Chapter 13
Thirteen
Silas
I swallow back the last of my uncertainty; the words feel like a piece of glass in my throat. "Delilah and Caleb found someone that fits the description and skillset," I say, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears—flat and hollow. "Reagan Mitchell."
She doesn't react to the confirmation that he was using a false ID. She just sits patiently waiting for me to explain, the name hanging in the frozen air between us like a physical weight.
I’m used to reading targets, reading threats, reading my team—but I can’t read her now. Her eyes are fixed on a point somewhere past my shoulder, and for the first time, I have no idea what’s happening behind that silence.
Finally, she speaks. “What else do you know about him?"
"Enough to take him seriously."
"That's not what I asked."
I move to the window, standing to one side in a pointless exercise to get a visual on anything but snow. "He's former military. Special forces.”
"But you're better than him."
It’s not quite a question. It’s more like a verdict she’s reached, a piece of herself she’s holding out to see if I’ll take it.
I turn back toward her, the floorboards creaking under my weight.
She deserves more than the sanitized, tactical briefing I’d give a client. Not the version where I filter the data to keep her manageable so I don’t have to deal with the fallout. She’s earned more than my protection; she’s earned the reality of the threat.
“I don’t know.”
She takes a breath and holds it, the sharp morning light catching the tension in the corners of her mouth. "Can he find us?"
The simplicity of the question is like crawling over barbed wire.
It would be too easy to feed her the standard line—that the storm makes the terrain impassable, that the service road is just a ghost of a path buried under feet of snow.
I don’t even consider it. I can’t filter out reality. The weight of what I’m keeping back feels like it’s crushing my ribs.
I brought her here on inaccurate intel. I promised her these walls offered sanctuary and respite.
Telling her means admitting my judgment was eroded by the exhaustion I’ve been trying to bury for days.
Telling her destroys her confidence in me, but keeping it hidden leaves her blind to the reality of what’s coming.
No matter which way I look at it.
She needs to know the truth.
I take a breath. Release it. And pray the Lord will give us courage to face whatever comes next.
"Yes," I say. "He can."
Ava
For a moment, I don’t respond. The answer sits between us—clinical, sharp, and entirely too terrible.
Until now, I’d assumed the isolation was a shield. I thought distance and obscurity bought us the time Silas needed. Apparently, that assumption was a delusion.
I fold my arms, my pulse hammering against my ribs. “Would I have been safer in Baltimore?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look like he can.
“Silas?”
His eyes aren’t on me. He’s fixed on the lamp nestled on a table. A little annoyed he’s not going to answer me, I follow his gaze to the darkened corner of the room.
Belatedly, I realize the lamp was on a minute ago. So was the light on the satellite phone charger and his laptop charger plugged into the wall.
"Storm must've taken down a line."
I stand, forcing my posture to remain neutral so he doesn’t see the fresh wave of alarm that just hit me.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where are you going?”
"To switch on the generator." He's already moving toward the closet, pulling out his coat. "I'll need to get it running."
My stomach tightens. "How long will that take?"
"Five minutes." He pauses, looking at me. "I want you armed again."
The words hang between us.
"I'll keep the gun close," I say, even though my voice sounds thin.
He studies my face for a long moment as if weighing whether to tell me more.
"Lock the door behind me," he says finally. "I’ll announce myself, then knock four times. Like this…"
He raps his knuckles on the table. One, two, pause. One two.
I nod, committing the pattern to memory.
He crosses to where he left the backup weapon earlier and hands it to me. "Safety's on. Keep it that way unless you need it."
I take it, the weight of it feels heavier than before.
He pulls on his coat, checks his own weapon, then moves to the door and stops with his hand on the handle.
"Ava." His voice is quiet. "If you hear anything—anything that's not me announcing myself and knocking that pattern—you get in the bedroom. You barricade the door. You don't come out until I come for you. Understood?"
"Understood."
He holds my gaze for another second, then opens the door. Cold air rushes in, carrying snow with it. He steps out into the gray morning and pulls the door shut behind him.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the closed door. Then I move toward the deadbolt and slide it. I back away slowly, the gun heavy in my hand, and position myself where I can see both the front door and the window.
Every sound feels amplified. The wind against the walls. Snow sliding off the roof. The old cabin settling.
