Chapter 2
WILLA
Ican't see the road anymore.
"We're going to be all right, boy." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. Odin whines from the passenger seat, his massive head swiveling toward something I can't see. "Just a few more miles."
The Belgian Malinois presses against the door, ears flattening. Every muscle goes taut. This isn't weather anxiety. This is the stance he takes when something's wrong.
"Odin, what..."
The world explodes in light.
Muzzle flashes strobe through the white curtain.
One. Two. Five points of fire painting the storm in lethal patterns.
My headlights catch a man diving behind a snowbank, his body rolling with military precision.
Dark figures advance through the blizzard in formation—the kind of spacing and coordination Dad drilled into his Marines.
Too perfect for anything except professionals.
Automatic weapons. Multiple shooters. Coordinated attack.
My hands lock on the steering wheel. Every self-defense lesson Dad drilled into me floods back. Get behind cover. Stay low. Never freeze.
Except there's no cover. Just my veterinary truck and Odin barking his warning too late because we're already in the kill zone.
The nearest gunman turns toward my headlights. I see him clearly for a split second—tactical gear, night vision goggles pushed up, weapon coming level with my windshield.
I slam the accelerator to the floor.
The truck surges forward like a wounded animal, engine roaring, tires screaming for traction on ice. The world narrows to a tunnel. Target ahead. No time to think. Only react. Dad's voice cuts through my terror: ‘Sometimes the only way out is through, baby girl. You hesitate, you die.’
I don't hesitate.
The impact hits like a sledgehammer to my chest. The gunman's body crumples against the grille, then disappears under the bumper with a sickening crunch that vibrates through the steering column into my hands.
His weapon sparks off the hood in a shower of orange light before spinning away into darkness.
The truck lurches, suspension compressing, then bouncing as the wheels roll over something that used to be human.
I just killed a man.
My stomach heaves. I swallow bile and keep my foot down. More muzzle flashes erupt from my left. Bullets punch through metal with sounds like hammers on steel. One takes out the side mirror in an explosion of glass. Another sparks off the door frame inches from my head.
The passenger door rips open.
A man rolls inside—controlled chaos, all blood and lethal focus.
He moves like water despite the wound, bringing the smell of gunpowder and cordite into the cab.
Blood streams from a gash on his temple, painting half his face crimson.
He slams the door shut even as his other hand comes up with a pistol, tracking targets through the rear window.
"Drive. Now." His voice cuts clean through Odin's barking. "They're Committee—same people hunting you and the dog."
The words hit like ice water. Committee. The name from the anonymous threats, whispered like it should mean something. The name that made the sheriff tell me to forget what I'd seen. Some mysterious, nefarious group I still don't understand.
Bullets punch through the tailgate. One stars the rear window. Odin snarls at the stranger, teeth bared, but the man ignores the threat entirely, focused on the real danger behind us.
“Who the fuck are you?” I all but scream.
"Kane. Hard left!" he barks. "Now!"
I wrench the wheel. The truck fishtails, back end sliding on ice in a stomach-dropping spin. For a horrible second we're perpendicular to the road, completely exposed. Then the tires bite and we lurch forward. Another bullet takes out what's left of the side mirror.
"They're flanking," he says, voice flat with assessment. "Two vehicles converging. You've got maybe thirty seconds before they box you in."
"Tell me where to go!" My voice comes out higher than I want.
"Next right. The gap in the trees. Kill your lights when I say."
I see the turn—barely visible through the white-out, more instinct than actual road.
"Lights. Now."
I kill them. The world goes black except for the faint glow of the instrument panel. We plunge into darkness at forty miles an hour on ice with armed men behind us.
"Keep straight. Trust the wheel." Kane's voice is steady, calm, like he does this every day. "They'll lose you in the storm."
I grip the wheel tighter, feeling for the road through vibration and prayer. The truck slides, catches, slides again. Headlights sweep through the trees behind me, searching. Missing us by yards.
"There." Kane points ahead where I see nothing but white. "The passage. Aim between those two pines."
I look at the gap he's indicating. My heart stops. "That's not wide enough..."
"It is. I've done it a dozen times. Thread the needle or they catch us in thirty seconds. Your call, Doc."
"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.
A third stands protective near a teenage boy with hollow eyes. This one is tall, broad-shouldered, handsome in a cold way that makes my skin crawl. Clinical precision in how he positions himself between the kid and potential danger.
"She's the veterinarian." The stocky one's voice carries dismissal.
"She's a witness," the lean, feral one counters.
"She's here now." The tall one states it like mathematics. "Our problem or theirs."
"Stand down, Stryker," Kane says to the stocky one, then glances at the others. "Mercer. Rourke. We don't have time for this."
Anger cuts through fear. Before I can respond, Odin breaks the standoff.
He walks straight to the teenager, bypassing the dangerous men to approach the boy with the saddest eyes I've ever seen. The kid freezes, then slowly extends one hand. Odin sniffs, then pushes his massive head under those fingers.
Wonder mixed with grief crosses the boy's face.
"His name is Odin," I hear myself say, voice steadier than I feel. "He likes people who understand loss."