Chapter 8 MAGGIE #2
He walks away before I can respond.
I sit there on the tailgate, IV bag dripping unused beside me, watching the sky lighten from black to gray to the pale blue of approaching dawn.
The desert is quiet now, the violence of the night fading into the mundane work of cleanup. Bodies are being photographed and documented. Shell casings collected. Statements recorded.
My brother is being transported to federal custody.
My life is being erased so a new one can be built from nothing.
"Maggie." Colt’s voice is quiet, close. He's standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, looking uncertain in a way I haven't seen from him before. "Can we talk?"
"They told you not to."
"Yeah. CJ said it compromises security. That I need to let you go." He moves closer. "But, I’m terrible at following orders."
Despite everything, I almost smile. "I noticed."
He sits down beside me on the tailgate, and the warmth of him is immediate and familiar. His shoulder brushes mine, and I feel the contact like electricity.
"Agent Holbrook said witness protection," he says quietly. "New identity. No contact."
"Yeah."
"How long?"
"Two years minimum."
He's quiet for a long moment. "That's a long time."
"Yeah."
"Maggie—" He stops, starts again. "I need to tell you something before you go."
I look at him. His face is shadowed in the pre-dawn light, exhaustion etched into every line. The dog tags are visible at his collar, Sofia's tags that he's worn for five years.
"You don't owe me anything," I tell him. "You saved my life. That's enough."
"It's not about owing. It's about—" He runs his hand through his hair, frustrated. "CJ thinks I saved you to assuage my guilt about Sofia. That I'm trying to rewrite Caracas by making different choices."
"Are you?"
"At first, maybe. When I heard those men talking in the bar, when I decided to follow them—yeah.
I was thinking about Sofia. About choosing differently.
" He turns to face me fully. "But then I found you in that warehouse.
And you made a joke about my scowl. And you kept pace during extraction like you'd been running ops for years.
And you shot your own brother to protect yourself while still having the control not to kill him. "
"Colt—"
"And somewhere between the warehouse and right now, this stopped being about Sofia.
" His hand comes up, cups my face with surprising gentleness.
His thumb traces the bandage on my temple.
"This became about you. About Maggie Brooks, who survived being sold by her own brother.
About Magnolia, who's strong and fierce and doesn't break even when everything falls apart. "
My throat is tight. "You're making this harder."
"I know. But you need to hear it before you disappear." He reaches up and pulls the dog tags over his head. Sofia's tags. The ones he's worn every day for five years. "These belonged to someone I couldn't save. Someone who died because I followed orders instead of choosing her."
"I know."
"I've worn them as penance. As a reminder. As punishment for making the wrong choice." He holds them out to me. "But I'm done punishing myself for Caracas. I'm done wearing guilt like armor. And you're the reason why."
I stare at the tags in his palm. "I can't take those."
"Yes, you can and you will."
"They're Sofia's—"
"They're a reminder that I made the wrong choice once." He takes my hand, places the tags in my palm, and closes my fingers around them. "And I'm not making it again. I'm choosing you. I chose you in that warehouse. I chose you at the ranch. I'm choosing you now."
"I'm about to disappear for two years."
"I know."
"You'll never see me again."
"That's not true." He pulls something from his pocket.
Two cards. "This one—" He hands me the first card, white with printed text.
"—is Guardian HRS official emergency line.
Twenty-four-seven response. Someone will always answer.
They're good. They'll help. I may, or may not, have told CJ he should hire you. "
I take it, feel the weight of professional support. Of an organization that saves people.
"And this one—" He hands me the second card. Blank except for a handwritten phone number. "—is not official. Not Guardian HRS. Just me."
I stare at the number. "Colt—"
"You call that number, I come. No matter where you are. No matter what I'm doing. No matter how long it's been." His eyes are intense, absolute. "I come. That's my promise."
"You can't promise that. You don't know where they're sending me. You don't know if you'll even have this number in two years—"
"I'll have it. And I'll answer." He leans in, his forehead resting against mine. "Two years. When your protection detail ends, when you're free—call that number."
"What if I can't? What if something happens and—"
"Then I'll find you." His hand tightens on mine. "I'm very good at finding people who don't want to be found. And you? You're someone I'm never going to stop looking for."
The tags are warm in my palm from his body heat. Five years of him wearing them. Five years of guilt and penance and choosing wrong.
And now he's giving them to me.
"What about Sofia?" My voice cracks. "What about remembering her?"
