7. Atlas
ATLAS
My phone rings, loud and insistent, pulling me from the best sleep I’ve had in months.
I jolt awake, disoriented for a moment before the ringing stops. The ceiling isn’t the one from my childhood bedroom. The walls are a soft gray instead of the pale blue I’ve stared at for so many nights. Then I feel the warmth beside me, and it all comes rushing back.
Kai.
Last night.
Smiling, I turn slightly to look at him. He’s still asleep, his hair messy against the pillow, his face peaceful with a slight curl in the corners of his lips. The sign of a good dream. I indulge in taking him in.
Kai is so different from other men I’ve been with in the past. They were all about career goals, cocktail hour, and networking. Kai is so much more. Simple, but in a good way.
He knows what he wants, and unlike me, he doesn’t need to pretend.
And he’s very, very good-looking. Tall with dark hair that falls just above his collar and warm brown eyes that crinkle slightly at the corners when he smiles.
The phone rings again.
I turn around on the bed, trying not to wake Kai, and grab my phone from the nightstand. It’s Jordan. Of course it’s Jordan.
“Hello?” I answer, my voice still rough with sleep.
“Where the hell are you?” Jordan’s voice comes through immediately, accusatory. “Your location says you’re not at your parents’ house.”
“Thanks for making me regret giving you access to my location. For emergency purposes.”
“You’re not where you’re supposed to be, so you could be in an emergen—” He stops himself with a gasp.
“You’re at his place, aren’t you?” His voice is suddenly filled with glee.
“Oh my god, you finally took my excellent advice and hooked up with the hot oral historian. I knew it. I called it. I’m a genius. ”
I look back at the bed just as Kai’s eyes flutter open. He sees me standing there, phone to my ear, and his expression shifts into a smile. A real smile. The kind that makes my heart do fluttery things in my chest.
I smile back, unable to help myself.
“It really was inevitable,” I tell Jordan, still looking at Kai.
Kai sits up slightly, the sheet falling away from his chest, and I have to force myself to focus on the phone call and not on the memory of last night.
“Did you call just to be nosy, or do you actually have a reason?” I ask.
“Of course I have a reason,” Jordan says. “Can you put me on speaker? And please tell me he is there because I need to tell you both this.”
I hesitate for just a moment, then press the speaker button. “You’re on speaker. Kai this is my best friend, Jordan.”
“Hey, Kai!” Jordan’s voice comes through loud and cheerful. “I’m Jordan, your new BFF. Thanks for taking such good care of my boy. I’m sure you’re doing an excellent job. Very thorough. Very—”
“Jordan.” I can hear the smile in my own voice.
“Fine, fine. I’ll behave.” He doesn’t sound like he means it. “Before I get into it, for the new kids in class, I have a special set of skills—”
Kai laughs, and I roll my eyes, mouthing “he’s a hacker” to Kai, who smiles his understanding.
“Carry on, Jordan.”
“So, I found something interesting about HelixGen Corp. They’re being financed by a bigger corporation. A massive one with multiple real estate holdings across several states.”
Kai sits up fully now, completely awake, his expression shifting from contentment to focus. “What kind of real estate holdings?” he asks.
“That’s the interesting part,” Jordan says. “The pattern is always the same. They come into small towns, buy up land cheap—usually from farmers who are struggling—and then they develop it. Strip malls, apartment complexes, that kind of thing. All of which get purchased by the parent corporation.”
“So HelixGen Corp is the entry point,” I say, understanding dawning. “They soften up the community, gain trust, then the real development starts.”
“Exactly. They’re the Trojan horse. They come in talking about preservation and investment, but really they’re scouting locations for the parent company.
They’re looking at Pine Ridge because it’s close enough to Denver to become a satellite city.
All they need to do is force the local farmers to sell their land for next to nothing, and then boom—development starts. ”
This is bigger than I thought. This is worse than I thought.
“Can you send me the evidence?” I ask.
“Already did. Check your email. I’ve compiled everything—financial records, property acquisitions, the whole pattern.”
“Do you know who the parent corporation is?” Kai asks.
“That’s where it gets weird,” Jordan says. “Every document I came across has the name redacted. And even if it wasn’t, it’s probably a bunch of shell companies anyway. These people are professionals at hiding their tracks.”
After we end the call, Kai and I sit in silence for a moment as the weight of what we’ve learned settles over us.
Then Kai reaches over and pulls me back down under the bed sheets. He kisses me, soft and reassuring, and for a moment, the world outside doesn’t exist. It’s just us and the feeling of his lips on mine and the knowledge that we’re in this together.
“We need to tell the mayor,” I say when we finally break apart.
“We need to tell everyone,” Kai corrects. “But the mayor first.”
