He reaches out, his massive hand closing around mine, his grip tight, his palm hot against my skin.
“Stay.” His eyes open, the grey in them turning to a deep, intense slate. He leans in close, his face inches from mine.
I freeze.
The air in my throat suddenly catches, my chest tightening as the realization hits me like a physical blow.
Stay.
The word hangs in the quiet waiting room, a massive, terrifying weight.
I look at his hand holding mine. At Atlas asleep under the quilt, his chest rising and falling. At the legal folio on the desk.
Just hours ago, I stood at that desk and signed the papers. I tried to tell myself I was strong enough to do it, that I could handle this job, this valley, this future. But that was before Atlas collapsed. That was before the cold steel table, the copper smell of blood, the flatline on the monitor.
Seeing Atlas—the last living piece of my cousin—almost die under our hands broke something inside me. The clinical distance I've relied on for years to keep myself safe didn't work. I wasn't just a voice on a headset; I was in the room, fighting for a life, and I was terrified. It showed me how fragile everything is.
And now Wyatt is holding my hand. He's asking me to stay. He's asking me to love him, to put down roots, to build a future on this mountain.
But the universe doesn't do happy endings. It does Route 285 in the snow. It does Jesse's empty garage. If I stay here, if I let myself love him, if I let myself want this life... I will lose them. Wyatt, Atlas, the clinic. They will die, and I will be left standing in the wreckage again, untouched and broken. I can't survive a second Jesse.
The walls of the waiting room feel suddenly close, suffocatingly tight, the heat from the stove turning into a hot, oppressive weight that makes it hard to breathe.
I pull my hand out of his grip, my fingers cold as they leave his palm.
My voice cracks, my knees trembling as I rise from the floor. “Wyatt. I... I can’t.”
“Bella?” He looks up at me, the confusion and the raw vulnerability in his slate-grey eyes cutting me to the bone. “Why not? We can do this. Together.”
I step back toward the waiting room door, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. “I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can't. If I stay... if I let myself want this... it's going to destroy us. I need to go.”
I turn, my boots hitting the pine boards as I flee down the hallway, leaving him alone in the dark. The sound of the backup generator hums behind me like a warning.
SIXTEEN
The Edge
WYATT
The draftof the corridor wind hits my face, cold and biting as it sweeps down from the summit runs, but the air inside my chest is frozen solid.
I stand on the waiting room floorboards, my palms still carrying the dry heat of Atlas’s coat, my fingers tingling where Bella’s hand just lay. The door at the end of the hall clicks shut, a soft, final snap that echoes like a shot in the quiet clinic.
Atlas lets out a low, questioning huff from his recovery mat, his tail giving a single, weak tap against the floorboards before his head drops back onto the folded towel. His breathing is steady. The monitor shows a clean, rhythmic eighty-beat cadence. But Atlas, the one she helped save, is the only thing in this room still holding a steady line.
I don't move. The silence of the clinic rushes back into the room, a heavy, suffocating weight. It's the same silence that's lived here for six weeks, ever since the sheriff brought me Jesse’s personal effects. A quiet so loud it rings in the ears.
Downrange, the quiet was always a threat. In the desert, silence meant the radios were dead, the squad was isolated, or the enemy was waiting for the dust to clear before the attack. You learned to fear the quiet. You learned that when the noise stopped, the worst was about to happen.
But on this mountain, I cultivated it. I built a fortress of routines out of the silence, a cage of schedules to keep the ghosts at bay. Feeding the dogs, cleaning the runs, and stitching up the occasional hunting hound, I pretended the quiet was peace.
Now, it just feels empty. The air carries the faint, lingering scent of lavender and damp wool. Bella’s presence is printed onto every surface of this room. The coffee mug drying on the rack, the muddy tracks of her boots near the door, the clean, steady rhythm of the breath she gave Atlas.
My boots are lead as I cross the waiting room, the floorboards creaking under my weight.
I push open the door of my bedroom.
The single overhead bulb casts a harsh, yellow glare across the space, reflecting off the frosted windowpanes. Bella stands by the timber dresser, her suitcase open on the mattress, her fingers frantically gathering her clothes. She’s throwing her thermal leggings and wool socks into the bag in a tangled mess, her movements jagged, her shoulders shaking under the heavy wool of the borrowed grey sweater.
