Page 41 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
"You're good at this," I say.
"Five years in Chicago will teach you how to think like a criminal." She highlights a section, adjusts the syntax. "The trick is making them believe the lie because it's what they want to hear. Shepherd thinks you're dead or neutralized. This confirms you're not only alive but a threat. They'll have to respond."
"And when they do?"
"We hit them before they hit us." She saves her work, stretches her good shoulder. The injured one she holds carefully, protective. "Assuming we don't get killed in the process."
"We won't."
She looks at me then. Really looks at me. "You sound pretty confident for someone who's been hunted for eleven months."
"Hunted but not caught. Besides, I'm not in this alone anymore."
The words hang between us. True in more ways than I'm ready to examine.
Before Sierra, every day was the same. Wake, survive, plan, hide. Repeat. No future beyond the next sunrise. No reason to fight except that dying would mean Shepherd wins. It was existence, not life.
She changed that. Walked into my woods with her sharp tongue and sharper mind and refused to let me disappear back into the shadows. Forced me to remember that I'm not just a ghost haunting these mountains. That I'm still a person, still capable of connection.
Still capable of wanting something more than revenge.
I study her while she works and let myself imagine what comes after. If we survive. If we somehow take down Shepherd and live to tell about it.
Will she stay in Alaska? Go back to Chicago? Move on to the next case, the next crisis, the next fight?
Will she want me to come with her?
The thought should terrify me. The idea of leaving this mountain, of walking back into civilization after living feral for a year. Of facing Bryn and explaining why I let her believe I was dead. Of trying to fit back into a world that moved on without me.
But when I imagine it with Sierra beside me, it seems almost possible.
"Stop it," she says.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever you're thinking that's making your face do that thing." She closes her laptop, turns to face me fully. "You get this look sometimes. Like you're trying to solve a problem that has no solution."
"Maybe I am."
"Well, stop. We've got enough real problems without you inventing new ones." She stands, moves closer. Close enough that I can smell the soap from her last wash—stolen from a camper's supply cache two weeks ago. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
I could deflect. Change the subject. But she's shared enough of herself—her fear, her past, her body—that she deserves honesty.
"I'm trying to figure out what happens after," I admit. "If we make it through this. Where we go. What we do."
"You mean where you go."
"No." I catch her wrist, hold her in place. "I mean we. As in both of us."
Understanding dawns in her eyes. Then something else. Something that looks like hope mixed with caution.
"Chris—"
"I know. It's early. Complicated. We barely know each other." The words come faster now, like I need to get them out before I lose my nerve. "But I also know that I've spent eleven months alone and hollow, and three days with you has made me feel more alive than the entire year before. So maybe it is too soon. But maybe that doesn't matter."
She's quiet for a long moment. Then: "I go where the work takes me. Next assignment could be Montana, could be Florida, could be anywhere."
"Okay."
