Page 4 of Echo: Burn
I've become that. Cut away everything except survival. No family to threaten. No friends to betray. No lover to use as leverage.
Just me and the mountain and the reflexes that keep me breathing.
It's enough. I tell myself it's enough.
The loneliness that gnaws at me in the quiet moments—that's just neural pathways firing in patterns evolution designed for tribal living. Ignore it long enough and it fades. Not completely, never completely, but enough to function.
Escape routes mapped and memorized. Supply caches positioned throughout the mountain range. False identities ready to activate. Money hidden in accounts that don't trace back to any name I've ever used.
Every contingency planned. Every variable accounted for.
The satellite phone buzzes again. Different tone. Priority alert.
Tommy's voice comes through tight with urgency. "Kane, we've got a situation. Geofence just triggered on that veterinary clinic in Whitefish. The one with the chemical detection."
My blood goes cold. "The dog?"
"Yeah. Odin. The vet who saved him—Dr. Willa Hart—she's on the move. And Kane?" Tommy's keyboard clicks in the background. "Committee assets are converging on her position. Multiple units. This is a kill operation."
I'm already moving, grabbing gear, loading the truck. "How long?"
"She's twenty minutes from your position on Highway 93. They'll intercept in thirty, maybe less. Storm's rolling in heavy. Limited visibility."
A civilian. A veterinarian who made the mistake of saving a dog that knows too much. Now the Committee is going to erase her like she never existed.
I throw the go-bag in the truck, check my weapons. The smart play is to stay here. Stay safe. Let the Committee clean up their own mess. Getting involved means exposure. Means risk. Means compromising the careful distance I've maintained.
The engine turns over with a growl. I'm already heading down the mountain.
Stryker was right. We're building something that matters. And what matters is the creed we carved into stone. Protect the innocent. First line. First priority.
The storm hits as I reach the highway, snow so thick I can barely see the road. But I know these mountains. Know every curve, every grade, every place where the Committee might set an ambush.
I'm ten miles out when I see the first muzzle flash through the white-out.
The veterinarian is about to learn that some choices you don't get to walk away from.
The storm swallows the truck as I push the accelerator to the floor. Somewhere ahead, a woman I've never met and her dog are about to die because she saved him.
I built these walls for a reason. I'm about to remember why they never hold.
2
WILLA
Ican't see the road anymore.
The windshield wipers lose their rhythm, slapping uselessly at snow coming down so thick it feels like driving through cotton. My headlights bounce back at me, turning the world into a white wall. Highway 93 exists somewhere beneath my tires—I hope—but I'm navigating by faith more than vision.
"We're going to be all right, boy." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. Odin whines from the passenger seat, his massive head swiveling toward something I can't see. "Just a few more miles."
The Belgian Malinois presses against the door, ears flattening. Every muscle goes taut. This isn't weather anxiety. This is the stance he takes when something's wrong.
"Odin, what..."
The world explodes in light.
Muzzle flashes strobe through the white curtain. One. Two. Five points of fire painting the storm in lethal patterns. My headlights catch a man diving behind a snowbank, his body rolling with military precision. Dark figures advance through the blizzard in formation—the kind of spacing and coordinationDad drilled into his Marines. Too perfect for anything except professionals.
