Chapter 3 Carolina
THREE
CAROLINA
The afternoon shadows lengthen across the canyon as I sit on my favorite rock outcropping, rifle across my lap, watching the approaches the way I have every day since arriving.
Nine days. I've been out here nine days, and it still doesn't feel like enough distance from the date circled in red on every calendar I've ever owned since it happened.
Three years ago today, Private Noah Parker bled out on a training field at Fort Lee while I screamed at the medics to work faster and Marcus Greer stood with his hands shaking and his face white with shock.
Three years, and I can still smell the copper tang of blood mixing with Virginia clay, still hear the wet sound of Noah trying to breathe around the shrapnel that had torn through his chest because Greer got cocky.
I stand before the memories drag me deeper. Movement helps. Action helps. Sitting still lets the past catch up, and I didn't come out here to drown in it—I came to make peace with it, or at least to stop fighting the parts I can't change.
The air is that thin mountain cold that comes with elevation and clear skies. The sun sets and the golden hour begins, promising a spectacular sunset.
I left my tent behind this time, bringing only the lightweight bivvy sack that keeps the dew off and weighs almost nothing. The less I carry, the farther I can go, and I need to go far this year.
Need to find a place where even the echoes of civilization can't reach me.
I do a slow scan of my surroundings, hand loose on my weapon’s grip, checking the approaches and sight lines the way I've done every day since I got here.
Old habits. Army habits. EOD habits that say you always clear the area, always check for threats, always assume someone might want you dead, because sometimes they do.
The canyon is empty except for me and the resident ravens. One of them croaks from a pine tree twenty yards away, watching me with that unsettling intelligence corvids have. I've been feeding it scraps, and now it expects breakfast like I'm running a goddamn diner up here.
My camp is minimal—the bivvy sack rolled tight and secured to my pack, fire ring from last night's small blaze now just gray ash and cold stones, water bottles lined up beside my pack where I filled them from the spring last night.
Everything has its place, everything is organized the way the Army taught me, and EOD reinforced. When you work with explosives for a living, disorder isn't just inconvenient—it's deadly. A misplaced tool, a forgotten step, a moment of inattention, and people die.
Like Noah.
I shake off the thought and move to the fire ring, building a new fire from tinder and kindling for tonight’s meal.
The motions are mechanical, soothing in their simplicity.
Scrape a nest in the ash, place the tinder, arrange the kindling in a teepee, light one match — because I’m not wasting resources —and breathe gently to encourage the flame.
Smoke rises thin and pale, and I feed it carefully until the fire is self-sustaining. Coffee first, then food, then decide whether to stay another day or push higher into the backcountry.
Except I know the answer already. I'm leaving tomorrow.
Nine days is enough.
The anniversary has passed, Noah's ghost is no quieter, but at least I've paid my respects with solitude and guilt, and I need to get back before my boss at Sierra Wilderness Expeditions starts to worry.
I texted him from the trailhead before I lost signal that I'd be out for a week, maybe ten days, and he knows I do this every year.
But there's a limit to how long you can disappear before people start asking questions I don't want to answer.
The coffee is instant, tastes like dirt and chemicals, and I drink it black while watching the sun set over the western ridges.
Light spills into the canyon in shades of gold and amber, painting the granite faces and turning the pine needles to bronze.
It's beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache.
Out here, nothing explodes.
Nothing bleeds.
Nothing dies because I made a mistake in judgment three years ago when I thought training devices could simulate real-world threats without real-world consequences.
I'm finishing the coffee when the raven goes silent.
One moment it's muttering to itself in that conversational way ravens have, and the next it's gone completely quiet.
I set the cup down slowly and reach for the Sig, thumbing off the safety as I scan the tree line. Birds don't shut up without reason.
Something's coming.
I move to a position behind the rocks that form the natural wall of my camp, sighting along the most likely approaches. My heart rate picks up but stays controlled—adrenaline without panic, the way I learned to manage it when a wrong move could set off an IED.
Breathe. Focus. Assess.
It takes me three minutes to spot him. He's good, I'll give him that. Moving carefully through the scrub oak and manzanita, using cover, keeping noise to a minimum. But I've been staring at this terrain for nine days, and I know what belongs and what doesn't.
He's coming from the southwest, uphill, which is smart—it gives him the high ground advantage and makes him harder to spot against the setting sun.
He's big, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of controlled grace that says military or law enforcement.
Tactical pants, hiking boots, and a pack that's neither too heavy nor too light.
Armed—I can see the pistol on his hip from here.
My finger rests alongside the trigger guard, not on the trigger. Not yet. He hasn't done anything overtly threatening, but he's also not a hiker who stumbled onto my camp by accident.
Nobody comes up here by accident.
This is deliberate.
I wait until he's forty yards out.