Before I can respond, he’s kissing me again—slower this time. His hand cups the back of my neck, holding me in place like he’s afraid I might disappear if he lets go.
I pull back slightly, breathless. “This isn’t part of the plan.”
“My plan comes first,” he says against my lips, and I can feel him smiling.
“What plan?”
He kisses me once more, soft and lingering, before pulling back just enough to look at me. “The plan to win you over so you never want to leave my bed.”
The words hang between us, playful on the surface but weighted with a deeper charge. The jolt of it makes my heart stutter. His eyes widen slightly, like he’s just realized what he said—what it might mean.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
Then Kai clears his throat and pulls away, sliding out of bed in one fluid motion. “I’m going to make breakfast,” he says, his voice a little too casual. “You want eggs? I make good eggs.”
He disappears into the kitchen before I can answer, leaving me sitting here with a smile I can’t quite suppress spreading across my face.
Over breakfast—scrambled eggs and toast—we plan our approach.
“We can’t tell him everything,” I say, sipping coffee. “If we come in too aggressive, he’ll just dismiss us. We need to present it carefully. Give him enough information to be concerned but not so much that he feels attacked or questions our sources.”
“And if he dismisses us anyway?” Kai asks.
“Then we go public. We present it to the community. We make it impossible for him to ignore.”
“Okay. Let’s try the mayor first.”
The town hall is a small brick building with a flagpole out front. We walk in together, and I’m acutely aware of how close Kai is walking next to me. How natural it feels to have him here. How much stronger I feel with him beside me when up until last weekend I mostly felt like a failure.
The mayor’s assistant, Carol Hutchins, according to the name plate, looks up from her desk. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Atlas Navarro, and this is Kai Grant from Neighbor Stories, the library’s oral history program. We need to speak with Mayor Whitmore,” I say.
“He’s a busy man. You don’t just turn up to speak to him,” she says as if she spends half her days pushing people away.
I lean over her desk a little and pitch my voice low so no one else overhears. “It’s important. It has to do with HelixGen Corp and how they might be set on destroying the town and our way of living.”
Carol’s expression shifts. Sympathy flashes across her face, and I wonder if she might already have concerns about the mayor’s eagerness to partner with HelixGen Corp.
“Let me speak with him,” she says, standing up. “Wait here a moment.”
She disappears through the door behind her desk. Kai gives me a tight smile, and I smile back. We’re in this together.
Carol returns a moment later. “He’ll see you. Come on in.”
Mayor Whitmore sits behind a large desk, looking slightly annoyed by the interruption. But his expression shifts to neutral when he sees us.
“Mr. Navarro and Mr. Grant. What’s this about?”
I take a breath and launch into our carefully prepared explanation. “We’ve been doing some research into HelixGen Corp’s practices,” I say. “And we have concerns about their involvement in Pine Ridge.”
“What kind of concerns?” The mayor leans back in his chair, clearly unimpressed.
“They have a track record of unethical practices,” Kai says. “Data farming, privacy violations, exploiting communities.”
“They’ve been sued multiple times,” I add. “And they always settle discreetly to avoid public scrutiny.”
The mayor waves his hand dismissively. “Every company gets sued. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does when there’s a pattern,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “And there is. They come into small towns, gain trust, then extract whatever they can before moving on.”
“That’s speculation,” the mayor says. “I’ve seen their financial projections. They’re offering substantial funding. Jobs. Growth. Pine Ridge needs that.”
“Pine Ridge needs to protect itself,” Kai says, his voice firm. “From corporations that only see us as data to be harvested.”
The mayor stands up, signaling the conversation is over. “I appreciate your concern, but unless you have concrete evidence of illegal activity, I suggest you stop spreading unfounded rumors.”
When Kai looks like he’s about to argue back, I put my hand on his arm.
“Thank you so much for your time, Mayor Whitmore.”
“Next time, book an appointment or make sure you come to me for a real town issue,” he says, dismissing us.
We leave the office feeling dejected. Carol gives us a sympathetic look as we pass, but there’s nothing she can do. The mayor has made up his mind.
Outside, Kai and I stand on the steps of the town hall, the Colorado sun warm on our faces but doing nothing to lift the weight we’re carrying.
“He’s not going to listen,” Kai says.
“No, he’s seeing nothing but dollar signs.”
“So what do we do?”
I think about Jordan’s evidence. I think about the pattern of destruction HelixGen Corp leaves in its wake. I think about my parents and Mrs. Field and Vaughn and everyone in Pine Ridge who deserves to know the truth.
“We go around him,” I say. “We tell the community. We make it impossible for him to move forward without public backlash.”
“Then that’s what we do.”
But as we walk away from the town hall, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re running out of time. That HelixGen Corp is already moving forward with its plans and we’re scrambling to catch up.
We need a new plan. And we need it fast.