Page 13 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
"Or both."
Another pause. "Copy that. Sit tight. Do you need backup?"
"Negative for now. I’ve got the site locked down, and her brother and the sheriff are good men if needed. In fact, the whole area is bristling with all kinds of backup if needed. We're going to go low profile and loud disruption until we get eyes on intel."
"Copy. Full discretion. Keep her breathing, Barrett."
The call ends with a faint click, but the weight of it doesn’t lift. I step back for a breath, listening to the silence stretch long and tight around us. The faint static hum of the sat-linkfades into nothing. It feels like a door closing on a hallway full of tripwires—quiet now, but one step the wrong way and everything goes live.
I close the terminal, double-check the encryption reset, and snap the Pelican case shut with a muted thunk. Tension knots through my shoulders and down my spine, every muscle pulled tight with a readiness I haven’t worn since my last deployment. Because now I know this isn’t a flare-up. It’s a recon mission. A test. And next time, they’ll come to collect.
Wren’s still watching me when I turn. Her pack is unbuckled at her feet. She hasn’t moved.
"Kind of fancy communication gear for a low-key position," she observes.
I shrug. "I'm the only official up here from the State. They wanted to make sure I had what I needed."
She nods. "You're thinking this started before the first shot."
“You didn’t just stumble into someone’s crosshairs, and they’re not the type to waste days hoping for a lucky shot. They’ve been on you longer than either of us realized.”
Her face stays locked in that impossible stillness, but her knuckles whiten as her fingers dig harder into the arms of the chair—like she’s bracing for an impact that hasn’t landed yet. Her voice, when it comes, is quieter than before.
"Why?" The word slices sharper than any blade. Not just a question. A demand for a reason that won’t break her open all over again.
"Because you’re the one who spotted the network last year when no one else did. You saw the signs for what they were. You knew which gear didn’t match the terrain. You documented it, clean and exact. That kind of insight makes you a liability and a threat—neither of which someone poaching or smuggling for big money is going to allow."
She exhales, quick and angry. "That report went into a black hole."
"Reports don’t stay buried. Not when the right eyes decide they’re worth digging up."
I kneel next to her pack, the floor cold against my knee as I run another sweep with the signal wand. The LED glows steady. No beeps. Nothing new. Just the one tracker we already pulled. It’s a surgical placement, clean removal. No redundancies. No mistakes. That isn’t just discipline, it’s the arrogance of people who know they’ve done this before. Whoever planted it wasn’t worried about being found. They counted on our delay, on hesitation. On us not checking twice.
That tells me two things: they’ve done this before—and they’re treating it like a blueprint. Rehearsed. Controlled. This isn’t just about tagging a target and walking away. It’s about repetition. They’re counting on predictability, on rhythms we don’t know we have. And they’re already planning the next run.
Wren doesn’t ask what happens next. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t push. But she watches me like she’s reading a blueprint she doesn’t quite trust—searching for cracks, trying to decide if the foundation will hold. Her silence isn’t passive. It’s a test. A quiet, pointed question: Are you the kind of man who takes control to serve, or to cage?
"This isn’t a bunker," I say, "but it’s defensible. We’ve got sensors, line of sight, and fallback routes. What we don’t have is enough food or fuel to play siege. We’ll have to find a way to get supplies."
"You thinking evac?"
"Not yet. But I’m thinking long-term protection. That means shifting your base of operation. I know you don’t want to hear it."
Her jaw clenches. "You’d put me under guard."
"I’d put you somewhere harder to isolate and easier to defend."
"Like town."
"Like this place. You already know the terrain, and I can set up silent alerts and dummy trails that’ll give us more warning than any cabin you’ve rigged solo."
Wren’s eyes flash. Not with fear—with fury. "I didn’t spend five years carving out a life just to let someone burn it down."
"Then don’t. Fight smarter."
She stands fast enough to make the chair groan, but her body stays rooted; close enough I can feel the static charge ripple between us. Her breath catches, chest brushing mine. Neither of us moves. Neither of us yields. Her eyes are keen, chin lifted like she’s daring me to flinch. She smells like cold air and clean skin warmed by motion, like cedar smoke and something biting beneath it—her, untamed and unmistakable. Challenge and wildness and the kind of trouble that doesn't just tempt—it calls. And I’ve always been too damn good at chasing that kind of call.
I should step away. I don’t. Her brother is a good man—a damn good friend. I’ve stood beside him in ops that turned to hell and watched him risk himself to pull someone else out. He’s trusted me with his life more than once.
