There it is.
“We’re out of range, Wilder,” he said.
He wasn’t talking about the radio.
Chapter 15
Bottleneck
JULIETTE
Heatstayedtrappedinthe cabin even after Nick killed the engine, thick and stagnant, the peppery bite of thorn scrub sealed behind the glass. In the back seat, Owen’s heavy breathing filled the quiet while he lifted his phone toward the sun, searching for a bar that didn’t exist.
“Nothing,” Owen muttered, as if the phone had personally failed him. “We were supposed to have satellite backup for this leg.”
Nick didn’t turn. He stayed angled over the wheel, his shoulders blocking a significant portion of the windshield. The cabin seemed to organize itself around him.Owen’s phone drama received none of his attention. The dead signal indicator on the dash did.
Or my breathing did, and he was pretending otherwise.
“The ridge drops signal without warning,” Nick said, his voice low enough to settle at the base of my spine. “That’s why we stop here instead of pretending the dead zone doesn’t exist.”
He inhaled through his nose, the kind of restrained breath men took when they were counting to ten. “I told you that at the lodge.”
“You said spotty,” Naomi added, her voice tight with the specific brand of anxiety that comes from being disconnected from the rest of civilization. “You didn’t say prehistoric.”
I didn't join the post-mortem. I sat perfectly still, my hands resting on my knees, watching the pulse in Nick’s forearm where it rested behind me. He wasn't touching me—there were two inches of heated air between his skin and my shoulder.
Nick shifted. The fabric of his sleeve brushed my arm, one brief drag of friction that made my fingers curl against my knees. He didn’t pull away.
“Wilder,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Center box. Black Leica. Camera.”
It wasn’t a request.
His arm lifted from the console and stretched along the back of my seat, a practical adjustment that made absolutely nothing more practical.
I reached for the latch between us.
The Leica case was tucked inside beside a folded map and a coil of radio cable. I pulled it free, and my shoulder brushed the hard line of his chest as I sat back.
Excellent. My nervous system had apparently resigned over a camera, a storage box, and one inconvenient shoulder brush.
He stayed exactly where he was, infuriatingly calm, while the two people in the back seat continued arguing about a world that had temporarily stopped answering.
He let them argue for another second before his voice cut through the back seat.
“Out.”
Owen blinked. “Sorry, what?”
Nick opened his door. “Brief leg-stretch and a photo op. Phones stay in the vehicle unless you’re using them for photos. Nobody goes past the marker stones. Nobody tests the edge for a better signal. Nobody wanders.”
His head angled toward Owen in the rearview mirror. “Especially not you.”
Naomi made a quiet sound that might have been amusement. Owen gripped his phone tighter, affronted by the radical suggestion that he not wander toward an edge for better reception.
Nick didn’t wait for a response. His door swung open, and heat rushed into the cabin, dry and immediate, carrying the sharp green bite of crushed brush. I stepped down onto the packed dirt, the ground holding the morning’s warmth firm under my boots. Fine dust lifted at the edge of my step, caught in the harsh, vertical light of the midday sun.
Of course, Ranger Protocol had already engaged. He rounded the front of the vehicle, counting people before scenery.
