“Together.” He says the word like he’s testing it. Like it’s foreign in his mouth.
“Together.”
The wind picks up, whistling through the canyon, carrying the distant sound of engines. The pursuit is regrouping. Time is running out.
I reach for the rock—the first holds, familiar as old friends.
“Evie.”
I look back.
Riot is watching me with an expression I can’t name. Intense. Focused. The skepticism is gone, replaced by a raw, quiet admiration. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I don’t think you’re too much.”
My breath catches. I didn’t tell him that. Didn’t say those words, that specific wound. But somehow he heard them anyway. Somehow, he saw the shape of the cage I’ve been carrying and named it without being asked.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“You'd be surprised." I say it quietly, almost to myself. "I've been hiding my whole life." A beat. "You're the only person I've ever brought to this canyon. I've never shown anyone the route."
This is exactly the kind of thing Daniel couldn't stand. The wildness of it.You're showing off,he'd say.You're being reckless.What he meant was: don't be anything I can't contain. I spent three years making sure he never found out about this wall, this canyon, this version of me that didn't ask his permission to exist.
Something underneath is coming to the surface, something that's been buried so deep I didn't even know it was there.
Then I start to climb.
SIX
The Climb
RIOT
I’ve madea lot of questionable decisions in my life. Joining the Army at eighteen. Marrying Carmen after six weeks. Taking the Kandahar mission when everyone with half a brain said it was suicide. Playing poker against a woman who has access to satellite surveillance and zero moral compunctions about using it.
Following a kindergarten teacher up a two-hundred-foot cliff face, however, might be the most questionable decision of all.
But here I am. Fifteen feet off the ground, fingers jammed into a crack I can barely see, the raw grit of the granite biting into the pads of my fingers. My feet are smeared against rock that feels approximately as grippy as a greased cookie sheet, and the wind is starting to howl through the canyon, a low, predatory whistle that threatens to peel me right off the wall. I'm watching Evie Sinclair climb like gravity is a suggestion she’s politely declined.
"You’re thinking too hard." Her voice floats down from somewhere above me. "I can hear it from here."
"I’m thinking about how I’m going to explain to my boss that I died because a kindergarten teacher told me to trust friction."
"You’re not going to die."
"Easy for you to say. You’re not the one fifteen feet below, watching you make this look easy."
She pauses, glances down. From this angle I have a view of exactly how much air is below me. It's clarifying.
"What were you going to say?"
"Nothing."
"Riot."
"I was going to make an inappropriate comment about the view from down here." The words come out before my brain can filter them. "But I'm a gentleman, so I didn't."
Her laughter echoes off the canyon walls—bright, surprised, real. "A gentleman who breaks into cabins and shoots people."
"A gentleman who breaks into cabins, shoots people, and doesn't comment on the assets of the woman saving his life." I find the next hold, haul myself up. Lactic acid is already pooling in my forearms, a hot, heavy burn that makes every inch feel like a mile. "I contain multitudes."
