Thaw looks at Reyes.
"We take him with us. He has more than he has given us. We want the details."
"Will he come?"
Thaw's mouth twitches.
"He will. Won't you, doctor?"
"Yes," Reyes says, very quickly. "Yes, I will."
"Good."
I look at my pack.
The wind has stopped.
The pack is moving with me toward the truck, and Fen is at my left with his hand finally taking mine on purpose, and the bond is full.
Chapter twenty-three
Jen
We do not go back to the log house.
Thaw makes the call before we have even loaded the prisoners — Reyes in one truck, the two surrendered shooters in the other, the dead left where they fell because we are not a clean-up operation. The log house is no longer safe since the Syndicate found it. The cabin was the same.
"There's a third safehouse," Dean says, from the wheel.
"You and Daron built three of these."
"Brother, we searched and planned and organized for two years."
I am learning, on the drive south, that there are layers to the twins I have not seen — three independent properties strung across the Cascades, each one set up, each one ready to hold us if the one before it fell.
Crull drives the prisoners' truck. Fen sits beside me on the bench seat, six inches of air between us because six inches is what he has decided is ok for today. Every line in my chest is awake. The brands at my wrist and throat and sternum are warm.
The hollow where Fen will go is not a hollow anymore.
It is — almost a thread. Not quite. But live.
We pull in at the third location in the afternoon.
The wolves split without anyone deciding it out loud. Daron takes Reyes into the cabin — more cabin than safehouse, hand-built logs with a stone foundation, and ties him to a chair at the kitchen table. Crull walks the two shooters into the root cellar and locks the door from the outside. Harek does the perimeter sweep.
I sit at the kitchen table across from Reyes.
Thaw stands behind me.
Fen sits at my left, on the floor, his shoulder against my chair leg. He has not been more than ten feet from me since I sat down beside him in the trees an hour ago. The not-yet-thread is the loudest thing in the room.
"Reyes," Thaw says.
"Yes."
"You are going to give us a target."
The scientist looks up.