I move to the window, careful to stay to the side as Silas does, and peer out. I can just make out his shape moving through the snow toward the shed. Then he disappears around the corner.
I check my watch. Five minutes. Maybe less, he said.
I count the seconds in my head, trying to stay calm.
One minute passes.
The wind picks up, rattling the window frame.
Two minutes.
A branch cracks somewhere outside, sharp and sudden. I jump, my hand tightening on the gun.
Just a branch. Just the storm.
Three minutes.
The silence stretches. No sound from outside. No generator firing up yet.
I stay at the window, watching the corner where he disappeared. Nothing moves except the falling snow.
The gray light coming through the windows makes it hard to tell what time it is. Morning, I know that. But it could be eight or noon or three in the afternoon for all the difference it makes. The storm has erased any sense of normal time.
Four minutes.
Still nothing.
My eyes start to play tricks on me. The shadows between the trees shift and resolve into shapes that aren't there. I blink hard, refocus.
The cabin feels smaller than it did before he left. The walls closer. The ceiling lower.
I check my watch again. Four and a half minutes.
He said five. Maybe less.
But what if something happened? What if he slipped on the ice? What if—
Stop. Just stop.
I force myself to breathe slowly. Count the breaths instead of the seconds.
In. Out. In. Out.
Five minutes.
The generator should be running by now.
Six minutes.
The shed is barely visible through the snow. No movement. No sign of him.
My grip on the gun tightens.
Seven minutes.
Everything outside blurs together—white snow, gray sky, dark trees. No definition. No depth.
I could be looking at a wall two feet away or a forest a mile out. There's no way to tell.
Eight minutes.
Something's wrong.
He would've called out by now. Would've come back to tell me there was a problem.
Unless he can't.
Silas
I crouch in the shed, my breath hitching in the frigid air as I run through the diagnostics.
Fuel line clear. Battery charge holding.
Spark plug clean as a whistle. I yank the pull cord—the motion sharp and desperate—but the engine doesn’t even sputter.
Not a cough, not a sigh. It’s just cold, dead metal.
I force my hands to stay still. I walk through the sequence again, slower this time.
Methodical. The way I’d train a recruit to strip a weapon in the dark.
Filter, choke, oil level. I pull the cord again, putting my weight into it, and the engine gives a single, pathetic gasp before silence crashes back into the room.
Old equipment in sub-zero temps. That’s the logical answer. That’s the only answer that makes sense. But the thought is already a hook in my brain, twisting.
Eleven minutes. I’ve been out here eleven minutes, and Ava is inside, alone.
I stand, the shed feeling tighter, the shadows in the corners stretching out. I scan the perimeter, my pulse hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs. The snow is pristine. Unbroken. Just my own tracks, a jagged line leading to the door.
I pivot to check the rear fuel line, and my eyes catch a dip in the snow near the corner of the structure. It’s an indentation, barely visible, half-erased by the shifting drifts. My mind races through the possibilities: wind-load, a slide off the roof, a settling drift.
Or a print. A partial, melting boot print.
I drop to one knee, my heart thumping so hard it rattles my teeth. I lean in, trying to find a tread pattern, a heel strike, anything. There’s nothing but disturbed slush. The wind has chewed the edges, softening them, turning the mark into a meaningless smear.
I stand, my neck prickling. I do a full three-sixty, eyes raking the tree line. The pines are motionless, dark sentinels shrouded in white. Nothing moves. There are no secondary tracks leading out of the clearing. Just the expanse of the winter wilderness, mocking my suspicion.
I turn back to the shed wall. The maintenance latch on the side panel sits at an odd angle. It’s not snapped or forced, just… sitting slightly loose. I test it with my gloved finger; it gives way with a metallic click that sounds like a gunshot in the stillness.
Thermal expansion. Metal warping in the cold. I can’t confirm either. And that uncertainty is poison.
My vision blurs at the edges, the fatigue making the trees seem to lean in, closer than they were a second ago. I’m seeing patterns in the noise. I’m starting to see ghosts.
I need strength I don’t currently have.
Lord, grant me clarity, I pray. Tell me if I’m losing my mind or if he’s already here.
The only answer is the wind whistling through the gaps in the shed walls, low and mocking, while I stand there, waiting for the silence to stop lying to me.
Ava