"Wow, that was painful for you."
"You said one thing."
"Give me another."
"Simone."
"Gray."
I look over my shoulder at her.
She's hugging her knees on that cot in an oversized hoodie with braids hanging over one shoulder, and her chin is up even though the wobble is still right there under the surface.
I hold her eyes a second longer than I need to.
"You talk when you're scared."
"Yeah."
"Then talk."
She does. Quiet and low. About a cat she had in college. About her grandmother's sweet potato pie. About a story she wrote in her second year at the paper that won her an award she doesn't talk about because it's pretentious. Her voice fills the shack and it fills the space in my chest too, and I keep one eye on the window and one ear on her and I tell myself this is still professional.
It isn't.
But the sun comes up over the ridge and nobody comes up the path.
Thirty-eight minutes in, my sat phone buzzes.
Marcus:team on site. cabin clear. tremblay in custody on the road. stand down.
I stare at the screen a second.
"Gray?"
"It's over."
She blinks at me.
"Already?"
"Already."
She laughs. It's shaky and a little wild.
"That's anticlimactic."
"Most of the time it is."
She stands up. Crosses the shack to me. Looks up.
"Thank you."
"Don't."
"Don't what."
"Don't thank me."
