"Your cabin." She repeats it like she's testing the words for traps.
"Off-grid. Accessible only by air. No roads. No neighbors. No cell service. No one coming to check on us." I let each detail land. "Storm like this lasts days. Sometimes weeks. You'll be there until it passes and I decide it's safe to move you."
"I decide." She catches it. "You mean we decide."
"No." I look at her directly, letting her see the coldness. "I mean I decide. You're in my world now. My plane. My cabin. My rules. You want to survive this? You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, no questions and no arguments."
"That's not a deal. That's captivity."
"Call it whatever helps you sleep at night." I turn back to the controls. "But understand this: those men back there want you dead. They're professionals. Well-funded. Connected. They'll spend whatever resources it takes to find you. And they're going to start by looking for small planes that took off from remote airstrips. We can't land anywhere official. Can't file flight plans. Can't contact authorities. We're dark until I figure out how to keep us both alive."
She's silent. I can hear her mind working through options, trying to find a way out.
"What were you doing there?" She asks finally. "At that airstrip. In the middle of nowhere. Why were you there at exactly the right time?"
Smart question. Dangerous question.
"Wrong place, wrong time." I meet her eyes briefly. "Just like you. Difference is, I know how to survive being in the wrong place. You're going to have to learn. Fast."
"I don't believe you."
"Don't care." Her belief changes nothing. "You've got blood on your hands. Literal blood. You should clean up. First aid kit's in the cargo net behind the copilot seat."
She doesn't move immediately. Just stares at me like she's trying to figure out what I am. I let her look. Better she understands now than later.
Finally, she moves. Slow and careful. I track her in my peripheral as she finds the first aid kit and starts dealing with her injuries. She's competent with it. Knows how to clean wounds. Wilderness training, probably.
Just unprepared for the humans in it.
"What's your name?" She asks while wrapping gauze around her palm.
"Magnus." I don't offer more than that.
"I'm Neve." She says it like it matters. "Neve Dalton. I'm a wildlife biologist. I was doing research on wolf pack behavior when I saw something on my trail camera footage. Women being trafficked. I have evidence. It's on an SD card."
Of course she does. Proof. Data. Evidence that makes her valuable and expendable in equal measure.
"That evidence is why they want you dead."
"Yes." She touches her jacket pocket. "If I can get it to the authorities?—"
"You're not getting it to anyone." My voice cuts through her plan. "Not until I know we can do it without dying in the process. Those men weren't amateurs. They're professionals. Connected. Funded. And they will burn the entire world down to get that evidence back and eliminate the witness who captured it."
"But people are being hurt." Her voice rises with emotion. "Women are being trafficked. Moved. Sold. I can't just sit on this information while they?—"
"While they what? Keep trafficking?" I turn to look at her fully. "They're going to keep trafficking whether you turn over that evidence or not. Whether you live or die. Whether I live or die. The only question is whether we stay alive long enough to figure out how to use that evidence without it becoming our death sentence. Right now, survival takes priority over justice. Every single time."
She opens her mouth to argue. Closes it. Finally settles on glaring at me with anger and helplessness.
Good. Hate is easier to work with than trust. Hate keeps people sharp.
The conversation dies. She retreats into silence, finishing the bandaging and then staring out the window at wilderness stretching endlessly below. The landscape shifts beneath us, forest giving way to frozen lakes and barren tundra. The clouds build higher, darker, casting shadows that race across the whiteexpanse. Outside temperature drops. I make adjustments for the changing air pressure, the shifting winds that signal the storm's approach.
The cabin appears below us, a dark speck against white wilderness. I begin descent, hands moving through familiar adjustments. The storm is closer now, visible on the horizon like a gray wall moving toward us.
We'll make it. Barely. And then we'll be trapped together with secrets that could get us both killed. Her with evidence that makes her a target. Me with a life built on operating where the law doesn't reach.
She's watching the cabin approach with tension. Finally understanding the full scope of her situation. No escape. No help coming. Just her and me and the wilderness and whatever happens next.
