Sofia’s face flashes in my mind. The rain in Mexico City. The way she laughed. The way the car looked at the bottom of the ravine. The silence of the phone in Syria.
Don’t go there. Stay in the present.
“They didn’t listen,” I say. My voice is flat. Dead. “They contacted family. They turned on their phones. They thought they could negotiate.”
“Did you … Did you care about them?”
I glance at her. She’s studying me. Not with fear anymore, but with a terrifying intelligence. She’s analyzing me. Taking me apart like a witness on the stand.
“I kept them alive as long as I could,” I say. “That’s the job.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I look back at the road. “Emotion is a liability, Cassie. It gets people killed. I don’t get attached. I get the job done.”
It’s a lie. A necessary one. But as I say it, I can feel the ghost of Sofia pressing against my ribs. And the woman beside me knows I’m lying.
“You’re lying,” she whispers.
I don’t answer.
The drive takes another three hours. We stick to back roads, winding through the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Every mile puts more distance between us and DC, but the tension in the cab doesn’t dissipate. It thickens.
She watches me. Tracking my hands as I shift gears. The profile of my weapon, where it sits in the door pocket.
She’s trying to figure out if I’m a savior or a monster.
I’m both. She just doesn’t know it yet.
We leave the highway for state routes, then county roads that narrow into asphalt ribbons winding up into the mountains. Finally, the tires crunch onto gravel.
The safe house is a hunting cabin at the end of a three-mile dirt track. No neighbors. No power lines. Just trees and silence.
I clear the perimeter first. Old habits die hard. Check the tree line. Check for fresh tracks. Trip wires.
Nothing. Good.
“Clear,” I say. “Inside.”
The cabin smells of pine and dust. Single room. Wood stove. A couch that has seen better decades. No internet. No cable. Just a ham radio and a diesel generator.
Cassie walks to the center of the room and stops. She wraps her arms around herself.
“This is it?”
“This is it.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
She sinks onto the couch. The fight is draining out of her, leaving only exhaustion. I need to keep her moving. Keep her focused.
“Your phone,” I say. “We need to talk about it.”
“You already destroyed it.”
“I had to.” I sit on the edge of the table. “That device is how Phoenix tracks you. Passive RFID tags, unique hardware IDs … If a drone flies over and pings it, we’re dead. It had to go.”
