Page 31 of Keeper of Talon Mountain
"What about hidden compartments?" Zara asks. "If you were that paranoid about protection..."
She's right. My hands find the backpack's seams, feeling for irregularities. There—a section that's slightly thicker than it should be. I pull out my knife and carefully unpick the stitching.
A small waterproof pouch falls out.
Inside: a USB drive and a photograph. Not the one of my mother—this one shows a woman, younger than me, with dark hair and eyes that mirror my own. On the back, written in my own handwriting:If you've forgotten, she remembers. Trust her.
No name. No location. Just that cryptic message and a face that should mean something but doesn't.
"Do you know her?" Mara asks.
"No." The word scrapes out. "But I trusted her enough to make her my failsafe."
Zara picks up the USB drive. "What's on this?"
"I don't know. But it's encrypted." I can tell just by looking at it—military-grade protection. "I'd need a password to access it."
"Which you don't remember."
"Which I don't remember." The photograph demands attention. "But that woman does. Somewhere out there, someone knows what I did with those files. Someone I trusted enough to leave instructions for if my mind failed me."
"Then we find her," Mara says simply.
"How? I don't even know her name."
"We have her face. In the morning, we show it to Zeke and Nate. They have military connections, access to databases. If this woman was important to you, chances are she's family or served with you. Someone will know who she is."
It's a thread. Thin, fragile, but real. Something to hold onto in the darkness.
"Seventy-two hours," Zara reminds us. "Starting when?"
Phone screen shows the time. The last message from Crane came at 7:43 PM. "About two hours ago. Monday night. So we have until Thursday at 7:43."
"That's not much time," Zara says.
"No. But it's what we have. So we use it."
The food is simple—soup and bread, but it tastes like the best meal I've ever eaten. We eat in silence around the fire, three people trying to find hope in an impossible situation.
After, Mara walks me to her room. Not the guest room where I've been staying, but hers.
"I need you close tonight," she says simply. "Is that okay?"
"More than okay."
We undress slowly, the intimacy of shared fear making every movement deliberate. When she stands before me in just firelight, I can see the tremor in her hands, the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
"I thought I lost you tonight," she whispers. "When that text came saying you were talking, I thought...”
I pull her to me, cutting off the words with a kiss. She tastes like fear and determination, her mouth hungry against mine. When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"I'm here," I say against her lips. "I'm right here."
Her hands find my chest, fingers tracing the bruises with feather-light touches. "You're hurt."
"I don't care."
"Gabe...”
