Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
RHYS
The mountain goes quiet before the next storm. That’s how you know it’s coming. The birds disappear first. Then the wind shifts colder, and the entire world seems to hold its breath, waiting for something ugly to arrive.
I stand near the edge of the washout, staring down at the Jeep half-sunk in mud and shale. Still there. Barely.
The Wrangler leans harder now, front end twisted deeper toward the drop. Another hard rain and it’ll disappear into the ravine completely.
I should let it go. That would be smarter. And safer, too.
Instead, I tighten my grip on the wet rope slung over my shoulder and study the slope, as if stubbornness alone can hold the mountain together.
Rainwater snakes through the fresh scars carved into the earth from yesterday’s slide. Mud shifts under my boots, unstable. Everything about this is unstable.
The Jeep. The slope. The woman inside my cabin.
I exhale slowly, fog curling from my mouth into the cold spring air. I should’ve sent her away the second she showed up. I should’ve lied harder… kept my mouth shut.
Instead, she’s inside going through reports and transcripts and memories like she can dissect the truth cleanly enough to survive it.
But I know better. It doesn’t work that way. Never has.
My gaze drifts lower toward the Jeep again, toward the broken driver’s side door. Metal bent inward from the boulder strike—the jagged edge that sliced through my arm.
Funny. Barely felt it yesterday. Not compared to hearing Phoenix’s name on her tongue.
Thunder murmurs somewhere deep in the mountains. Too distant to matter yet.
I crouch carefully near the edge, checking the pine I finally managed to anchor the line to. The ground around the roots has softened another inch. Not enough to fail. Yet.
The mountain always wins eventually, though. Doesn’t matter how much rope or steel or manpower you throw at it. It takes what it wants.
My jaw tightens. I know something else that works the same way.
Memory.
I straighten abruptly before the thought finishes forming. But it’s too late.
Dust. Smoke. Concrete shattered across a narrow street. Phoenix jerking free of my grip.
Not now. “You’re going to blow it.”
Gunfire cracking somewhere above us. The radio screaming over itself.
My hand locked around the back of his vest. “Get back in position.”
Phoenix twisting hard enough to break loose. “You don’t understand.”
The memory cuts sharply there. Same place it always does, as if my mind refuses to go farther. Or maybe it knows exactly what waits beyond it.
I scrub a hand over my face hard enough to hurt. None of it matters now.
The dead stay dead no matter how many times you replay the moment.
And Sloane…
God.
I look back toward the cabin, partially hidden through the trees. Warm light glows faintly through the window. She’s in there right now, putting pieces together. Sharp enough to see the seams and to realize none of this was random.
That’s the real danger. Not the reports. Not the military. Not even the truth itself.
Her.
Because she’ll keep digging until she hits bone. And if she reaches the center of this…
I look away sharply.
No.
Can’t let her get there.
Not because I’m protecting myself. Because I remember what it felt like realizing Phoenix wasn’t who I thought he was. That kind of knowledge hollows you out.
The wind picks up suddenly, carrying the smell of rain again. Today’s storm moves faster now.
I gather the rope and start back toward the cabin. Every step feels heavier than the last. By the time I reach the porch, thunder rolls closer through the valley. The mountains disappear slowly behind curtains of fog.
I pause with my hand on the door. Inside, I hear movement. Papers shifting, drawers opening, still digging.
Of course, she is.
I step inside. Warmth hits first. Then her.
Sloane sits cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table. surrounded by files and photographs. My reports are spread open in front of her like evidence in a trial.
She glances up immediately, wide-eyed but focused. Those eyes lock onto me and stay there, watching, measuring.
That’s when it hits me.
They’re no longer him.
Now, they have a life of their own. They’ve become something worse. Something that means too much to me, though I’ll never admit it—windows into her.
“Storm’s coming,” I say.
Her gaze flicks briefly toward the door before returning to me. “You always state the obvious when you don’t want to answer something.”
I shut the door harder than necessary. The cabin rattles softly. I set the rope near the hearth and strip off my wet gloves carefully. “You always ask me something I don’t want to answer.”
Sloane glances at my arm, noticing immediately. “You reopened it again?”
“It’s fine.”
“No,” she says quietly. “It isn’t.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I grunt, refusing to look at her. I busy myself with the fire instead, crouching to adjust the logs though they don’t need adjusting. Movement, task, focus. That’s how you get through conversations like this.
Behind me, paper rustles softly. She asks, “Why didn’t you hate him?”
The question hits hard enough to stop me cold.
Sloane’s voice softens slightly. “If he endangered your team… if he broke formation… why cover for him afterward?”
The fire crackles softly between us. I stare into it too long before answering. “Because he died there.”
“That’s not enough.”
No, it isn’t. I straighten slowly and turn toward her.
She’s holding one of the reports in her lap, brows drawn together tightly. Frustration, grief, and determination tangle across her face as if she’s trying to force the world to make sense.
I could make it make sense.
But at what cost?
“You think this ends clean?” I ask quietly.
“No.”
“Good.”
Her jaw tightens. “I still deserve the truth.”
The word “deserve” almost makes me laugh. Nobody deserves this truth. Nobody comes away from it clean either.
Thunder cracks closer now. The lights flicker once overhead. Not enough sunlight lately to support the solar.
Sloane doesn’t look away from me. I grab a kerosene lantern, light it, then return her gaze.
The room suddenly feels smaller. Heavier. Like the storm outside found its way indoors.
“You’re still not telling me everything,” she says carefully.
I say nothing.
“You’re sanitizing it.”
Still nothing.
Her eyes sharpen. “And not for yourself.”
The air leaves my lungs slowly. She’s too close. Way too close.
I move toward the kitchen before she can read my face, grabbing the coffee pot just for something to do with my hands.
Behind me, she rises quietly from the floor. I feel her approach before she speaks again. “Rhys.”
When I turn, she’s standing only a few feet away, firelight flickering across her shadowed face. “You said he told you to leave him.”
Every muscle in my body locks hard. The room disappears for half a second.
Dust. Blood. Phoenix gripping the front of my vest hard enough to bruise.
“You weren’t supposed to stop me.”
Yeah, even if it meant losing all my Marines. Couldn’t do that. Promised to keep them safe to the last man.
Even the reckless one. The one acting on orders, I’ll never understand. The one who endangered our mission for his own.
I blink once and force the memory down before it takes the rest of me with it. Sloane sees the shift anyway.
“Why would he say that?” she asks softly.
I look at her for a very long time. Then past her. Then nowhere at all. Because the answer is pressing against the inside of my skull harder every day she stays here.
And if I let it out, there’ll be no putting any of this back together. Not for her. Not for either of us.
Thunder shakes the cabin again. Closer.
“You said he knew something was coming,” she leads.
I nod.
Her breath catches slightly. “What kind of something?”
The silence stretches between us, heavy enough to drown in.
Sloane watches me carefully now. Like someone realizing the shape of the disaster is bigger than they imagined.
And the worst part?
She’s right. Way too right. Because she’s getting too close to the truth. And I don’t know how to stop her.