18. Savannah
SAVANNAH
The air inside the compound grows thick, a physical weight that settles into my lungs like mountain silt.
No one mentions the words I caught in the garage.
No one asks me why my hands shake when I carve the cedar birds or why I avoid the kitchen when all three of them are present.
But the shift is there, vibrating in the floors.
Dante is a statue of silence, his eyes tracking my every movement with a calculation that feels less like a warden and more like a man holding his breath underwater.
Gideon is worse. He watches me with a raw, kinetic energy, his jaw locked so tight I can almost hear the bone grinding.
He looks like he wants to cage me or let me break him—I can't tell which, and the ambiguity terrifies me more than a cartel blade.
Even Malachi has changed. His charm has become a serrated edge, his wit biting and sharp, flaying the tension whenever the four of us are trapped in the same room.
I bury myself in the only language I know: war.
I spend hours in the armory, stripping and reassembling the Remington until my fingers bleed.
Admitting I want them—all of them—is an admission that I am still human.
And humans can be hurt. Humans have something to lose. If I stay a weapon, I stay safe.
"They're not after the trucks," I say, my voice raspy from hours of silence as I spread the topo maps across the war room table.
Dante, Gideon, and Malachi flank me, their heat pressing in from three sides.
"These aren't raids. They’re pacing us. They want to see who runs which ridge and how fast the backup arrives. "
Dante leans over the map, his shoulder brushing mine. I don't pull away. "They’re mapping the reaction time for a larger breach."
"Then we break their survey," Gideon growls, his hand twitching toward the holstered pistol at his thigh.
An hour later, I’m squeezed into the cab of the heavy-duty truck.
Dante drives, his hands steady on the wheel, while Gideon and Malachi fill the bench seat behind us.
The cabin is too small for this much history.
Every time the truck jolts over a mountain drift, I feel the collective focus of three men pinned to the back of my neck.
We’re driving toward a trap—I know it, and they know it—but the real danger isn't the Sombra scouts waiting in the pines. It’s the silence between us, the unspoken truth that we are no longer protector and protected.
We are a knot that cannot be untied without drawing blood.
The canyon walls close in, slick with the grey-blue slush of rain runoff. Waterford Pass. The air is so thin it tastes like iron. Dante signals a halt, and I’m out of the door before the tires stop spinning, my rifle slung across my back.
"Flank right, high ground," Dante commands. His voice doesn't waver. He trusts me to find the ledge, and I do, scrambling up the shale until I’m a ghost in the hemlocks.
The Sombra trucks scream around the bend, tires churning the freezing runoff into a muddy slurry. They don't see us. They see a target. Then the world explodes.
Gideon is a blur of kinetic violence. He tears through the center of the road, his shotgun barking in rhythm with his pulse, providing a wall of suppression that forces the cartel soldiers toward the tree line.
Dante is the anchor, his movements economical and lethal, shifting the club members into a pincer movement that leaves the attackers no oxygen.
Malachi drifts through the periphery, covering the retreat paths with a precision that belies his graceful posture. He doesn't waste a bullet.
I breathe out, the cold air stinging my lungs, and start picking off the drivers.
Through the scope, I see them move as one organism.
Dante, Gideon, Malachi. They don't need to speak.
They react to the gaps I leave, filling the space I create with lead and fire.
I don't feel like a weapon used by others.
I feel like a gear in a machine that finally fits.
Movement shifts on the upper ridge. A flash of tactical black—high-end gear. I track the figure. It’s Matty. El Espectro’s personal dog.
I drop the rifle and draw my blade, sprinting up the unstable snowpack. The shale slides beneath my boots, but the rage in my chest is an anchor. I catch him near the edge of a ravine where the glacial runoff roars like a dying beast.
He turns, his pistol clearing the holster, but I’m faster. I drive my shoulder into his chest, sending us both into the freezing slush. We roll, teeth bared, fingernails tearing at eyes. I pin him into the mud, my knife sinking deep into the hollow of his throat.
Matty doesn't scream. He gurgles, his blood mixing with the mud. A choked, wet laugh escapes his lips, staining his teeth red.
"You think... this is it?" he wheezes, his eyes wide and glassy. "He isn't... sending us anymore, Savage."
I twist the blade, my knuckles white. "Where is he?"
"He's bored of the games," Matty whispers, the life draining from his face as he smiles. "Espectro is coming for his creation. He’s already in the mountains."
The adrenaline dies, leaving a void that tastes like cold copper and failure.
Matty’s blood is already drying in the fine lines of my palms, a map of a war I thought I could outrun.
I don't look at his body as I slide my knife back into its sheath.
I just stand there, the roar of the runoff turning into a white-noise scream in my head.
He’s already in the mountains.
