Chapter Fifty
Jackson
The storm changes as we climb. Wind doesn’t tear anymore, instead it circles. The kind of cold that thinks, that waits, that chooses when to strike. Snow falls in slow spirals instead of sideways knives, the white settling over rock in soft layers that could hide anything beneath them.
Dal moves ahead of me, steady, long strides deliberate but sure. He doesn’t ask how I’m doing and I know that it's not because he doesn’t care, but because asking would mean wasting breath and he knows I don’t have any to spare.
Linc is behind me, quiet as ghosts are rumored to be. He scans our trail, our flanks, the ridge above. He doesn’t look away from where trouble might come, because that is who he has always been, eyes where others forget to look.
In a lot of ways, Linc has always been the jokester, making light of a tense situation but in this kind of environment, in moments where it matters the most, he puts his game face on and sees everything that there is to see.
I take center, not because I lead, but because I anchor. If something hits from front or back, I am the pivot point. The one who moves first, without thinking.
The snow crunches beneath our boots, the sound muted, but not silent.
Nothing is silent out here.
Not tonight.
We crossed a basin earlier, a wide open stretch where the wind could have taken our scent or our silhouettes. We didn’t see him. We didn’t hear him. But there was a moment, one so sharp, so thin it could have been imagined, where the air felt watched.
Not hunted, just watched and that is worse.
Dal stops at the edge of an incline, gloved hand lifting once and we halt.
Below us, the faint indentation of tracked snow. Three sets.
One from Boston, solid, even, another from Caleb, lighter, angled outward, and the third...the third is wrong, it's too deep at the heel, the steps spaced like the person's weight is being thrown forward, not as if rushing, but committed.
He followed them. He followed her.
My jaw sets.
“He was here,” Linc murmurs behind me.
“Yeah.” My breath leaves in a cloud.
Dal’s eyes are narrow, tracking the prints. “Not panicked. Not fast.”
“No.” I scan the treeline. “He wasn’t afraid.”
A long silence passes between us and then Linc says the one thing we are all thinking, “He’s familiar with this terrain.”
Not just comfortable but just experienced, as if he is native to the area.
Which means he doesn’t just know the mountains, he knows the dark places within them.
We move again and the forest thickens; fir branches bending under the weight of the snow, trunk shadows layered into deeper black. Each shape could be a man or nothing, and each nothing could be something we missed.
No one speaks.
The wind shifts, soft, circular, bringing with it the faint scent of woodsmoke.
We’re close.
Dal slows just enough for the world to focus, Linc adjusts his rifle grip, and I steady my breathing, one inhale, one exhale.
The shelter sits half-hidden beneath an overhang of rock with stone walls on three sides and one open side facing the slope we now approach. Light flickers from within. A fire low enough not to signal, just enough to warm.
Boston sits at the entrance, shotgun across his knees, back straight. He doesn’t jump when he sees us. Doesn’t call out. Doesn’t move.
He just stands.
We close the distance without speaking. When we reach him, he lowers the shotgun.
“He was here,” he says and it's not a question, just a statement of fact.
“Yeah,” I answer.
Caleb is inside, sitting near the fire, blade sheathed but hand close. He looks up once, holds my gaze, then returns to watching the entrance. We don’t need to exchange words.
Brooklyn is awake. She sits wrapped in the blanket that I earlier placed around her shoulders with her legs pulled up and her shoulders squared. She's not cowering or shaking, but present. A presence in herself.
Her eyes lift to mine and something inside my chest moves, something quiet, fierce, alive. I kneel in front of her, not touching, reaching, or assuming, knowing that she may not yet be ready for a man's touch. Not after I have no doubt he did to her. “You okay?” I ask softly.
She nods once. It's not the kind of nod that says *yes, I’m fine*, but the kind that says, *I am here. I am not broken. I am with you.*
Dal moves to the entrance, replacing Boston as Linc climbs smoothly onto the shelf of stone above to watch the ridge and Boston takes a seat nearer the fire, back to the rock wall, where he can spring forward in an instant. Caleb shifts slightly to keep a triangular defense, the kind predators never break through without losing pieces of themselves.
The storm outside hushes into something close to listening.
Brooklyn speaks first, voice calm, steady, controlled. “He stood outside,” she says. “Not close enough to see. But close enough that I could feel him.”
My chest tightens, not with fear but with recognition.
“That’s how he operates?” I ask.
She nods, taking one careful breath and then one controlled exhale.
“He always watched before he moved. He liked knowing the moment I realized I wasn’t alone, liked being the only one who knew when the fear began.”
I catch Boston looking away, not because he's afraid, but because he needs to not wanting her to see the anger flaring in his gaze. Caleb closes his eyes once, slow as he takes a deep, grounding breath. Dal’s grip tightens on his rifle, readying himself as anger pulses through him. Linc’s silhouette on the ridge freezes, going still as stone.
I imagine he's not only hearing what Brooklyn went through, but it's bringing up memories of when Raleigh was taken, haunting him.
Brooklyn keeps her gaze on me as she says, “He wants me to remember his presence before anything else.”
I speak quietly, words shaped with truth, instead of comfort, “He underestimates who you are now.”
Her chest rises, steady, real. “Yes,” she says. “He does.”
The fire crackles softly. There's no rise of flame, just embers shifting.
I turn my gaze back to Brooklyn and ask, “When we saw him before, on the ridge, did you recognize him?”
Her eyes flicker, the shadow of a memory passes through her mind, then she speaks, “Not his face,” she murmurs. “Just the way he stood.” Her hands tighten slightly on the blanket as she continues, “The way someone stands when he already believes everything in front of him belongs to him.”
A silence settles that's not fragile but strong, structured, like steel cooling into form.
Brooklyn inhales. “Jackson,” she says barely above a whisper, making sure to have my attention. When I meet her eyes, there's a strength in them that I didn't see before. A promise. “I’m not running anymore.”
There's no tremor, hesitation or doubt in her words. There's nothing but the claiming of truth in her words.
“We won’t let him take you,” I vow.
She doesn’t break eye contact, as she states, “I know,." And it's not hope that's in her words, but conviction. A knowing of fact.
Dal shifts at the entrance, his head turning slightly. Not in alarm but awareness.
Linc’s voice comes down from above, a low, controlled growl that carries without force, “He’s close. He's not moving, just watching.”
No one panics, or even flinches. And no one reaches for more weapons.
Everything that we need, we already have in hand.
I stand slowly and step toward the entrance, not out into the open but just close enough to feel the air shift.
The storm has quieted to a soft drift of snowflakes that continue to fall slowly and effortlessly, like the world has paused its breath.
I can’t see him but I can *feel* him. Like a pressure in the tree line, or a shape behind the shape of things, a patience that isn’t patience at all but confidence.
Dal tilts his head a fraction toward me. We don’t speak but we don’t need to. We know that this isn’t a standoff, it's a statement.
He sees that we are whole and we see that he is close.
No one advances. Not yet.
The snow falls softer and the mountain holds its breath.
Brooklyn’s voice comes from behind me, steady, quiet, unbroken, “He thinks he’s hunting.”
I look out across the dark tree line, and answer without turning back, “He’s wrong.”
Because prey runs.
And none of us are running.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