"That's close enough." My voice cuts through the quiet, sharp and clear. I keep the Sig pointed at him but not quite aimed—a warning, not an execution.
He freezes immediately, hands coming away from his sides, palms visible.
Smart.
Non-threatening but not submissive.
His head turns slowly toward me, and I get my first clear look at his face.
Strong features, maybe mid-thirties, dark hair cut military-short, eyes that are either gray or blue—hard to tell from this distance.
There's a hardness to him, the kind that comes from seeing and doing things that change you, but also something else.
Something steady.
Something that catches me off-guard.
He's handsome in a way that's all angles and rough edges, nothing soft or pretty about it. Square jaw dark with stubble, straight nose that looks like it's been broken at least once, mouth set in a firm line that somehow still manages to look... appealing.
The tactical gear emphasizes broad shoulders and a trim waist, the kind of build that comes from functional strength rather than vanity.
My pulse kicks up, and I tell myself it's just adrenaline, just the surprise of being found after nine days alone.
It has nothing to do with the way he holds himself—controlled power, competence written into every line of his body—or the steady intelligence in his eyes as he assesses the situation without a hint of panic.
I tighten my grip on the Sig, annoyed at myself. This is not the time to notice that a man is attractive.
This is the time to figure out if he's a threat and what he wants.
Focus, Sutton.
"Carolina Sutton?" His voice is calm, pitched to carry without shouting. No panic, no aggression. Just steady, like his eyes.
The fact that he knows my name makes my finger move fractionally closer to the trigger. "Who's asking?"
"My name is Flint Morrison. I'm with Guardian HRS." He moves one hand very slowly toward his vest, two fingers only. "I'm reaching for credentials. Don't shoot me."
Guardian HRS. The name triggers recognition—private security, former military operators, the kind of people who get called when situations are too sensitive or too complicated for standard law enforcement.
I don't lower the weapon, but I don't tell him to stop either. He pulls out a slim wallet and holds it up, letting me see the ID and badge before tossing it gently toward me. It lands in the dirt ten feet away.
"Stay there," I tell him, and move to retrieve it without taking my eyes or the gun off him. I crouch, pick up the wallet one-handed, and flip it open. The ID looks legitimate—his photo, the Guardian HRS logo. Could be fake, but it would be a good fake.
I toss it back to him. "Guardian HRS doesn't make social calls. What do you want?"
"I need you to come with me. There's a situation that requires your expertise." He hasn't moved from where I stopped him, hands still visible, body language open. "Time-sensitive. Lives at stake."
"I'm on leave." I adjust my stance slightly, keeping the rock outcropping between us. "Whatever it is, FBI or ATF or Army EOD can handle it. I'm not in that world anymore."
"It's not that simple." He takes a slow breath, deciding how much to tell me.
"Marcus Greer is in FBI custody. He's been placing explosive devices across California using a trigger system you designed.
One's already detonated. At least two more are active.
FBI's techs can't disarm them. They need you. "
The name hits me like a fist to the solar plexus. Marcus Greer. The last person I want to think about, connected to the last thing I want to touch. My hand doesn't waver on the gun, but something in my chest clenches tight.
"Greer?" My voice sounds flat even to my own ears. Dishonorable discharge. He blamed me for his failure.
Morrison's eyes are sharp on mine, reading my reaction.
"He spent the last three years planning this.
The devices use your adaptive trigger design.
He's modified them, made them more lethal.
And he's talking in riddles during interrogation, dropping hints about the next target that only someone who knows him would understand.
" He pauses. "They think this is about you, Ms. Sutton.
He's trying to prove something, or draw you out, or both. "
I want to tell him he's wrong. I want to send him back down the mountain and pretend this conversation never happened.
But the tactical part of my brain—the part that kept me alive through two deployments and three years teaching people how not to die—is already processing the information, and it makes too much sense.
Greer always was obsessed with proving himself, with being the best, with showing everyone who doubted him that he was smarter than they gave him credit for. And he blamed me for ruining his career, even though he ruined it himself by being arrogant and careless.
"If he's in custody, why do you need me?" I'm stalling, and we both know it.
"Because he's not giving up the locations easily, and even if he did, the FBI can't disarm devices built using your design.
You invented it. You know how it thinks, how it adapts.
" Morrison takes a small step forward, testing my boundaries.
"Every minute we waste is a minute closer to people dying. "
The sun is slipping down toward the horizon, but is still warm on my shoulders. There's something in his expression beyond the professional urgency—concern, maybe, or recognition. Like he knows what he's asking of me, knows how much I don't want to do this, and understands why.
His right wrist has a paracord bracelet wrapped around it, worn and faded, the kind of thing soldiers make or carry for luck or memory. There's a story there, probably one as ugly as mine.
I lower the Sig slightly, safety back on, and tuck it into the holster at my hip. "Show me what you have."