Page 19 of Shadow of Misty Mountain

“What are you?—”

The rifle cracks. One clean shot. Then silence.

Travis lowers the weapon, breath controlled, shoulders squared.

I don’t realize I’ve been shaking until he turns to me and presses a hand to my shoulder.

“Breathe.”

“I… I am.”

“No, you’re not.” He cups my face, tilts it up. “Look at me.”

I do, and everything else fades. There’s snow drifting through the broken window. Blood and glass on the floor. I don’t know if the blood is mine or his. The air smells like gunpowder and pine. But he’s steady. Solid. He presses his forehead to mine for the briefest second.

“You’re okay,” he says. “We’re okay.”

Then he steps back, reloading, all business again.

Travis stalks to the front door and locks it. Deadbolt. Chain. Bar. Then he turns to me.

“I think it’s time I stopped pretending silence is safer,” he says, more to himself than to me.

And just like that, everything shifts. Because now I know the fight isn’t just coming… it’s already here.

“Dammit, Abby.” He pulls back just enough to see my face. “You can’t do that. You don’t go through my things. You don’t put yourself in front of a window. You don’t—” His words cut off, jaw snapping shut like he’s biting back the rest.

“Don’t what?” I snap, adrenaline mixing with the heat already crackling under my skin. “Don’t act like someone who wants answers and is being frozen out by the one man she thinks can answer her? Who’s being hunted and doesn’t know why? You want me to just sit here and knit while people shoot at me?”

His eyes narrow. “You think this is a game?”

“No. I think this is life or death. And you’re the only one who has the rulebook.”

That earns a muscle twitch in his jaw. Then he leans in again, closer than close, and his voice drops to something that curls straight down my spine.

“I will end whoever did this. You hear me? I will find them. I will bury them. But I can’t do that if you’re dead. So you stay behind me. You don’t touch what you don’t understand. And you do what I say.”

His authority crackles like lightning in the space between us. It should make me furious. It should make me feel small. It doesn’t. It makes my knees go weak.

His body is still caging mine, heat radiating off him in waves. I can feel every line of muscle, every controlled breath, every beat of barely leashed restraint.

My voice is softer when I speak again. “Then tell me what’s happening.”

His gaze flickers between my eyes and my mouth, like he’s weighing more than just the question.

“I will,” he says finally. “But not here.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not safe. That shot wasn’t a warning. It was a message.”

A chill runs through me. “I thought you got him…”

“I got the sniper. My guess is he didn’t come alone.”

“So what do we do?”

He pulls back, reluctantly, and grabs my hand. “We go to ground.”

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