Page 6 of Echo: Burn
"You need stitches," I tell him, doctor instinct overriding fear. The head wound is deep, blood flow steady. "That's not going to stop bleeding on its own."
"Had worse." He doesn't even glance at me, eyes scanning our six through the rear window. His free hand holds a pistol I didn't see him draw, ready but not quite aimed at anything. Yet. "Keep going. They'll pursue."
"Who are you?" I ask, looking for more than just his name. I’m not even sure if the name is his last or first.
"Kane. Rhett Kane." He finally looks at me, and something in his eyes steadies me despite the chaos. "Committee set up a geofence on your clinic two days ago. When Odin alerted at that chemical compound, you became a liability."
"They were going to kill me? For saving a dog?"
"For what the dog knows." Kane checks something on his vest. "Military working dog. Chemical weapons detection. Whatever he found is something the Committee can't afford to have discovered."
Chemical weapons. The Committee. A dog I saved, and now armed men want us both dead.
His confidence shouldn't reassure me. But it does.
I aim for the gap that looks impossible. The truck barrels forward. Pine branches loom on both sides like walls closing in. I hear them scraping paint, feel the vehicle compress as we squeeze through.
Metal screams. Branches snap. For three endless seconds I'm certain we're going to wedge solid and die trapped between trees while armed men close in.
Then we're through.
I exhale breath I didn't know I was holding. We emerge into a hidden space carved from the forest itself, invisible from any angle except the one we just navigated.
"Lights," he says.
I flip them back on. A metal door appears ahead, built directly into the mountainside. This is professional work. Military-grade construction. Someone spent serious money building this—more than any survivalist's bunker, more like government black-site money.
He exits before I've fully stopped, moving to a concealed keypad with the fluid confidence of someone who's done this a thousand times. His fingers fly over the keys despite the blood still streaming from his temple. The door rolls up with mechanical precision, revealing darkness beyond that promises safety or trap. Maybe both.
He waves me forward.
Three seconds of hesitation. Three seconds where I calculate my chances of surviving on my own versus trusting a stranger who knows entirely too much about my life. Three seconds where those headlights behind us draw closer through the storm.
I drive into the mountain.
Emergency lighting kicks on, illuminating a tunnel carved from living rock curving deeper into darkness.
"End of the line, Doc." Kane opens my door. "Welcome to the last safe place in Montana."
I grab my veterinary bag and follow with Odin pressed against my leg. The dog's presence grounds me. I'm still Dr. Willa Hart. Still someone who saves lives.
Even though I just killed someone.
The thought hits in the sudden quiet. My hands shake against the cold metal of the truck door.
"You did what you had to do." Kane's voice carries no judgment. "He would have killed you without hesitation."
"Doesn't make it easier."
"No." His tone suggests he knows exactly how hard it is. "But you're alive. That has to be enough for now."
The tunnel opens into a massive chamber. Weapons racks, military-grade communication equipment, supplies stacked with obsessive precision. But it's the men who stop me cold.
They step from shadows, each one carrying the same lethal competence as the stranger who saved me.
The closest studies me with eyes that have seen too much. Stocky build, dark hair going gray at the temples, hands covered in old scars that speak to close-quarters combat. The kind of man who's survived by being faster and meaner than whoever came at him.
Another emerges from deeper in the cave—lean and wiry, movements too quick and sharp, like something caged too long. Wild beard, feral eyes that never stop scanning for threats. He radiates barely controlled violence.