"I'll remember her by making better choices. By choosing people over protocol. By—" He stops, swallows hard. "By choosing you."
A black sedan pulls up. Federal plates. Witness protection coordinator.
Our time is up.
Colt stands, pulls me to my feet. For a moment, we just stand there, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, smell the gunpowder and desert dust that clings to us both.
"This isn't goodbye," he says quietly.
"Feels like goodbye."
"It's a pause. Two years. Then you call that number."
"What if you've moved on by then? Found someone else? Decided I was just—"
He kisses me. Hard and fast and absolute. When he pulls back, his eyes are fierce. "I spent five years trying to move on from guilt. I'm not spending two years moving on from you."
The coordinator is approaching, professional and efficient. "Ms. Brooks? We need to go."
I look at Colt one more time, memorizing him. The stubble on his jaw. The shadows under his eyes. The way he's looking at me like I'm something precious instead of a product to be sold.
"Two years," I say. "Deal."
"Two years," he confirms.
I slip the dog tags over my head. They settle against my chest, still warm, carrying the weight of his guilt and his choice and his promise.
Then I turn and walk toward the sedan before I can change my mind.
The coordinator opens the door, and I slide into the back seat. Through the window I can see Colt standing there, hands in his pockets, watching me leave.
CJ approaches him, says something I can't hear. Colt responds without looking away from me.
The sedan starts moving.
I twist in my seat, keeping him in sight as long as possible. He's still standing there, still watching, still choosing me even as I disappear.
The Guardian HRS vehicles fade into the distance. The ranch house. The desert. The bodies and the blood and the violence of the night.
All of it falling away behind me.
"Where are we going?" I ask the coordinator.
"Can't tell you until we arrive. Security protocol." She glances at me in the rearview mirror. "But it's somewhere safe. Somewhere, the cartel can't find you."
Safe. Away from Tyler. Away from the cartel. Away from the life I used to have.
Away from Colt.
My hand finds the dog tags around my neck, and I hold them tight. Sofia's tags. His penance. Now mine to carry.
Two years.
I can survive two years.
I survived Tyler's betrayal. Survived the cartel. Survived learning that family means nothing when gambling debts mean everything.
I can survive missing someone I barely know.
Except I do know him. Know the way he moves in combat. Know the taste of him. Know the sound of my name on his lips—both names, Maggie and Magnolia, like they're both equally real.
Know that he chose me over protocol, over orders, over five years of guilt.
The coordinator is talking about the next steps. About the process. About what happens when we arrive at the safe house. I'm not really listening.
The coordinator reaches for my door, about to close it.
"Wait." I lean out. "Colt."
He’s still standing there, hands in pockets, watching me leave.
"Thank you," I call across the distance. Inadequate words for the man who saved my life, gave me truth, and chose me over protocol.
He doesn’t respond. Just touches his chest where Sophia’s dog tags used to be.
Where I’m wearing them now.
The door closes. We drive away.
I'm already thinking about a phone number on a blank card.
About a promise made in the pre-dawn darkness.
About two years feeling like forever and no time at all.
The sun breaks over the horizon, flooding the desert with gold and pink and the promise of a new day. A new life. A new identity that isn't Magnolia Brooks or Maggie Brooks but someone else entirely.
Someone who carries dog tags that don't belong to her.
Someone who already has a phone number burned into her brain for a lifeline.
Someone who's going to survive the next two years because at the end of them, she's going to make a call.
And Colt Harrison is going to answer.
That's the promise we made.
The one we're both going to keep.
Two years.
I touch the dog tags one more time, feel the worn metal, the engraved name that isn't mine.
Sofia's reminder became Colt’s penance, then became my promise.
Some promises are made in silence. In the space between choosing wrong and choosing right. In the moment when someone looks at you and sees a person instead of a product, strength instead of fragility, worth instead of price.
Colt saw me. Really saw me. Not the sister Tyler sold, or the medic who patched up casualties, or the daughter trying to be what her mother wanted.
He saw Magnolia and Maggie and whoever I'm becoming, and he chose all of it.
Two years.
I'm going to survive them.
And then I'm going to call that number.
And he's going to answer.
Because some promises are worth keeping.
And this one—this one I'm going to keep even if it kills me.
The sedan carries me away from the desert, from the violence, from the man who saved my life and changed everything in six hours.
But I'm not gone.
I'm just waiting.
Two years.
Then I'm coming back.
And Colt Harrison better be ready.
Because I'm choosing him too.