Page 25 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
"Both." No point lying. He knows what I'm doing. "You move like someone who's been hurt badly and never got proper treatment."
"That's because I was and I didn't." He adds another log to the fire. Sparks shoot up, bright against the dim interior. "Medical attention leaves paper trails. Paper trails get people killed."
The bluntness of it hits hard. He's not being dramatic or self-pitying. Just stating facts, the same way he'd report the weather or the condition of the trail.
"How bad?" I ask.
"Bad enough that I probably should have died." He settles back against the rock wall, coffee cup in hand. “Head injury from slamming into trees as I escaped. Left me seeing double for days. Ribs broken or cracked from the gunshot wound, couldn't breathe right for weeks. Treated it myself with a camping first aid kit and what I could steal from unmanned ranger stations."
My stomach turns. "Chris?—"
"I'm still here. That's what matters." He drinks his coffee, gaze fixed on the fire. "Pain reminds you you're alive. Scars remind you what happens when you trust the wrong people."
His words carry weight I recognize—the kind that comes from betrayal, from watching people you trust turn into the reason your friends die. He's talking about whoever fed information to the killers, whoever set us up.
I want to push, to ask more, to extract details the way I would with any other witness. But Chris isn't a witness. He's a man barely holding himself together in a mountain shelter while a storm tries to bury us both. So I don't push. I drink my terrible coffee and listen to the wind howl and wonder how long we can maintain this careful distance before one of us breaks.
The first night passes slowly. We take turns sleeping, an unspoken agreement that someone needs to stay alert. When it's my watch, I feed the fire and listen to Chris breathe—deep and steady, but never fully relaxed even in sleep. When it's his watch, I drift in and out, aware of his presence like a shadow in the darkness.
Day two brings more of the same. The storm shows no signs of breaking. Chris checks his supplies, calculates how long we can sustain this if conditions don't improve. He doesn't share the math, but I read the tension in his shoulders.
"We're not going to starve," he says, reading my expression. "I've got enough for a week if we're smart about it."
"And if the storm lasts longer than that?"
"Then we get creative." He pulls out a coil of wire, starts checking his snare traps near the shelter entrance. "The mountain always provides if you know where to look."
I watch him work, the deft movements of his hands as he examines each wire for damage or weakness. He's done this before, probably dozens of times. Survival isn't theory for Chris—it's daily practice, the difference between living and dying.
"You could teach a masterclass in this," I say.
"In what? Hiding from people who want you dead?" His mouth quirks, almost a smile. "Limited market for that skill set."
"I don't know. I've met plenty of people who could use it."
The almost-smile fades. "Yeah. I bet you have."
He's thinking about my work and the places I've been. War zones and corruption, trafficking rings and government conspiracies. The dark places where people like us go looking for truth, knowing what it costs.
Night falls early this time of year, darkness swallowing what little light filters through the storm. Chris builds up the fire against the dropping temperature. I burrow deeper into my thermal blanket, exhaustion pulling at my bones despite doing almost nothing all day. The cold saps energy faster than any physical labor.
I drift off sometime after dinner—freeze-dried camping food reconstituted with hot water, surprisingly edible when you're hungry enough. Sleep comes hard and shallow, disturbed by wind and the occasional crack of ice breaking somewhere in the distance.
When I wake, the fire has burned low. Chris sits beside it, shirtless, working at his left shoulder with a grimace. Even in the dim light, angry red spreads from an old wound, heat radiating from infected tissue.
I'm on my feet before conscious thought kicks in.
"Let me see that."
Chris jerks back, reaching for his shirt. "It's fine."
"It's infected. Don't insult my intelligence." I crouch beside him, close enough to see the damage clearly. Old shrapnel wound, poorly healed, now red and swollen with fresh infection. "How long has it been like this?"
"Week. Maybe two." He won't meet my eyes. "Old injury. It flares up sometimes. Goes away on its own."
"Except this time it's not going away." I scan his gear, spot the first aid kit. "You have antibiotics?"
"Used the last of them months ago."
