Chapter 2
MAGNUS
The radio crackles with static and coded chatter that most people wouldn't recognize as communication at all. I do.
"Package compromised."
I pause mid-reach for the fuel gauge. The hangar is cold, smelling of aviation fuel and metal. Outside, the Alaskan wilderness stretches for miles, broken only by the crude airstrip I carved from forest years ago.
"Witness loose."
Trafficking operation. The terminology is specific, used only by certain operators moving certain kinds of cargo. The kind I won't touch no matter how much they pay.
"Clean sweep authorized."
Kill order. Someone saw something, and now they're being hunted.
Time to disappear.
I finish the preflight with mechanical efficiency, checking fuel levels and control surfaces.
This isn't my first time vanishing when operations go hot.
I fly out, find a different cache cabin, wait for the heat to die down.
Survival in the margins requires knowing which choices to make and living with the consequences without hesitation or regret.
The plane is ready. She always is. A Cessna 185 that's seen better decades but still flies true. I've rebuilt her engine twice, maintained her with obsessive attention because reliability means survival. She's not pretty. She's not new. But she's mine and she works.
I load my go-bag into the plane's cabin. Water, rations, ammunition, cash. Everything necessary for surviving off-grid. The bag stays packed for exactly this reason. Always ready. Always prepared.
The radio crackles again. Different frequency. "Target acquired. Moving to intercept."
They know their prey’s position. Not my problem. Can't be my problem. I've built a careful life in the shadows, and it survives because I know when to look away.
I climb into the cockpit and run through startup.
Fuel mixture rich. Master switch on. Magnetos checked.
The engine catches with a roar that drowns out the radio and anything resembling conscience.
I don't do guilt. Don't do regret. The Air Force taught me that lesson when following my conscience instead of orders got me labeled with an Other than Honorable Discharge; they ended up dead anyway.
I taxi toward the runway. In minutes I'll be airborne. In an hour I'll be far enough off-grid that even people who know how to look won't find me.
Movement catches my peripheral vision. My right hand drops to the Glock at my hip while my left stays steady on the throttle. Training never leaves you.
A woman bursts from the treeline. Blood streaks her face where branches tore skin. Her clothes hang in shredded strips. Her eyes are wild with terror. Behind her, maybe fifty yards back and closing, men with rifles move through the forest with tactical precision.
Witness. Problem. Poison.
She's the one they're hunting. She saw something she shouldn't have seen. Now they're going to kill her. And she's running straight toward my plane.
My hand stays on the throttle. I don't slow down. Don't speed up. Stopping for her means exposing myself to whatever hell is chasing her. Means complications I've spent years avoiding.
She's screaming something. Can't hear it over the engine. Please, probably. Help. Save me.
I'm not merciful. Mercy is a luxury I can't afford.
But I have a code. One absolute line I won't cross no matter how much money they offer. No human trafficking. Never. So when I see her running from men who speak in trafficking terminology, when I know exactly what they'll do to her if they catch her, my code kicks in whether I want it to or not.
Goddamn it.
I don't slow the plane. If she wants in, she's going to have to fight for it. Prove she's got survival instinct stronger than fear. The weak die in Alaska.
She runs faster than she should be able to. Closes the distance with determination that impresses me despite my irritation. Behind her, the men spot my plane. I see them raising weapons, calculating range.
Time slows. Her hand reaching for the door handle. The muzzle flash from the first rifle. The sound arriving a split second after the bullet pings off metal.
She grabs the handle as another shot cracks. Doesn't hesitate. Just starts hauling herself up with strength I wouldn't have expected. My hand hovers over the door latch. I could slam it shut. Could let her fall away as the plane gains speed. Could leave her to whatever fate waits behind her.
She's got fight. Got survival instinct that won't quit even when her body should be shutting down. That tips the scale.
"In. Now."
I shove the door open and she's hauling herself through even as another bullet pings off metal somewhere behind me, the sharp ring of impact vibrating through the airframe. She tumbles into the plane's cabin and lands hard on the floor between seats. But she's in, and that means we're committed.
I slam the door and don't look back. My hands go to the controls and I push the throttle forward. More shots. One punches through the tail section. Another spiderwebs the rear window. They're aiming to disable now. Smart. Dead witnesses can't answer questions but downed planes can be searched.
We're not getting downed.
I pull back on the yoke at exactly the right moment. Banking hard left to present minimal target profile. Climbing fast to get out of effective range. Ice-cold calm floods my system. This is what I'm good at. Flying and fighting and staying alive when everything wants me dead.
Behind me, she's making sounds. Gasping. Sobbing. I ignore her. Focus on flying. On gaining altitude. On checking instruments for damage.
Oil pressure steady. Fuel lines intact. Controls responsive. The tail took hits but nothing critical.
Only when we're clear, when the airstrip below is shrinking to insignificance, do I turn my head to look at her.
She's on the floor, clutching her pack. Blood on her hands. Tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. Eyes wide with shock and the beginning awareness that she survived one nightmare only to land in another.
"Thank you." Her voice breaks. "Oh god, thank you, I thought I was going to die, thank you—"
"Don't."
The single word cuts through her gratitude. She stops. Stares at me.
"You just signed both our death warrants." My voice is flat. "They saw you. They saw my aircraft. They'll be looking for both of us now. You brought your hell straight into my world, and now I get to deal with the consequences."
