SARAH
The satellite feed blurs in front of my eyes. I blink hard, refocusing on the infrared imagery from the Montana-Idaho border. Committee vehicle movements, potential safe houses, anything that might tell us where Reeve is operating from.
It's past midnight. I should be in my quarters, getting sleep before tomorrow's operational briefing. Instead, I'm here in the analysis room, chasing patterns through surveillance data because sleep means lying in the dark with my thoughts.
Better to work.
The door opens behind me. I don't turn around. Most of the team is asleep at this hour.
"Burning the midnight oil again?" Micah's voice. Of course it is.
"Couldn't sleep." I keep my eyes on the screen, tracking a vehicle convoy through the thermal imaging. "Thought I'd get ahead on tomorrow's intel package."
Footsteps cross the room. He stops a few feet behind my chair, close enough that I'm aware of his presence but not crowding me. Micah's always been good at reading boundaries.
"Find anything useful?"
"Maybe." I pull up a different feed, showing a warehouse compound outside Missoula. "Committee-linked shell company owns this property. Infrared shows activity in the past week. Could be nothing. Could be Reeve's staging point."
"Good catch." He leans in slightly to see the screen better. "Kane will want eyes on that location."
We fall into the old pattern easily. Too easily. Discussing operations, analyzing data, the professional partnership we built before everything went to hell. Before he disappeared.
Before Gabe.
"I ran into your brother last month," Micah says, casual as if commenting on the weather. "Saw him up at Talon Mountain. He punched me." A wry edge enters his voice. "But he looks good. Mara's good for him."
Everything inside me goes cold, then hot.
"Don't." The word comes out sharp as a blade.
Micah pauses. "Don't what?"
"Don't say his name." I spin my chair around to face him, something vicious uncurling in my chest. "Don't stand there and tell me my brother looks good like you have any right to know. Like you were there."
His expression shifts, guarded now. "Sarah?—"
"You weren't there." My voice rises. Years of holding this back, keeping it professional, being the bigger person, all of it shatters. "You weren't there when I sent you that emergency code. When I was bleeding out in a safe house and Gabe had gone missing in Alaska and I needed?—"
I cut myself off, but it's too late. The dam has cracked and everything comes flooding through.
"I needed you," I say, and God, I hate how raw my voice sounds. "I sent you that emergency code. The one we swore we'd only use if everything had gone to hell. And you didn't answer."
Micah's jaw tightens but he doesn't interrupt.
"I thought you were dead." The words tear out of me. "For weeks, I thought you were dead. And I was trying to recover from being wounded while coordinating the search for my brother who'd disappeared off the grid in the Alaskan wilderness, and I was doing it alone because you were gone."
"Sarah, I can explain?—"
"I know you can!" I'm on my feet now, all the professional control I've maintained since he came back burning away in pure rage. "I know you were deep cover. I know the mission required complete radio silence. I know the intel you gathered saved lives. I know all of it."
"Then why?—"
"Because knowing doesn't make it hurt less!" My voice cracks. "Because I understand the tactical reasons and I still spent months thinking you were dead while I was bleeding and my brother was missing and I was so fucking scared?—"
I stop, breathing hard. Micah stands there, taking it. Not defending himself, not making excuses. Just watching me with those dark eyes that see too much.
"I searched for him," I say, quieter now but no less furious. "While I was recovering from wounds the Committee gave me, while helping set up Echo Ridge. I worked day and night not to let my team down, and still I searched. Then you show up two years later like it's nothing."
