Chapter 22 Angie
ANGIE
The cold has teeth tonight. Not the usual sharp bite I’ve gotten used to up here, not the kind of chill that just slides down your spine and nestles into your bones until your fingers go stiff.
No, this one’s different. It’s too still.
Too quiet. Like the air itself knows something’s coming and doesn’t want to breathe too loud in case it wakes it early.
I’ve been feeling it since just before dusk, this low hum of wrongness threading through the snow, but I didn’t say anything at first. Cassian had that look again—that tightened jaw, that don’t-talk-to-me-unless-it’s-life-or-death glare—and I figured maybe I was just being paranoid.
After all, we’ve barely slept in two days, and my brain’s been stretched thin between remembering everything Mary said, watching Cassian slip further into his own head, and trying to convince myself I’m still a journalist when I’ve already set half my career on fire.
But now, as I step past the outer edge of the old ice hall, camera still in hand more out of habit than purpose, the lens catches something strange.
A flicker. Just a shimmer, barely there, like the air’s been twisted or bent.
I adjust the focus, shift an inch to the left, and there it is again—just near the ground, half-buried under a light crust of snow.
Tripwire.
Thin as fishing line. Nearly invisible. And it stretches across the path Cassian was about to take.
“Cassian!” I hiss, sharp enough that he hears the edge in my voice before the word finishes leaving my mouth.
He freezes mid-stride, maybe ten feet away from me, about to step right over it, boots already packed with slush and steam rising off his shoulders like a warning sign. He glances down, eyes narrowing as they scan where I’m pointing. One breath later, he sees it too.
He doesn’t speak. Just slowly steps back, crouches, and brushes the snow aside with practiced care until the line pulls taut. His fingers follow it to a small rock cluster and then to a small, blackened box with a red LED winking up at us like a dare.
It’s a trigger.
His voice is low when it comes, rough with restrained fury. “There are more.”
I don’t doubt him for a second. I crouch beside him, scanning the space around us.
And sure enough, once I know what I’m looking for, I start to see the pattern.
The same shimmer here, there, arcing between trees and stones like someone tried really hard to make this look like untouched wilderness.
Which, to be fair, they almost did. Except they didn’t count on me still carrying the camera. Still filming. Still paying attention.
“Tripwires. Pressure triggers. Infrared, probably,” I whisper. “They’ve boxed us in.”
Cassian doesn’t answer right away. He just stands, slow and deliberate, eyes tracing the perimeter of the clearing.
His whole body is tight, coiled, and I know he’s already running scenarios—how many exits, how many attackers, how fast he can kill if he shifts.
But his hands don’t tremble. They never do.
Not even when I can tell he’s holding back so much rage it could level the forest.
“You saved us from walking into it,” he says finally, voice low but not soft. “You saw it before I did.”
“Well, technically the camera did,” I say, trying to breathe through the knot in my chest. “But yeah. I guess I did.”
He turns to look at me then, and for a second I think he’s about to say thank you. That would’ve been nice. Maybe even sweet.
Instead, he growls, “What the hell were you doing walking the perimeter alone?”
The heat in his words snaps something right through my exhaustion, and I straighten, hands on my hips, heart still pounding but now with something a little hotter than fear.
“Excuse me?”
“You could’ve been blown to pieces,” he bites out. “You’re not supposed to scout without backup. That’s not your job.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, voice rising now. “I must’ve missed the part where I was supposed to sit quietly by the fire and hum lullabies while the big bad shifter handled everything. Is that the plan now? I just stay tucked away and let you bleed for us?”
He steps in close, taller, broader, radiating fury and something too wild to name, and I don’t back down. I never do, not with him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” I fire back. “You keep acting like you’re the only one allowed to be brave around here. Like I don’t get to make choices. Like I didn’t already choose you.”
He breathes hard through his nose, chest rising and falling like he’s holding something back. The snow creaks under his boots.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“I know,” I say, softer now. “But protecting me doesn’t mean locking me in a cage made of silence and fear. You’re not a weapon. You’re a man. And I am not your weakness.”
He exhales, long and rough, and the fury drains from his face like water slipping through stone. The wind howls through the trees again, colder now, like it wants to cut between us and try its luck, but I stand my ground.
He looks down at the tripwire, then back at me, and something in his gaze shifts. The fight in him doesn’t vanish, not entirely—it never does—but it bends a little. It sees me.
“Not weakness,” he says quietly. “Never that.”
I nod, reaching out to press a hand to his chest. “Then stop treating me like I’m one wrong step from shattering.”
He covers my hand with his, holding it there, anchoring us both.
We disarm three traps before sunrise. Cassian moves like a storm, efficient and brutal and silent, his breath thick in the air like smoke from a slow burn.
I follow behind, pointing out the shimmer only the camera catches, his fingers doing the rest. There’s no more arguing.
No more posturing. Just us, moving like we’ve done this forever.
Like our bond isn’t just emotional anymore—it’s strategic. It’s sharpened. It’s real.
At one point, crouched near a pile of twisted branches where another pressure plate waits hidden, he glances back at me and says, “You were right.”
It’s not loud. Not dramatic. But it lands like a vow.
I smile, heart skipping. “Told you.”
By the time we sweep the outer perimeter and return to the ice hall, the sky is bruised with dawn, and my bones feel heavy from the cold, but I don’t care. I feel steady. Seen. Not just tolerated. Chosen.
Cassian pours boiling water into the mugs, passes me one without a word, and when our fingers touch, his linger. His eyes hold mine a beat longer than necessary, and finally since this whole mess began, I see something in him that isn’t just fury or guilt or fear.
I see pride.
“Next time,” I say, wrapping my fingers around the mug, “you trust me to watch your six without growling about it.”
He grunts. “We’ll see.”
But the edge of his mouth twitches, and that’s enough for me. Because tonight, under frost-bitten stars and sabotage, something shifted between us.
Something forged and unbreakable.