39. Logan
LOGAN
T he video feed cuts to static, Granger's final words hanging in the air like smoke:
"You have one hour. Choose wisely."
My hands curl into fists at my sides, knuckles white with tension. The control room feels too small suddenly, the walls pressing in as if they might collapse under the weight of what we just witnessed.
Beside me, Knox's jaw is locked tight enough to crack teeth. Asa's fingers fly over the keyboard, face lit by the harsh glow of multiple monitors.
We'd been searching for Sloane since dawn—combing the woods, checking safehouses, running trace protocols on every frequency we could access.
Now this.
A threat wrapped in an ultimatum, delivered with the clinical precision of a man who knows exactly how to twist the knife.
"Timer's live," Asa announces, voice clipped and professional despite the fury I see burning behind his glasses.
"Fifty-nine minutes, forty-seven seconds."
I force myself to breathe. To think past the red haze of rage clouding my vision.
Getting angry won't help her.
Getting reckless will get her killed.
"Run it again," I order, though we've already watched the feed three times. "Every detail. Every shadow. There has to be something we missed."
Asa nods, fingers moving in that precise way of his that turns chaos into code. The video rewinds, then starts again in high definition across the main display.
Sloane appears on screen, zip-tied to what looks like a support beam. Her clothes are dirty but intact, no visible blood—small mercies.
But it's her eyes that grab me. They're sharp. Alert. Even bound and threatened, she's still gathering intel. Still fighting.
Still alive.
"Focus on the background first," Knox says, leaning closer to the screen. "Structural elements, window placement, ambient sound."
We dissect every frame like it's a crime scene—which, I suppose, it is. Or will be, depending on how the next hour plays out.
The thought sends ice through my veins, but I push it down. Lock it away with all the other fears I can't afford right now.
"Wait," Knox says suddenly, pointing to the upper right corner of the frame. "The birds."
I squint at where he's indicating. Through a grimy window, barely visible in the weak morning light, three crows perch on what appears to be a railing or ledge.
"What about them?"
"They're level with the camera." Knox's voice carries the quiet certainty of a man who's spent years reading terrain through a scope. "That means we're looking at serious elevation. Has to be a firewatch tower."
Asa's already pulling up regional maps, fingers dancing across three different keyboards. Red dots begin populating across the display—every firewatch tower in a hundred-mile radius.
"Too many," I mutter, but my mind is already calculating. Time stamps. Distance ratios. Walking speed.
"She left before dawn," I think out loud, pacing now because standing still feels like drowning. "Video came in three hours later. Walking speed in snow, factoring in Granger's gear weight and an unconscious target..."
"Two-hour radius max," Asa finishes, already adjusting parameters. Most of the red dots vanish, leaving only three blinking points within the theoretical range.
"That's still too far to check them all," Knox says, voicing what we're all thinking. "Not in the time we have left."
Asa's response is to pull open a heavy case beneath his workstation.
Inside, three compact drones nest in custom foam cutouts. They look like toys—until you notice the military-grade surveillance package mounted beneath each chassis.
"I can get eyes on all three locations in five minutes," he says, already prepping the first unit for launch. "These boys are fast."
I follow Asa into the hall as he heads to launch his toys. Knox falls in step beside me, both of us snatching up our gear as we move.
But when Knox reach for the truck keys, my arm shoots out, blocking his path.
"You heard Granger," I tell him, voice flat. "I go alone, or she dies."
"Like hell." Knox's eyes are dark with something that looks like fury but feels like fear. "You walk in there solo, you both die."
"I won't risk her life on?—"
The rest of my sentence dies as Knox suddenly grabs my shirt, shoving me back against the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth. His face is inches from mine, every line etched with a rage I haven't seen since Echo-13.
"Listen to me very carefully," he growls. "You don't get to play hero this time. You don't get to sacrifice yourself because you think it'll save everyone else. That's not how family works."
The word hits like a punch to the solar plexus.
Family .
Not team. Not unit. Not brothers-in-arms.
