Page 33 of Her Mountain Man Protector

The answer sits under our feet. Old turbine tunnels. Brick throats from when this place chewed the river for power. Equinox sealed them on paper. Paper is a wish.

We drop into the turbine hall. Emergency light turns the range doors into dull red slabs. A grate in the floor that should’ve been bolted is standing open. Cold river air lifts out of the hole. Wet footprints track across the concrete toward the stairs we just used.

More than one set. Smaller than mine. Fast.

Oakley looks at me. I put her at the wall and take the grate. The tunnel breathes up at me, black and narrow. I want to go down it and end whoever walked it. I want her upstairs more.

"They're still in the building," I say.

Alden’s already on the inner-office channel. "Rowe. Answer me."

Static. Then her voice, thin and furious. "I'm here. Door's locked. Uncle A, Eli texted. He said he's sorry. He said don't hate him. What does that mean?"

The name lands wrong. I'm already turning for the stairs when Oakley's hand fists in my sleeve and holds.

Alden goes still in a way that scares me more than shouting. "Stay on this channel. Don't open that door for anyone but me."

"Copy," Rowe whispers.

We sweep the first floor. Empty hall. Empty gym. The back office where we slept has been opened. The cots are kicked. Oakley's laptop sits open and dark. The little encrypted drive that was in the computer is now gone.

Color leaves her face when she notices it’s gone.

"That's every raw file from the dock," she says. "That's Billy's numbers. That's the only copy that isn't in my head."

"You have the coordinates," I tell her. "They stole proof. They didn't steal you."

Her eyes flash. "They stole the thing they needed me for. Next time they won't leave the rest."

She's right. The fear in my chest agrees with her and I hate that agreement.

A scrape answers from the turbine grate. Alden and I converge on it. A boy comes up out of the dark with his hands visible and his face wrecked. Nineteen. Landing dirt on his jeans. A motorcycle key shaking against his palm.

Eli Cade.

I have him on the concrete before he finishes standing. My forearm is across his chest. He doesn't fight. He goes loose and starts talking in a rush that has been waiting in his throat for hours.

"They said they'd take Rowe. They had pictures of her at school. Pictures of the mill lot. They told me if I didn't give them the tunnel map and the shift times they'd pick her up after last period. I printed what they told me to print. I told them where the old intake sits. I didn't know they'd cut the power. I didn't know they'd come for a drive. I swear. I swear."

My vision narrows to his mouth. Helix used a kid. Helix walked my father's breadcrumbs into this mill on a boy's fear. I want to put that fear back on the people who bought it. The shortest road runs through the body under my arm.

"Colt." Oakley's voice cuts in from my left, sharp enough to reach me. "Look at him."

I look. Eli’s crying without making a performance of it. His hands are open. There is no helix on his sleeve. There’s a boy who dated the wrong girl in the wrong county.

"He sold this building," I say.

"He sold a map because they put Rowe on a table." She steps into my sightline on purpose. Sunshine with her chin up and zero softness in it. "He's nineteen and scared. You don't get to turn scared into dead."

The sentence stops my arm. It doesn't make me gentle. It makes me accurate. I see her in the red light, curls wild, mouth still brave after a blackout and a stolen drive, and the reason I keep putting her behind me stops being a job. I would burn the landing down for her. She would still stop me from using a terrified kid as kindling. The reason sits in that sentence. I didn't have a name for it until she said it out loud.

I haul Eli to sitting and let go. He folds forward and braces on his knees.

Alden crouches in front of him. The stoic is gone. What's left is an uncle. "You will tell Marin every name they used. Every number. Every picture they showed you of my niece. Then you will sit in a room with a door I control until I decide you get air. If you lie, I will be worse than him."

Eli nods so hard it looks painful. "They called it a pickup. One man in the tunnel. One in the hall. They wanted the photographer's drive. They said if I stayed out of the grate I wouldn't see it. I came anyway. I thought I could warn you. I was too late."

"Where did they go?" I ask.