“And she’s running from something. Someone. I don’t know what, but she’s haunted. And I keep thinking…” I drag a hand over my face. “I keep thinking it’s gonna be like Afghanistan all over again. That feeling right before the IED. You know? When everything felt good for one damn second —”
“Then it blew up,” Viper finishes softly. “And they died. And we lived. Barely.”
I nod. “I couldn’t save them. Couldn’t save so fucking many. And now with her… if I get close, she gets hurt. That’s the pattern.”
Viper flicks his cigarette into the mud. “You’re not wrong about falling for civilians, brother. They don’t belong in our world. They don’t understand the ugliness. And they don’t survive it. At least, not without a firm fucking hand. But that never goes over well, either. Take it from me: you’re better off.”
“A firm hand?” I stare at him. “That's not protection, Viper. That's control. That's what she's running from.”
He steps closer. “Fine. Hide from the truth. There’s still something you can do. Something that’ll make the world safer for her, even if she never knows it.” His voice lowers. “Help me get Randall Pike.”
“You said he was a rapist. A killer.”
“Oh, he’s more than that.” Viper lights another cigarette. “I dug deeper. Turns out he’s connected to a case out of Coeur d’Alene. A girl was found in the woods. Murdered and — ” He pauses, eyes narrowing. “Skinned.”
Ice crawls down my spine.
“Pike’s not just a predator,” Viper whispers. “He’s a butcher. And the stuff I’m uncovering now?” He glances toward the trees. “Breaker… I’ve never seen anything this sick.”
BANG.
The gunshot tears the morning apart, piercing the fog and loose clouds with a violence that is instantly and unmistakably personal. The round misses Viper’s head by less than a handspan and slams into the rotting mill wall, shattering ancient cedar and sending fragments spraying like bone shrapnel. The sound is so close I feel its shockwave punch through my teeth and rattle my eardrums, and I am moving on pure instinct, diving toward the battered side of Viper’s truck before his voice catches up with me.
“Down!” He shouts.
We dive behind Viper’s truck, taking cover as more shots crack through the woods. Metal sings as bullets hit the frame, sending sparks skittering across the dirt.
“Shit,” Viper growls. “That’s Pike. Has to be. I must be slipping.”
“Or he’s that fucking good.”
“Little of column ‘A,’ little of column ‘B.’ I should’ve been more careful dealing with a monster like him.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’d rather not have my truck shot to fuck. We need better cover,” he says as he draws his gun, eyes scanning the treeline for the source of the shots. “I’ll lay down some cover fire; you make a break for the sawmill entrance.” Before I can answer, he rises and begins firing toward the trees. “Go!”
I run, and in steps, he’s right behind me. We crash through a broken doorway into the sawmill’s shadowed interior, ducking behind stacks of old lumber. Dust rains down from the rafters as another bullet pierces the wall inches from my ear.
My phone rings. I frown at it, decline the call, but then it rings again. Not now.
The screen flashesMOLLY, and dread spikes hard enough to freeze my blood.
“Answer it. It could be important,” Viper says, noting the look on my face.
I answer. “This is not a good time. What the fuck is happening?”
“Are you being shot at?”
“Maybe. Make it quick.”
Her voice is high and shaking. “Breaker—it’s Riley. Something happened. She screamed in the parking lot, loud enough for the whole damn bar to hear. Then she tore out of here in her car. Something scared her bad.”
Another bullet punches into the wall above me, peppering me with rotting wooden shrapnel.
“Riley’s gone?” I rasp.
For a second, I forget about Pike, about the bullets. All I see is Riley, alone and shaking, her whole body a live wire of fear. I hear the echo of her laughter from last night, the way her fingers curled around mine as we lay together in perfect darkness. For a moment, both realities coexist: the cold, lethal now, and the soft, fragile then.
