I didn’t know his name back then, obviously, but I recognized his face. He was there that day out at Makoshika. Not the one who held the gun to my head—that was Brick—but one of the others. Loading crates into the bunker.
He paused when he saw me, just for a second. A slight narrowing of the eyes, a tilt of the head.
I kept my face blank, but inside, my heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The connection I'd been looking for. The way in.
Ratchet said something in Cheyenne to one of the other mechanics, who laughed. Then he walked past me like I didn't exist, heading straight for the manager's office.
I knew I'd been made. Known and categorized. I should have been scared, but instead, I felt a thrill run through me. I was on their radar now.
I turn back to face Eleanor's ghost, her presence as unwelcome now as it was the past. Even back then, she was hunting me. Following me. Watching me. Not just with Savannah, but everywhere.
She showed up outside the parts store in Terry one afternoon. I was loading boxes into the back of the delivery truckwhen I spotted her across the street. Camera in hand, as always. But she wasn't taking pictures then. She was waiting for me.
When my shift ended, she approached me in the parking lot. Pulled an envelope from her bag and handed it to me without a word.
Inside was a photograph. Me and Savannah in the silo. Our first kiss. Me sixteen, her fourteen. Her hands on my face, my fingers tangled in her hair. The moment captured in perfect, terrible detail.
"Savannah will love you forever," Eleanor said, her voice soft but her eyes hard. "No matter who she marries. Take solace in that."
The meaning was clear. Savannah is not yours. Will never be yours. You can have her heart, but not her life.
I was so angry I couldn't speak. How did she get that picture?
Later, I would go check the silo for cameras, but she'd gotten them out. That was her only chance to get us like that. Inside the silo doin' what we do.
And she knew it.
She burned her bridge to give me that photo.
Why? I never knew.
"You look angry," ghost-Eleanor says now, watching me remember. "You were angry then, too."
"You invaded something private," I say, the words coming out rough. "Something that wasn't yours to see."
Eleanor smiles, that same cold smile I remember. "Nothing is private, Legion. Not in this world. Not with my daughter."
I stare at Eleanor's ghost, my chest rising and falling too fast. Every memory of her, every secret exchange between us, pulses through my mind.
"You had no right," I tell her. "No fucking right to any of it."
Eleanor tilts her head, studying me like I'm something behind glass. Just like she always did. "To what, exactly?"
"To photograph us in the silo. To follow me. To make me—" I stop, the words tangling in my mouth.
"Make you what?" Her smile spreads slow, knowing. "Love me?"
The accusation hangs between us. I want to deny it, but the truth is worse than whatever she thinks. She was there when no one else was. She showed up. My own mother was drowning in her own mind half the time, and when she wasn't, she was working double shifts or dealing with Deacon's bullshit.
"You were a predator," I say finally. "You hunted me."
"And you let me catch you." Her voice stays even. "Over and over again."
I shake my head, but the denial feels hollow. "I was a kid."
"You were never just a kid, Legion. You were always more." She steps closer, and I can almost smell her perfume—something expensive, with notes of roses. "You came to me when I called. You posed when I asked. You took the money I offered."
"I needed that money."
