Chapter 6
CHRIS
Taking her to my shelter is a mistake but leaving her here to die is a bigger one.
The wind tears at my jacket as I lead Sierra into the backcountry, away from the compromised cabin and whoever thought sabotage was a good way to send a message.
Snow drives sideways, turning the world into a white wall that swallows the beam of my headlamp after three feet.
I know these trails blind, but Sierra doesn't. Every few minutes I have to stop, turn back, make sure she's still upright and moving.
She's tough. Keeps pace better than I expected, doesn't whine about the cold or the distance.
But I catch things she can't hide—the hitch in her breathing when the trail steepens, the way she favors her left leg after twenty minutes, the tremor in her hands when she grabs a tree trunk for balance.
City conditioning meets mountain altitude, and physics doesn't care how determined you are.
Still, she doesn't ask to stop. Grits her teeth and keeps moving.
That determination makes this whole damn thing harder.
Every instinct I've honed over the past year screams at me to turn around, to send her back, to vanish into the mountains like I should have done the moment I saw movement at that cabin.
But the sabotage changes everything. Someone knows she's here.
Someone's escalating. And if they're willing to cut a gas line on a night when temperatures will drop below zero, they're willing to do worse.
I can't walk away from that. Not again.
Forty minutes in, the trail narrows to a ledge barely two feet wide.
Rock face on one side, a drop-off on the other that disappears into darkness and swirling snow.
I've done this traverse a hundred times, know exactly where to place each foot, which handholds are solid and which will crumble under pressure.
"Stay close," I tell Sierra, raising my voice over the wind. "Don't look down. Just follow exactly where I step."
She nods, face pale in the reflected light. Smart enough not to waste breath on questions.
I move across first, testing each foothold even though I know them by heart.
Conditions change in winter—ice forms in cracks, snow creates false surfaces, what was solid in August can kill you in December.
Halfway across, I hear Sierra's breathing spike, the scrape of her boot finding purchase.
Don't turn around. If she sees me watching, she'll know how bad this is.
She makes it across. Exhales hard when she reaches solid ground.
"Good," I say, because it is. Because most people would have frozen up on that ledge, and we've got a long way to go.
We push higher. The terrain gets rougher, the wind more vicious.
My ribs ache with every breath, and old injuries I've learned to ignore flare back to life.
Behind me, Sierra stumbles. If I turn around, if I see her struggling, some buried piece of me that still remembers being human might make me do something stupid like offer to carry her pack.
The trail cuts through a dense stand of pines, branches heavy with snow that dumps on us as we brush past. At least here we're sheltered from the worst of the wind.
I slow my pace, let Sierra close the gap between us.
In conditions like this, losing sight of your guide means dying alone in the dark.
That's when I hear it.
A sound that doesn't belong. Sharp crack of a branch breaking, direction unclear through the storm. Could be wildlife—elk moving to lower elevation, maybe a bear still active despite the season. Could be nothing, just the mountain settling under the weight of snow.
Could be someone following us.
I stop, hold up a fist. Military signal Sierra probably doesn't recognize, but she freezes anyway. Good instincts.
Listen. Filter out the wind, the hiss of falling snow, the rasp of my own breathing. There. Again. Movement in the trees to our left, maybe thirty yards out. Too deliberate for wildlife. Too close for comfort.
"Chris?" Sierra's whisper barely carries over the wind.
"Quiet."
Another thirty seconds of silence. Nothing moves. Maybe I'm paranoid, seeing threats where there's only weather and exhaustion. Wouldn't be the first time eleven months of isolation has made me jumpy.
But staying alive means trusting paranoia.
"We keep moving," I say, low and urgent. "Fast as you can. Don't stop for anything."
"What did you—"
"Move."
She moves. We both do, faster now, caution sacrificed for speed. The trail climbs steeper, and my lungs burn with the effort. Sierra's breathing comes harsh and ragged behind me, but she keeps pace. Whatever she heard in my voice convinced her not to question.
The terrain opens up again, exposed ridge that takes the full force of the wind. Snow stings my face like needles. Visibility drops to nothing, and I navigate by memory and feel—the slope of the ground, the texture of rock versus frozen earth, the way sound changes when you're near a drop-off.
