. He just gives me a nod and settles back in his seat. I help Mia down on the dry grass, her hand small and warm in mine, and we start walking toward the house.
The wind smells like sage and dust and hay. Underneath that is something older, maybe manure from the neighbor’s cattle or the mineral tang of the creek that runs along the property line, smells I’d forgotten. They hit somewhere behind my sternum, a pressure that almost brings tears to my eyes.
Fucking nostalgia. It has a way of sweetening the past and hiding all the bitterness.
“It’s beautiful,” Mia says softly, looking at the mountains in the distance, the golden grass rippling in the wind. “I can see why you wanted to come back.”
Itisbeautiful, more so than I even remember, but that has nothing to do with it. I’ve spent fifteen yearsnotwanting to come back, not wanting to remember, not wanting to feel whatever it is I’m feeling right now.
“There’s a lot to love about this place,” I tell her. “The wide-open spaces, the mountains, the wilderness. The people here? Not so much, especially when they’re the ones who helped usher in the Dark Decade. All they wanted was more land and freedom, for their cattle and their underground bunkers. But out here, we’re more isolated from their ignorance.”
The porch steps creak under my weight. The same creak, the same spot—third step from the bottom, right side. I used to skip it when I came home late, back when coming home late meant punishment. My feet remember before my brain does, stepping over that spot automatically.
