Chapter 17
chapter
seventeen
MILES
I can’t sleep. The bunk creaks under me every time I breathe too deeply, the RV hums with low electrical noise, and in the bunk beneath mine, Owen is snoring in a rhythm that suggests mild demonic possession.
He fell back into his rhythms and into his old bunk like it was old times.
It’s weird having him back, but he also fits like a missing piece of our puzzle.
But none of that is why I’m awake.
I’m awake because Grant said “Whatever it takes.”
I’m awake because he looked at Daisy when he said it. The lazy drag of his eyes. The way his mouth curled when he called her “podcast girl.” Like she was an accessory. Like he knew her.
My hands curl into fists under the blanket. Then I roll my eyes at myself.
Nothing says stable expedition leadership like lying awake at 3:17 a.m. imagining seven different ways to break a man’s nose.
I release a slow breath and stare at the underside of the bunk above mine.
This is exactly why we said no one could know.
Because I am already compromised.
I protect this team. I always have. Taylor, Maya, and Jax—even when he deserves to be fed to coyotes for his crimes against silence.
But Daisy? Daisy is different.
Not because she’s weak. She’s not.
She doesn’t need me standing in front of her. She would probably shove me out of the way, insult my boots, and then verbally dismantle a man until he questioned every life choice that led him to camo cargo shorts.
But the idea of something happening to her makes my pulse thunder. I roll onto my back and drag both hands over my face.
I can still feel her in this bunk. The weight of her against my chest. Her hair tickling my jaw. The sleepy, irritated sound she made when I moved my arm and accidentally elbowed the wall.
I should not smile about that. But I do.
I get up before sunrise, earlier than usual, and head outside.
Outside, the air is sharp and gray, the forest damp with leftover night. Mist hangs low between the trees, snagging on branches, turning the camp into something otherworldly.
It feels like the world is holding its breath. Like we are close.
I make coffee and spread the maps across the kitchenette table in the Machine before anyone else is up. I pull up yesterday’s route and mark Grant’s last known camp location. Recalculate the drainage access points. Then I do it again.
By the time Owen steps inside, I have three alternate paths highlighted and only one unhinged backup route Maya would not approve of.
Owen pauses in the doorway, hair flattened on one side, eyes narrowed against the light.
“You look terrible,” he says.
“Good morning to you too.”
He grunts, reaches for the coffee, and puts a finger down on the map. “That route’s bad.”
I look down at the map. “This route is necessary, and you’ve been here, like, six hours.”
“And yet I’m right.”
He pours coffee into a mug that says I WANT TO BELIEVE in faded blue letters, then stares at it.
His expression flattens.
“Is this yours?”
“Yes.”
“Of course it is.”
“You got fired from Area 51,” I say. “Maybe don’t judge my mug.”
Owen takes a long drink. “I didn’t get fired from Area 51.”
I look at him.
He looks back.
“You literally walked into a bar last night and said, ‘I got fired from Area 51.’”
“Yeah, because it’s faster than saying I got removed from a classified aerospace-adjacent research contract tied to a federal installation everyone colloquially understands as Area 51.”
I blink.
“You practiced that.”
“Several times in the truck.”
I sit back, now awake in a different way. “Owen.”
He sighs.
And there he is. My older brother. Bigger.
Stronger. More solid in every possible way.
The guy who taught me how to change a tire, pick a lock, and identify three separate constellations in the same summer.
The guy who used to tell me ghosts wouldn’t hurt me, and then still sleep on the floor of my room after Mom and Dad died because I couldn’t stand the dark, even as a teenager.
He looks tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired that comes from carrying something too long.
“What happened?” I ask.
Owen taps one finger against the mug. “I asked why satellite imaging kept dropping out over specific coordinates.”
My skin prickles.
“What coordinates?”
His eyes flick to the map.
Not directly. But close enough. My grip tightens on the edge of the table.
“Owen.”
“I asked why certain reports got reclassified the second a civilian field team logged matching audio anomalies.” He takes another sip of coffee.
“I asked who was pulling archival files and why they were disappearing. I asked why a biological assessment from the late nineties had been buried under an aerospace budget code.”
The Machine seems to go quieter around us.
“And?”
“And apparently ‘what exactly are we covering up’ is not considered collaborative.”
My stomach drops. “You got fired for questioning things?”
“I got fired because I stopped shutting up about them.”
For once, I have nothing to say.
Which is alarming enough that Owen notices.
He leans against the counter and studies me. “You found something.”
“We found footprints.”
“You found something,” he repeats.
I look back at the map.
