Page 7 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
“Talk to me about your routes,” I say, eyes still working the slope. “How predictable are you?”
“I rotate. I don’t post. I don’t repeat on back-to-back days.”
“Good. But someone’s been watching long enough to build a profile.”
She’s quiet a beat. “I thought about that. Didn’t like where it led.”
“Then we verify or kill the thought.” I raise a palm. She stops. The thermal flares white on a low shape near the next tree. I angle us in. A small cube of black plastic sits half-buried at the base of a spruce—cheap trail cam, dark lens iced. I pop it with a gloved knuckle. Card slot’s empty. Whoever set it pulled the footage.
Wren kneels, studying the bark. “Mount strap’s new,” she says. “No weathering. Less than a week.”
“Less than three days,” I counter, scraping a fingernail across a nick in the cambium. “Sap hasn’t sealed.”
“That’s not random,” she says.
“No,” I agree. “It’s a net.”
Snow whispers through branches. The valley inhales. I don’t like staying still this long where someone else picked the ground. We backtrack in an S, washing our prints where we can, cutting our sign where we can’t. Her line is smart: she plants feet where I’d tell a rookie to plant. She doesn’t need a keeper. She needs someone willing to take the first hit if it comes.
Halfway back to the cottage, the radio thuds twice against my vest—short, soft. Not a transmission. Vibration. The perimeter sensor I buried two weeks ago when the poacher pattern got bold. I stop dead.
“What?” she whispers.
“Rear sensor,” I say. “Back door.”
Her eyes flash. Not fear. Fury. “They doubled us.”
“Or they’re forcing the choice,” I say. “Chase or defend.”
“Defend,” she says immediately.
“Agreed.” I pivot us down a side cut that funnels to the cottage’s lee. We stay low, using the woodpile for cover, then slide to the corner where the sightline opens onto the back steps. Thermal bloom on the step—white smear, compact shape. Not a foot. Something metallic. Left behind on purpose.
“Trip bell,” I mutter. A little brass disc sits on the step where a boot heel would land; a loop of fishing line runs to the railing. First ping. When I broke the light, I took the bait. They rang the bell to pull us out—gauge response time, movement, discipline. They’re not just watching. They’re studying. Good. Let them watch us watch them.
Wren’s breath fogs by my shoulder. “You going to tell me not to move?”
“I’m going to tell you to keep your head down while I give them something to think about.” I set the rifle, dial back the magnification, and put a warning round into a dead stump above the western tree line. Wood splinters. Snow drops from a branch. The echo claws around the bowl.
“Subtle,” she murmurs.
“They came to my house,” I say. “Subtle’s off the table.”
We hold our breath and count off a full sixty seconds, every tick dragging like a stone in my gut. Still nothing—no rustle, no flash of movement. Whoever’s out there has discipline, the kind of patience that means they know exactly what they’re doing.
“Inside,” I say finally. “We lock it down, pull feed from every sensor, and build the next move.”
She doesn’t argue. That says more than any answer would. She’s scared, sure—but it’s the sharpened kind. The kind that survives.
In the entry, I dump snow from my boots and hit the control box tucked under the shelf. Porch cam. Drive. Rear. The screens pop in grainy green. Nothing live. I roll back the last thirty minutes.
There, a glint on the rear camera. Not a figure, but the edge of a glove. Someone had reached in from beneath the step and rapped the sensor housing with what looked like the end of a carbon arrow shaft. They weren’t trying to damage it. They were probing, measuring. Testing how far the sensor reached, how fast it reacted, how sensitive it really was. Not vandalism. Not curiosity. That was a probe, trained hands testing reflexes and range.
“Organized. Professional,” I say. The word tastes like rust.
Wren stands beside me, arms folded tight across her ribs, reading like I do. “They wanted to take our measure.”
“They did.” I pull the casing from my pocket and set it next to the screen. “And they told us what to call them when we meet them again.”