Family .
"Knox—"
"Shut up and listen." His grip tightens. "You remember what you told me after Blackout? When I wanted to go back for Jensen's body?"
I swallow hard. Of course I remember. How could I forget?
"I told you we don't leave our own behind."
"Exactly." Knox's voice cracks slightly. "Well, guess what? Sloane's one of our own now. And so are you. So you can either work with us, or we'll knock you out and do this anyway. Your call."
Behind me, Asa appears with his screen flashes. One of his drones picked up movement at a firewatch tower. He zooms in on the feed, revealing Sloane's figure.
My heart jumps as he tilts the screen for Knox and me to see.
His fingers fly across the keyboard as he switches to comms. "Caleb, Ryk, Eli—got eyes on Sloane. Sending coordinates now. Keep a two-mile perimeter. Meet at the marked rally point."
I close my eyes. Let out a slow breath.
Knox is right. He's right, and I'm being an idiot, and somewhere in the back of my mind I hear Sloane's voice:
"You don't have to do this alone."
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I just... I can't lose anyone else. Not like this."
Knox's grip softens, but doesn't release. "You know what Caleb would say right now?"
Despite everything, I feel my mouth twitch. "Something inappropriate about group hugs?"
"Probably." Knox steps back, letting me go with a gentle shove that feels more like forgiveness than anger. "But he'd also say you're important to us too. You're not just our leader, Logan. You're... hell, you're practically our father."
The words land like shrapnel, sharp and hot beneath my ribs.
I've never thought of myself that way—as anything more than a commanding officer who failed his men once and built an empire of guilt to make up for it.
But looking at Knox now, at the raw emotion in his usually stoic face, I realize maybe I've been wrong about that too.
Maybe I've been wrong about a lot of things.
"Time check," Knox calls out, already moving toward the door.
"Forty-seven minutes," Asa replies, gathering his mobile command center with quick, precise movements. "I'm sending all three drones to scan the surroundings."
I grab my gear, mind shifting into tactical mode despite the emotion still churning in my gut. "Knox, you drive. Asa, check for traps. I'll coordinate with the second team."
They move without question, falling into formation like we've rehearsed this a thousand times.
Maybe we have, in a way.
Every drill, every simulation, every late-night planning session—it was all preparation for this moment. We just didn't know it.
The truck roars to life beneath us, Knox taking corners with controlled aggression as we tear out of The Forge's compound. I tick through equipment checks automatically: weapons, comms, medical supplies. Everything we might need. Everything we can't afford to forget.
"This is Alpha," I say into my comm unit, using our old callsigns. "Status report."
"This is team Fish and Ships," Caleb's voice crackles back, deliberately obnoxious. "We're oscar mike to waypoint charlie, over."
I can't help the small smile that tugs at my mouth. Even now, with everything on the line, he can't help himself. "Fish and Ships? That's a mouthful. Choose one."
"Fine, this is team Fish," he amends, and I hear Eli's indignant voice in the background: "What the—we're fishes now?"
The familiar banter settles something in my chest—not completely, but enough to breathe properly again.
These men, my family... they're not just backup. They're my anchor to sanity when the world tries to drag me under.
"This is team Fish," Caleb continues, voice sobering slightly. "I know we can get her out of there, Logan. I know we will."
"I know," I reply softly, and I'm surprised to realize I mean it.
The tower appears through the trees ahead of us—a stark silhouette against the morning sky.
Knox kills the engine while we're still under cover, letting momentum carry us to a silent halt behind a dense stand of pines.
"Time check," I whisper, though I already know the answer.
Asa's voice is grim. "Thirty-eight minutes, twenty-four seconds."
I check my weapon one final time, muscles coiled tight with anticipation and something darker. Something that tastes like memory and smoke and sand.
"Ready?" Knox asks quietly.
I nod once, sharp and certain.
Because this isn't Echo-13.
This isn't me trying to save everyone alone.
This is family coming for their own.
And Granger?
He has no idea what that means.