The northwest drainage is marked in red.
Sandy mud. Deadfall. No casual access. Thermal disappearance. Sound anomaly.
And now Owen.
My brother, who has spent the last decade telling me not every shadow is a conspiracy, is standing in my mobile command center telling me there are buried files and missing satellite images.
A strange, terrible vindication moves through me. Not joy. The door opens behind Owen, and Taylor steps in wearing cutoffs, a pink tank top, and the expression of someone who has already decided everyone else is moving too slowly.
She stops when she sees him. Owen looks at her. Taylor looks at Owen. The air changes in a way I do not currently have time to unpack.
“You always lurk over coffee like Dracula?” she asks.
Owen’s mouth twitches. “Only when federally unemployed.”
Taylor’s eyes narrow.
She almost smiles. Almost.
Jax stumbles in behind her, wrapped in a blanket like a ghost. “If anyone talks before caffeine, I’m defecting to the rival crew.”
“No, you’re not,” Maya says, following him in. “They’d make you carry things.”
“Cruel but accurate.”
“Where’s Daisy?” Maya asks.
“Here!” Daisy calls from the front of the Machine, walking back to the kitchen. “I was recording. I think I have the next episode nearly ready.”
She walks in wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a rust-colored flannel falling off one shoulder. Her hair is down, a few soft pieces loose around her face. She looks sleepy and warm and completely unaware that my brain has just tripped over itself like an old dog on tile.
In an instant, every strategy I have built in the last two hours becomes harder to think about.
Her eyes meet mine. Just for a second. Not long enough for anyone else to notice, but long enough that I remember her in my bunk again. Long enough that I remember the way her voice sounded in the dark when she said I was going to make this complicated.
She was right. Obviously.
Daisy’s gaze flicks to Owen. “So last night was a blur and I don’t think we got properly introduced. You’re the alien brother, right?”
Owen looks at me. “Is that supposed to be offensive?”
“I don’t think so,” Jax answers.
Daisy steps around him for coffee. “It’s descriptive. Were you really at Area 51?”
“I was,” he says, with an emphasis on the past tense. “I was just telling Miles about the work I was doing… and the cover up work I found.”
“I’m sorry, you had security clearances at Area 51 and I’m just supposed to move on? That’s annoyingly credentialed.”
“You could say that. If shit is weird enough for the damn government to have top secret sites dedicated to it, it’s probably real. I’m Owen, by the way,” he says.
“Daisy.”
“I know.”
Her hand pauses on the coffee pot.
I freeze, afraid of what I think he’s about to say.
Owen lifts a shoulder. “Miles sent me your episode last night.”
Yep. He did it. He said that out loud.
Daisy slowly turns toward me and I forget every word I have ever learned.
“You sent him the first episode?” She’s surprised.
I shrug. “I was just proud of you.”
The room goes silent. A full, horrible silence. Jax’s head snaps up. Maya stops stirring sugar into her coffee, an eyebrow lifted. Taylor looks between us once, expression sharpening, but a smile playing across her lips.
Daisy’s cheeks flush.
My soul exits my body, assesses the situation, and declines reentry.
Owen looks delighted.
“Oh,” he says, clapping his hands together.
“No,” I say immediately.
Daisy lifts her mug. “I’m going outside.”
“Great,” I say too quickly, averting my eyes as she leaves the kitchen.
“This is awesome,” Jax says.
“Everyone, shut up,” Taylor snaps.
And somehow, blessedly, they do.
Only Taylor can make silence happen through threat alone.
I clear my throat and turn back to the map, distracting myself. Because if I keep thinking about Daisy, I will go looking for her. And if I do that, I’m going to do something catastrophic like apologize, explain, or follow her like a man in a country song.
“We’re changing strategy,” I say.
That gets everyone’s attention and halts any romantic speculation.
Good.
Excellent.
Mission.
I can do a mission.
I tap the map. “Grant knows we found something. I don’t know how much. I don’t know if he’s watching our camp or tracking our movement, but we need to operate like he is.”
Jax’s expression sobers. “You think he’d do that?”
“Yes.”
Maya crosses her arms. “Based on what?”
“Based on him being a bag of dicks in a too-tight camo vest,” Daisy says from the doorway.
She did not go outside.
Of course she didn’t.
Daisy Bennett lives to interrupt me at the exact moment my heart rate begins recovering.
I keep my eyes on the map. “Based on his behavior last night. Based on Owen’s warning. Based on the fact that if he really believes we’re close, he has motive to get there first.”
Taylor nods once. “So what changes?”
“No one goes anywhere alone.”