Page 8 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
“Stupid?” she suggests, mouth curving without humor.
“Patient,” I counter. “Which is worse.”
She tips her head. “What’s the next move, Barrett?”
“Two tracks,” I say. “One quiet: countersurveillance, pattern-break, tighten your routes. One loud: we bleed their time and money until they make a mistake.”
“Loud,” she says. “I like loud.”
“I know.” I key a message to Zeke MacAllister, the sheriff of Glacier Hollow and a good friend. No names, no locations, just a code that’ll bring him to a neutral drop with the gear I want. I promised her no calls to town. Zeke doesn’t count as town. He counts as teeth.
She watches my hands, then my face. “You read my Denali reports, didn’t you?”
Recognition isn’t just a vague feeling—it’s instant, precise, like a lock snapping open the second the right key slides into place.
“Years ago,” I say. “You write clean.”
Her throat works. “Then you know I don’t scare easy.”
“I know you don’t quit easy.” I meet her eyes. “Scaring’s healthy. Quitting gets you dead.”
Outside, the wind gathers and releases, a restless breath against the eaves. The house answers with a weary creak, like old bones shifting in sleep. Then the pressure changes—a subtle drop that slides under my skin, humming wrong in the marrow.
“Down,” I say, already moving.
The faint tick of settling glass shivers through the room as a red dot slides across the far wall, slow and deliberate, before fixing itself on the map I left sprawled across the table. The beam holds steady, unwavering, pulsing with menace like a predator’s eye locked on prey.
Wren freezes beside me, breath gone quiet. “That’s not from the ridge,” she whispers.
“No,” I say, sliding my rifle up under the sill, eyes on the window’s black pane. “That’s from the tree line behind the shed.”
The red dot wavers, blinking once, then vanishes—too fast, too clean. Not retreat. Just breath held. We’re still being watched.
3
WREN
The red dot vanishes, but the tension doesn’t ease—it’s like breathing through glass, air visible but unreachable.
I hitch my pack higher on my shoulder, fingers tightening around the latch. My pulse hammers in my ears as I measure the distance—porch, yard, tree line. If I slip out now, fast and silent, I might vanish into the timber—back in control, not cornered prey waiting under someone else’s sights.
“Sit. You’re not going anywhere tonight.” Nate’s voice slices the room clean, commanding
enough to anchor in my spine.
My fingers are already on cold iron. “Last I checked, I’m not stamped with your name.”
“No. But tonight, I own the difference between you breathing or bleeding out in the snow.”
I don't move. I came to him for a reason, and he has a point, but still I don't like being told what to do. I live on my own on the side of a mountain for a reason.
“Wren, step away from that door.” Boots whisper against the floorboards as he crosses the room. He’s already a wall between me and the storm. “There are active sights on us and thepressure’s dropping. You walk out now, you’ll be blind in fifty yards and a target in ten.”
“The ridge won’t hold a visual if I cut south.” I hate that it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself. “I’ve been making it just fine for five years without a keeper.”
“And tonight proves how well that’s going.”
He reaches past me, flips the latch with an audible snap, and plants a palm flat on the wood, like the door answers to him. Snow rattles the panes, and the temperature in the room dips as if siding with him.