The ride back to the compound is a blur of grey pines and shadows.
I sit in the cab, my knees pulled tightly together, my ribs aching from the vibration of the engine.
Usually, the proximity of these men is a spark under my skin.
Now, they feel like targets. I track the line of Dante’s throat, the curve of Gideon’s scarred knuckles, and Malachi’s relaxed posture, and all I see are entry wounds.
Bullet trajectories. The way they’ll look when El Espectro carves them apart just to watch me break.
"Savage? Talk to me," Gideon growls from the back. He kicks the base of my seat, a familiar provocation, his way of demanding I rejoin the living.
I don't move. I don't blink. I stare through the windshield until the forest becomes a smear of dark ink.
"Leave it, Gid," Dante says, his voice low and vibrating through the frame of the truck. He doesn't look in my direction, but he shifts the gear stick with a deliberate, slow motion, his knuckles occasionally grazing my thigh. It’s a tether. He’s anchoring me to the present, to the metal and the road, while my mind is already burning the compound to the ground to keep them safe.
Once we breach the gates, the silence in my head only grows louder. I head for the porch, my movements jagged. I’m waiting for the first shot. Every bird that takes flight is a signal; every gust of wind is a scout.
"Sit," Dante commands, pulling a chair out on the deck.
He doesn't ask. He drops a stack of surveillance reports on the table and sits beside me, his broad shoulder a wall against the world.
He doesn't touch me, but he stays close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his leather vest. He simply exists there, a mountain of a man who refuses to be moved by my panic.
Gideon isn't as patient. He stalks over, his face a mask of frustration. He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him, his eyes hunting for the ghost that’s haunting me. His hands are rough as he pulls back my sleeves, checking my forearms, then pressing his palms to my ribs to feel for breaks.
"You're not hit," he mutters, his thumbs digging into my skin. He looks like he wants to shake me. "Stop looking like you're already dead."
I pull away, my chest tight. "Don't."
He retreats, but Malachi is already there, sliding into the space Gideon left. He doesn't offer reports or a physical exam. He just sits on the railing, watching the treeline with me. We stay like that for an hour. Two. The sun dips, casting long, bloody shadows across the yard.
"He uses everything," I finally whisper, my voice cracking. "He'll use your hearts. He'll use the way you look at me. I don't know how to manage this. I don't know how to survive wanting you when that's exactly what he'll use to kill you."
Malachi reaches out, his fingers tracing the jagged scorpion brand on my wrist, his touch light as a breath. "Then let him try, Savannah. We've been looking for a reason to burn the world down anyway."
The moonlight turns the runoff into ribbons of liquid mercury.
It carves jagged paths through the thawing earth, a frantic, unthinking rush toward the valley floor.
I stand on the edge of the gravel lot, the air so cold it crystallizes in my lungs, but for once in eight years, the chill doesn't feel like a warning.
I look at my hands. They’re clean of Matty’s blood now, scrubbed raw until the skin glowed pink, yet I can still feel the vibration of the rifle against my shoulder.
For nearly a decade, my life was a ledger.
A list of names to cross out, a tally of debts that could only be paid in bone and shadow.
Revenge was a simple, clean architecture.
It didn't require me to sleep. It didn't require me to breathe.
It only demanded that I stay cold enough to keep the metal from jamming.
But as I see the shadows of the pines stretch toward the cabins, the architecture is crumbling.
Dante is inside the main house, probably staring at the same topographical maps I memorized hours ago.
Gideon is likely in the gym, punishing a heavy bag because he doesn't know what to do with the tenderness I forced out of him.
Malachi is somewhere in the dark, watching the sensors, his mind a hive of silver-tongued contingency plans.
The weight in my chest isn't the familiar pressure of a coming storm. It’s the terrifying realization that I’ve stopped imagining my own death as a solo act.
I used to see my end clearly: a high ridge, a spent casing, and a final breath taken in total isolation.
Now, the images are cluttered. If I fall, Dante will be the one trying to pull me back into the light.
Gideon will be the one screaming my name until his throat bleeds.
Malachi will be the one dismantling the world to find the person who hurt me.
They’re in the blast radius now. Not because they’re bikers or soldiers, but because I let them in.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a half-finished cedar bird.
My thumb traces the curve of the wing. I don’t want the cartel’s blood anymore—not if the price of the kill is the silence of this mountain.
I want the way Dante looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching.
I want Gideon’s rough palms and Malachi’s soft, ruinous promises.
I want a life.
The thought is more violent than any bullet. To have a life, I have to stop being a ghost. I have to decide that they are worth more than the ghosts of the people I lost. Every drop of water hitting the stone sounds like a second ticking away, a heartbeat I’m finally beginning to claim as my own.