Page 26 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
Of course he did. Because survival up here means eventually running out of everything, even the things that keep you alive.
I grab the kit anyway, pull out antiseptic, clean gauze, tape.
"Sierra—"
"You want to lose the arm or just let me clean it?"
He stares at me for a long moment, jaw working. Then he exhales hard and turns, presenting his shoulder. Surrender, reluctant but necessary.
I work by firelight, hands steady despite the way my heart pounds. The wound needs to be cleaned, drained, treated with whatever we have available. It's not ideal—not even close—but it's better than doing nothing and watching sepsis set in.
The antiseptic stings. Chris goes rigid under my touch, breath hissing through his teeth, but he doesn't pull away. He hasn't been touched by another person in almost a year. The awareness of that lives in every tense muscle, every careful inch of distance he tries to maintain even while surrendering to necessity.
"You've done this before," he says through gritted teeth.
"More times than I want to count." I dab carefully around the worst of the inflammation. My hands move on autopilot, muscle memory taking over. "Hurt like hell, but I didn't die. That's the bar we're measuring success by."
Chris makes a sound that might be a laugh. "Low bar."
"Only one that matters at this moment."
His skin is hot under my fingers, fever building in the infected tissue. I press gently around the wound, checking for abscesses. He tenses, every muscle going taut, but stays still. Trust, or maybe just recognition that he's out of options.
It's been almost a year since another person touched him. I feel the weight of that in the way he holds himself, the careful distance he maintains even while letting me work.Physical contact is a vulnerability he can't afford, a reminder of everything he's lost.
But right now, in this moment, he's letting me in.
I clean the wound as best I can, apply antibiotic ointment that's probably expired but better than nothing, bandage it with clean gauze. The whole time, neither of us speaks. The only sounds are the crackle of fire, the howl of wind, the unsteady rhythm of our breathing in the small space.
When I finish, I sit back. "That should help. But you need real antibiotics. This is going to keep coming back until it's properly treated."
"Add it to the list of things I need." Chris pulls his shirt back on, movements stiff. "Right under 'a life where I'm not hiding from people who want me dead.'"
The bitterness in his voice cuts deep. He's young—thirty-four—and already he's living like a man at the end of his rope. No future, no hope, just survival one day at a time.
"There has to be a way out of this," I say.
"If there is, I haven't found it." He stares at the flames. "The network's too big, too connected. I go public, I'm dead within a week. Stay hidden, eventually they find me anyway. There's no good option."
"What if we expose them first? Build a case so airtight they can't retaliate without proving our point?"
"With what evidence? Everything Joel, Tate, and I might have found is gone. Destroyed or disappeared. It's my word against theirs, and I'm a dead federal agent. I don't exactly have credibility."
"But I do." The words come out before I fully process the implications. "I'm a federal agent working an official investigation. If I can document what you know, corroborate it with what I've already found?—"
"They'll kill you too."
"They're already trying."
Chris looks at me then, really looks at me. His eyes are dark in the firelight, shadowed with exhaustion and something else—hope struggling against better judgment.
"Why?" he asks quietly. "Why risk your life for this?"
"Because it's the truth. And because you shouldn't have to live like this." I hold his gaze. "No one should."
Outside, the storm rages on. The fire burns low, casting long shadows across the rock walls. Chris opens his mouth to respond, but a sound from his gear interrupts—static bursting through the small handheld radio tucked near his pack.
My eyes snap to it. Chris's face goes carefully blank.
