Chapter 1 #2
A few minutes of research is all it takes to dismantle the reality I’ve been living in.
Geological surveys. Land records. A timeline of incidents.
A photograph of a dead cow. Another of a field clouded with something that looks like chemical haze.
A water test report flagged with timestamps and notes.
Poisoning event—controlled, plausible deniability maintained.
My hands go numb.
I keep reading, seeing the names. Daniel Sutton. Delaney. And Ethan’s name, listed under "Assets to Neutralize, Phase III."
The room tilts.
LandCorp poisoned their water supply. The company that pays my salary and provides the health insurance I cannot afford to lose because my autoimmune condition requires ongoing treatment that costs more per month than my rent.
My glasses slide down my suddenly perspiring nose as I rest my trembling hands flat on the desk, trying to ground myself. I’m neither processing nor filing. I’m not doing any of the things that help me make sense of the world.
Ten minutes ago, Ethan’s voice was in my ear, and I was laughing at his story about a cow. Now, I’m sitting here, burdened by knowledge I can’t unlearn.
My company is trying to destroy his family.
My two worlds—the fluorescent one that pays my bills and the voice that spills light into the dark parts of my chest—existed on separate shelves.
Now the shelves have collapsed.
I can already feel the angry patches of irritation blooming across my shoulders, my chest, the backs of my hands. The familiar heat and itch, inflammation that has nothing to do with allergies and everything to do with my nervous system deciding my skin is an enemy.
The flash drive is in my desk drawer. Yellow and black, striped like a bee. I bought a pack of five at the drugstore because they were on clearance and made me smile. I’ve never used one for anything more dangerous than backing up spreadsheets.
My hands shake as I plug it in. The files copy, and the progress bar moves with the exquisite slowness that exists only when you need something to go fast. Poisoning data.
Geological surveys. AI models that show exactly where and how LandCorp plans to extract mineral deposits.
Names. Dates. Proof that my company has deliberately contaminated the Sutton Ranch’s water supply in some kind of corporate intimidation campaign.
Sixty percent… seventy.
I hear the elevator. Every cell in my body goes cold. The ding echoes across the empty floor, followed by voices—low, male, unhurried. One of them is Julian Vance. He speaks the way expensive cars idle: smooth, certain, and completely aware of the space he occupies.
Eighty-two percent.
I kill the desk lamp, slide out of my chair, and press myself into the gap between the desk and the filing cabinet.
My back against the cold metal, knees drawn up, making myself as small as possible.
It’s the foster kid reflex that never goes away, the one that tells you to disappear.
Don’t make a sound. Wait for the danger to pass, then get out, get out, get out.
Vance and at least two other men walk through the office. Their conversation is muffled—fragments about timelines, deliverables, something I can’t parse through the blood roaring in my ears.
I rehearse excuses in my head. I forgot my jacket. Left my phone.
Ninety-four percent.
The voices move past my cubicle. A door opens and closes. Vance’s office. The voices muffle further, sealed behind glass.
The progress bar hits one hundred.
I pull the drive free. It’s warm in my fingers.
Yellow and black and carrying enough evidence to detonate my entire life.
I close every window, clear the search history, and erase the download logs.
My hands tremble, but my brain is precise.
This is what I do. I find patterns, organize data, and cover the trail.
My competence is the one thing that has never let me down.
I write the note in under a minute. Family emergency.
Taking leave. Will be uncontactable. I leave it on my manager’s desk, not Vance’s.
The bureaucracy will buy me time. I collect my bag, the one that’s always packed because I never unpack anywhere, and slide the flash drive into the small, zippered pocket where I keep things that matter.
The lobby is empty. The parking garage is empty. My car starts on the second try, which feels like a sign, though I’m not sure what it means.
I pull out of the lot and head west.
There’s no logic to this. I know that. I’m driving toward a stranger, carrying stolen corporate property, running from a job I can’t afford to lose and a building full of people who will look for answers when the sun comes up.
I’m not ready for this. Not ready to meet him, not ready to turn the voice on the phone into a person standing in front of me with a face and hands and the ability to unchoose me in real time.
But Ethan is my only destination. Marlie’s Angels matched me to him. He’s been giving me a place to land for six months, one phone call at a time, and now I need that landing to be literal.
My body learned early that safety was temporary, but Ethan has somehow become my safe place without me even realizing it.
He’s listened when I can’t sleep. Stayed on the phone while I relived my time in the foster system.
He’s talked to me about fixing gates and rescuing cats.
How his brother, Daniel, came home from the Rangers changed, how his mother died giving birth to his younger brother, Gabriel, and how his father, Jacob, never recovered from the loss.
I’ve imagined his mouth moving around words like “sweetheart,” which he said once, three months ago, when I was tired, and I almost wept.
Now I’m driving toward him with a flash drive full of evidence that my company has tried to destroy his family’s livelihood.
My vision blurs. The dark highway stretches out before me, a river of asphalt cutting through nothing. I roll down the window to let the cold air hit my face.
Yellow lines. Yellow lines. Yellow lines.
That’s all there is: the stutter of dashes under my headlights, the darkness pressing in from both sides, and my hands locked on the steering wheel. If I loosen my grip, I’ll release all the chaotic emotions swirling inside me. The dashboard clock reads 2:47 am. I’ve been driving for hours.
I don’t remember the last time I blinked, so I blink hard to prove I’m still in control of one tiny thing. My knuckles whiten as I grip the steering wheel tighter, and the skin on my hands cracks where the flare has dried it raw.
I turn up the radio and roll the window down farther. When I pinch the inside of my wrist, it barely registers because I’m so tired that my nerve endings are negotiating a ceasefire.
Ethan’s voice loops in my head. Come to the ranch. Come to me. The low register. The laugh that lives under my ribs.
I’m coming.
The mountains are still invisible against the night sky, but I can feel them, vast and ancient, waiting.
I’ve never been to Montana. Never been west of Kansas.
I’ve spent my whole life in foster placements that moved me through the Midwest like I was contaminated goods, and the idea of somewhere permanent, somewhere with roots—
The deer emerges from the darkness without warning.
I yank the wheel, then try to correct as the car skids, but I’m too slow. The car tilts, and the world goes sideways.
The guardrail fills the windshield. My seatbelt locks across my chest, something hits the side of my head, and the last thing I hear is his voice.
Come to me.