Page 65 of Death Valley

No. I can’t let myself think that way. Not even for a minute.

I rise from the table, unable to remain still with the storm of emotions raging inside me. Betrayal, grief, rage, shame—they swirl together like the snow outside, blinding in their intensity.

Betrayal by Jensen, who lied to me from the start. Who knew all along what might have happened to Lainey but kept it from me, who led me into a potential death trap.

Betrayal by Lainey, who never shared the truth of her obsession. Who kept me at arm’s length from the very thing that defined her life and ultimately claimed it.

And shame. Deep, burning shame that I didn’t see through the deception. That I, an FBI agent trained to notice inconsistencies, to read people, to find the truth, had been so utterly blind.

I had missed all the signs.

“You should have told me,” I say, my back to him as I stare into the fire. “From the beginning, you should have told me.”

“Would you have believed me?” he asks quietly. “If I’d told you your sister hired me to guide her on a quest to find her cursed ancestors who live in the mountains as flesh-eating monsters? Would you have believed that?”

“I would have believed she told you that,” I admit, the truth bitter on my tongue. “Doesn’t mean I would have believed Lainey.”

“I thought the same about Lainey at first,” he says. “Until I saw them with my own eyes and knew that she was right.”

A tear slides down my cheek, hot against my cold skin. I brush it away angrily, but more follow. “All this time,” I whisper, feeling choked from the inside out. “All this time I’ve been looking for answers. Feeling like I failed her. Like if I’d just been more attentive, more present, I could have saved her. And honestly, I was right. I did fail her. I could have saved her.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Jensen says, rising to stand behind me. His presence is both comforting and infuriating as he lays his large, capable hands on my shoulders. “Lainey made her choices. She followed the path she felt compelled to follow.”

“And it got her killed.”

“But we don’t know that,” he says gently. “Not for certain. That’s the thing.”

I turn to face him, fury bubbling up through my grief. “What, you can’t seriously think she’s still out there? That she turned into one of those…things? Those hungry ones? You think my sister is some kind of mountain zombie preying on people?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But I know what I saw, Aubrey. They were people at one point. People who looked…changed. And they moved like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

I shake my head, rubbing the tears away with hasty swipes of my hands, willing them to stop. I can’t cry, I can’t lose it, not now. “This is insane,” I mutter. “All of it. I…I can’t—” My voice breaks, emotion overwhelming logic, training, everything.

God damn it.

Jensen reaches for me, but I step back, away from the comfort he offers. I can’t accept it. Not now. Not when the weight of his deception still crushes my chest.

“We’ll head back tomorrow to the ranch,” he says after a moment. “First light. Get everyone safely back to Lost Trail. Figure out our next move from there. See if we can get people out looking for Hank. People who aren’t us. We’re too close to this.”

The logical part of me knows he’s right. In this weather, with Hank gone and danger lurking in the darkness, retreat is the only sensible option. The cabin doesn’t feel safe anymore, not with thosethingsout there.

But something else rises in me, pushing past fear and reason. The same drive that propelled Lainey into these mountains. The same hunger for truth, for answers, for connection.

“No,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “I want you to take me there. Where you took them.”

Jensen stares at me, disbelief written across his features. “Aubrey. You saw what happened to Hank. You saw the warning at Cedar Creek.”

“Actually I didn’t. We don’t know what happened to Hank and all I saw at the creek was a deer carcass,” I say, and mean it. “You owe me this, Jensen. You owed my sister, and you failed her. You owe me the truth. The whole truth. Not just the parts you think I can handle.”

“But the truth is there are things out there that will hunt and kill you. Things that I don’t even know can be killed in return.”

The fire pops and hisses in the silence that follows, casting long shadows across the cabin walls. Outside, the storm continues to rage, a fitting backdrop to the tempest inside me.

“Then I need to see it,” I say more softly, holding his gaze. “The caves where you lost them. Where Lainey found…whatever she found. I need to understand what happened to her.”

What could happen to me.

Her blood is in my blood, after all.

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