“Dumping the car?” I ask.
“Maybe. Or hiding it.”
He zooms the drone farther out. The camera shakes as wind slips under its wings.
Then he inhales slowly. “I’ve got something. A car. Parked off-grid. Tan sedan.”
The sedan sits crooked in a snarl of underbrush, half-hidden by saplings and shadow. The trunk gapes open like a wound.
My pulse slams into my ribs.
“Take me there,” I say.
Sam doesn’t waste a syllable. He recalls the drone with a quick command, and it darts back toward us, dropping neatly into his hand. He folds it mid-stride as we rush to the truck.
I hit the gas. Sam angles his phone toward me, guiding with clipped, practiced cues.
“Left in… fifty.”
“Cut right—another trailhead coming.”
“Slow. You’ll miss it.”
We roll over a rise, tires crunching through loose stone as the forest thickens. The air feels heavier here, like even the sun is holding its breath.
“There,” Sam snaps, pointing through the windshield.
The sedan materializes between the trees.
I brake hard, gravel spitting. We’re out before the engine fully stops.
Sam circles wide, weapon drawn—not flashy, just muscle memory. I approach the trunk. The metallic smell hits first. Then the smear of blood, fresh enough to still glisten.
My jaw tightens. Lucky was here. Alive.
And then she wasn’t.
“She fought him,” I say under my breath, running my hand over the edge. There’s a scuff on the dirt where heels braced. A drag mark. Tiny droplets leading into the woods.
Sam appears at my side. He squats, fingers hovering over broken ferns. His eyes narrow a fraction. “She hit him. Hard.”
“Good.” My voice comes out darker than I intend. “She bought herself time.”
A distant shout snaps both our heads up.
A man’s voice. Winding through the trees. Sharp. Vicious.
Calling her name.
I don’t wait for a plan. Sam and I lock eyes for a millisecond. That’s all we need.
We split.
The shouting ahead gets louder, then stops abruptly. I creep through the trees, slow and precise, until I see Sam.
He breaks left, silent as a shadow, cutting through brush with barely a sound. I take the right, angling wide—classic pincer movement, born out of a thousand operations we’ll never talk about.
The forest swallows us whole.
