Page 41 of A Rebel's Shot

“Positive.” She glanced off toward the ocean. “I’m going to be in a meeting most of the day, so you’d just be waiting around, bored out of your mind.”

Something in her tone didn’t ring true. He stared at her, trying to decipher the tightness in her shoulders and press of her lips. When she met his gaze, she smiled, but the expression didn’t erase the worry in her eyes.

“If you’re sure. I’ll be back to Fairbanks by four, five at the latest.” He lifted his eyebrow in a silent question, and she nodded.

He held her gaze as he took his hand off the mic. “Mom, I’ll be there. Just don’t tell Sunny. I’d like to surprise her.”

“Oh great, sweetheart. I think everyone is going to be able to make it.” Someone called to Mom in the background. “I’ve got to run, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

He stuffed the phone back into his pocket and pulled Merritt down the beach. “We’ll fly out early. It’ll only take us about two and a half hours to fly to Fairbanks. Do you have a vehicle there?”

“I’ve rented a car.”

“Okay. Good.” Though it wasn’t good. He didn’t like just leaving her there. “The flight to Tok is just over an hour, so if you need me back earlier, call.”

“It’s fine. You should spend time with your family.” She sighed beside him. “Sunny really is as adventurous in person as she is on her YouTube, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. She’s always kept us on our toes.” He chuckled. “I guess we all kind of did that growing up.”

“So, I know Sunny’s done all kinds of crazy things from her channel, and I know your brother Gunnar was a pararescueman for the Air Force from her videos of their expedition to the North Pole. I didn’t know anything about that arm of the military until then, but, wow, being a PJ is no joke.”

Tiikâan cringed at the awe in Merritt’s voice. Yes, his brother Gunnar was practically a real-life superhero without the powers. All of his siblings were bigger than life, yet somehow Tiikâan ended up lacking the extraordinary gene.

“Your dad mentioned a Bjørn when he called to tell you Sunny was missing. Who’s that?” Merritt pointed to a breaching whale off in the distance.

“He’s another brother. He was a helicopter pilot for the special ops division of the Army called the Night Stalkers.”

He shrugged like it wasn’t the big deal it was. “Basically, his missions were always the most dangerous and extreme flying conditions possible. He goes into situations very few pilots would even consider. Elite of the elite.”

“Jeez, and your other siblings?”

He might as well just dump it all on her, then she’d know just how much he didn’t measure up to his family.

“My other brother Magnus is on a Hotshot Crew and travels the US and abroad fighting high-priority wildfires. My sister Lena was a medic in the military. She often went in with special ops. After she got out, she joined a private security firm as a bodyguard. And finally, Astryde was a state trooper for about eight years. She’snow commercial fishing for salmon, captains her own boat and everything.”

“That’s kind of a jump, isn’t it? From trooper to fishing?”

“We had an uncle who had a permit. Before becoming a trooper, Astryde spent every summer since she was thirteen on the boat. When he retired, he passed the permit on to her.”

“How can you pass a fishing permit on? Don’t you just, I don’t know, go to Fish and Game?”

“Not for commercial. It kind of works like mining claims. They only have so many permits available, so when someone is wanting off the boat, they either pass it to someone like an inheritance or sell it. They hardly ever come up for sale.”

He bent down and scooped up a handful of sand. “It kind of surprised us when she got out of law enforcement. She was a trooper in the Child Abuse Investigation Unit of the Bureau of Investigation and seemed to be moving up. Then when she got the permit, she just up and quit.”

“I can understand that. Working in child abuse would be devastating.”

“Yeah. It’d be hard.”

A bright-red piece of sea glass peeked out from the sand. He let the sand filter through his fingers, tossing away the broken, useless shells until just the glass remained. The edges were smooth and the surface beautiful from being battered around.

Glass transformed with life’s tribulations, turning into something that created joy and purpose, while shellsbroke until there wasn’t much resembling a shell anymore.

Every single one of his siblings’ hardships had transformed them like this glass. While they tumbled among the waves crashing over them, they’d let their faith and strength carry them to shore where they had found new life.

---