No more sounds behind us. If someone was there, we've lost them in the storm. Or they've lost us. Either way, we need to get to shelter before exposure does what bullets couldn't.
The trek takes nearly two hours in the storm. My shoulders ache from breaking trail through fresh powder, and my ribs still protest every deep breath.
The shelter appears like a ghost through the storm—just a darker shadow against the mountainside, barely visible even when you're looking for it.
It's dug into the slope beneath a rock outcropping, reinforced lean-to style with a tarp and branches that blend into the terrain.
Small. Maybe eight by ten feet, and half of that's the sleeping platform.
I've been living here since August, when my first shelter became compromised and the idea of four walls started feeling like a trap.
It's not much. Cramped. Cold. But it's kept me alive.
Sierra stops just outside the opening to the shelter, chest heaving, snowflakes clinging to her dark hair and eyelashes. She takes it all in with those sharp analytical eyes: the efficient setup, the hidden nature of it, the way everything speaks to survival rather than comfort.
"So this is where ghosts live," she says.
I don't respond. Move past her to check the perimeter alarms, make sure nothing's been disturbed while I was gone.
Everything's intact. Good. I lead her to the protected spot twenty feet from the shelter entrance where I've set up my fire pit—positioned so the rock outcropping above disperses smoke, and the storm will swallow what little escapes.
I kick snow away and start building a fire with practiced efficiency—bark shavings, small kindling, larger pieces arranged for maximum heat and minimum smoke.
The lighter catches on the first try. Flames lick up, hungry and alive.
"Sit," I tell her, pulling a thermal blanket from the shelter. "Before you freeze to death."
She takes the blanket without argument and sinks down onto a flat rock near the fire. Her hands shake as she wraps the metallic fabric around her shoulders. Adrenaline crash mixing with the cold, the reality of what almost happened back at that cabin finally hitting.
I make coffee, because that's something I can do. Something concrete and practical that doesn't require conversation. The tin pot goes on the fire, snow melted down and mixed with grounds from my dwindling supply. It'll taste like dirt and desperation, but it'll be hot.
The storm rages beyond our small protected area. Wind howls across the mountain, but under this overhang we're sheltered. Almost peaceful, if peace is something that can exist when someone's trying to kill you.
I hand Sierra a tin cup. She wraps both hands around it, breathing in the steam.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
"Don't thank me yet."
She looks at me across the flames, and the light catches the angles of her face—high cheekbones, determined jaw, eyes that have seen things most people only read about in newspapers.
She studies me the same way, cataloging details.
The scars on my hands from eleven months of mountain living.
The stiffness in my movements from injuries that never got proper medical care.
"How bad were you hurt?" she asks.
"Bad enough."
"Why not go to a hospital? Why not call for—"
"Because hospitals have records." The words come out sharper than I intend. "Records get flagged. Flags get people killed."
She doesn't flinch at my tone. Just nods slowly, like that makes perfect sense in whatever world she lives in now.
The coffee tastes exactly as bad as I expected.
I drink it anyway, let the heat work its way through my system.
Sierra does the same, grimacing but determined.
We sit in silence for a while, just two people who don't belong in the civilized world anymore, much less with each other, hiding from things that want us dead.
"Joel," I say finally. Don't know why his name comes out now, in this moment. Maybe because the guilt always sits closer to the surface when the stakes get high. "The ranger who died. He and Tate were with me when it happened."
Sierra's expression shifts. Softens slightly, but not with pity. Something deeper.
"What happened?" Her voice is careful, like she knows this ground is mined.
"We were going after evidence. Documents hidden in a cache—shipping manifests, financial records, the whole network laid out. Proof we could use." I stare at the flames. "We never made it. Someone knew we were coming."
"They hit us at dawn. Three positions, coordinated fire. Professional." My jaw tightens. "Joel went down first. Throat shot. Dead before he hit the ground. Tate tried to get me to cover after I took a round to the side, but they got him too. Headshot while he was reloading."
The fire pops. I don't look away from it.
"I was bleeding badly when Tate fell across my legs. Already gone. They were both gone, and the shooters were closing in to confirm the kills."