But Daniel was wrong about everything.
"Okay," I hear myself say.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'll go with you."
Something shifts in his expression—relief, maybe, or respect. His gaze drops to my boots, my jeans, my fleece, and I feel it like a physical touch. A slow assessment that catalogs everything: what I'm wearing, how I'm standing, whether I'm going to be a liability or an asset.
I should feel objectified. Instead, I feel seen. Like he's actually looking at me, not through me.
One eyebrow lifts. The scarred one. It shouldn't be attractive.
"You're dressed."
"I've been dressed since day three."
The other eyebrow joins the first. "Smart."
"I'm a kindergarten teacher. We plan ahead."
That almost-laugh again, bitten off before it can fully form.
"Stay behind me. Move when I move, stop when I stop. If I go down, you run east—into the mountains, away from the road. Don't stop for anything."
"If you go down?—"
"I won't." The grin flashes, quick and sharp. "But if I do, you keep going. That's not negotiable."
He doesn't wait for my agreement. We're moving—through the bedroom doorway, into the main room, past the shapes on the floor that I don't let myself look at. The front door is open, pre-dawn light spilling across the threshold.
Riot clears the porch in one smooth motion, weapon up, scanning. I follow close enough to feel the coiled-spring readiness in every line of his body. The air outside is cold—mountain cold, sharp enough to sting my cheeks—and my boots hit the wooden steps with solid, sure thuds.
The treeline is fifty feet away. Forty. Thirty.
Behind us, tires on gravel.
"Go." Riot's voice drops the casual edge—pure command now, a sound that resonates in my bones in a way Derek’s flat protocols never could. “Treeline, don't look back."
I run.
My feet know what to do even if my brain is spinning. The ground is uneven—rocks, roots, pine needles slick with dew—but I've run worse terrain at elevation. I've scrambled up approaches that would break most people, and my body remembers what my mind keeps trying to forget.
I’m not fragile. I’m not cargo. I’m the woman who hangs two hundred feet above nothing and calls it peace.
The trees swallow me. I press my back against a pine trunk, chest heaving, and look back.
Riot is still in the open.
He's between me and the cabin, weapon trained on the vehicle now skidding to a stop in the gravel drive. In the gray dawn light, I can see him clearly for the first time—the coiled readiness in his stance, the way he holds the gun like it's an extension of his arm, the absolute stillness of a predator waiting to strike.
He's beautiful. The thought is absurd, inappropriate, and possibly a sign that I've lost my mind. But it's true. He's beautiful, the way a storm is beautiful, the way a cliff face is beautiful—dangerous and elemental and completely unconcerned with your opinion of it.
Two men spill out of the vehicle—no, three—dark clothes, automatic weapons, moving like they've trained together.
The first shot cracks the morning open.
The flinch is involuntary. But my feet stay planted—I'm frozen against the tree, watching Riot move like violence is a language he speaks fluently. He drops behind a rusted-out truck, returns fire, and drops one man before the others find cover.