"I didn't ask you to—" She starts, anger cutting through fear.
"You got in my plane." I turn away, eyes back on instruments. "That makes you mine now. For better or worse. Your problems are my problems. Your death sentence is my death sentence. And I don't take kindly to civilians making life-or-death decisions for me without permission."
Silence. Heavy and thick. I can feel her processing, understanding sinking in. The rescue she thought she got wasn't rescue at all.
"Where are we going?" Her voice is quieter now. Uncertain. Fear of me instead of them.
"Storm's coming in." I gesture toward the horizon where dark clouds are building into massive formations. "Can't fly to civilization in that. We'd go down over wilderness and freeze before anyone found the wreckage. So we're going to my cabin instead."
"Your cabin." She repeats it like she's testing the words for traps.
"Off-grid. Accessible only by air. No roads. No neighbors. No cell service. No one coming to check on us." I let each detail land. "Storm like this lasts days. Sometimes weeks. You'll be there until it passes and I decide it's safe to move you."
"I decide." She catches it. "You mean we decide."
"No." I look at her directly, letting her see the coldness. "I mean I decide. You're in my world now. My plane. My cabin. My rules. You want to survive this? You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, no questions and no arguments."
"That's not a deal. That's captivity."
"Call it whatever helps you sleep at night.
" I turn back to the controls. "But understand this: those men back there want you dead.
They're professionals. Well-funded. Connected.
They'll spend whatever resources it takes to find you.
And they're going to start by looking for small planes that took off from remote airstrips.
We can't land anywhere official. Can't file flight plans.
Can't contact authorities. We're dark until I figure out how to keep us both alive. "
She's silent. I can hear her mind working through options, trying to find a way out.
"What were you doing there?" She asks finally. "At that airstrip. In the middle of nowhere. Why were you there at exactly the right time?"
Smart question. Dangerous question.
"Wrong place, wrong time." I meet her eyes briefly. "Just like you. Difference is, I know how to survive being in the wrong place. You're going to have to learn. Fast."
"I don't believe you."
"Don't care." Her belief changes nothing. "You've got blood on your hands. Literal blood. You should clean up. First aid kit's in the cargo net behind the copilot seat."
She doesn't move immediately. Just stares at me like she's trying to figure out what I am. I let her look. Better she understands now than later.
Finally, she moves. Slow and careful. I track her in my peripheral as she finds the first aid kit and starts dealing with her injuries. She's competent with it. Knows how to clean wounds. Wilderness training, probably.
Just unprepared for the humans in it.
"What's your name?" She asks while wrapping gauze around her palm.
"Magnus." I don't offer more than that.
"I'm Neve." She says it like it matters. "Neve Dalton. I'm a wildlife biologist. I was doing research on wolf pack behavior when I saw something on my trail camera footage. Women being trafficked. I have evidence. It's on an SD card."
Of course she does. Proof. Data. Evidence that makes her valuable and expendable in equal measure.
"That evidence is why they want you dead."
"Yes." She touches her jacket pocket. "If I can get it to the authorities—"
"You're not getting it to anyone." My voice cuts through her plan.
"Not until I know we can do it without dying in the process.
Those men weren't amateurs. They're professionals.
Connected. Funded. And they will burn the entire world down to get that evidence back and eliminate the witness who captured it. "
"But people are being hurt." Her voice rises with emotion. "Women are being trafficked. Moved. Sold. I can't just sit on this information while they—"
"While they what? Keep trafficking?" I turn to look at her fully.
"They're going to keep trafficking whether you turn over that evidence or not.
Whether you live or die. Whether I live or die.
The only question is whether we stay alive long enough to figure out how to use that evidence without it becoming our death sentence.
Right now, survival takes priority over justice. Every single time."
She opens her mouth to argue. Closes it. Finally settles on glaring at me with anger and helplessness.
Good. Hate is easier to work with than trust. Hate keeps people sharp.
The conversation dies. She retreats into silence, finishing the bandaging and then staring out the window at wilderness stretching endlessly below.
The landscape shifts beneath us, forest giving way to frozen lakes and barren tundra.
The clouds build higher, darker, casting shadows that race across the white expanse.
Outside temperature drops. I make adjustments for the changing air pressure, the shifting winds that signal the storm's approach.
The cabin appears below us, a dark speck against white wilderness. I begin descent, hands moving through familiar adjustments. The storm is closer now, visible on the horizon like a gray wall moving toward us.
We'll make it. Barely. And then we'll be trapped together with secrets that could get us both killed. Her with evidence that makes her a target. Me with a life built on operating where the law doesn't reach.
She's watching the cabin approach with tension. Finally understanding the full scope of her situation. No escape. No help coming. Just her and me and the wilderness and whatever happens next.
"Magnus." My name in her voice sounds like a question. Or maybe a prayer. "What are you? Really?"
I glance at her, letting her see the truth in my eyes.
"The kind of man who lives in places where people like you don't belong." I start the landing approach. "And now you're here anyway. Mine to protect. Mine to control. Mine to keep alive whether you like it or not."
Her breath catches. Fear and something else flickers across her face. Something darker.
She's starting to understand what she traded escape for.
"You got in my plane," I say, voice dropping lower. "That makes you mine now. And I don't let go of what belongs to me."