Page 38 of Echo: Line
Delaney hasn't moved. I can't see her expression, but I feel the change in energy. The moment we almost had, gone. The reality we're stuck with, back.
"Tomorrow this is over," I say. Professional distance creeping back into my voice. "You'll be safe."
"Safe." She says it like she's tasting the word, finding it bitter. "You mean hidden. A new name, a new city where I don't knowanyone. Never using my skills again because the FBI thinks I'm a traitor and the Committee wants me dead."
"You'll be alive."
"That's survival, not living."
The accusation in her voice stings because she's right. I'm offering her survival, not a life. The same choice Kane offered me—disappear or die. Except I found Echo Ridge. Found purpose. Found people who became family.
What would Delaney find? An apartment in some anonymous city? A job that doesn't use half her training? Years looking over her shoulder, never trusting anyone enough to get close?
"Then you start over," I say, but the words sound hollow even to me. "New identity, new life. Tommy can set it up. You disappear. The Committee forgets you exist."
Silence. Then, quiet but firm: "What if I don't want to disappear?"
The words sit between us. Heavy. Impossible.
Outside, the forest is silent. Tomorrow Kane comes. Tomorrow we extract. Tomorrow everything changes.
I should tell her it's not her choice anymore. That the Committee will hunt her forever if she doesn't vanish. That staying means dying.
Instead, I say nothing.
Because I've been trained to sacrifice anything for the mission. To put the team above personal wants. To make the hard calls without hesitation.
But when I think about tomorrow—about her vanishing into witness protection, getting a new name and a new life somewhere I'll never find her?—
I can't make myself want it.
For the first time in my career, I don't know what the right call is.
10
DELANEY
Dawn breaks cold and gray through the pine canopy.
My legs burn with every step. Hours of hiking through wilderness, following Alex's lead as he navigates terrain that all looks the same to me but apparently tells him exactly where we are. He moves with the confidence of someone who's done this a thousand times—checking angles, reading the forest, keeping us on pace for the extraction point.
LZ Delta—landing zone Delta. Military speak for somewhere Kane can land a helicopter and pull us out, but pull us out to what exactly?
The question has been circling through my head since we left the cave. Since that moment in the darkness when Alex couldn't answer whether he wanted me to disappear. Since the radio interrupted what might have been?—
Don't think about that. Focus on the immediate problem. Except the immediate problem is the rest of my life.
Last week I was FBI. I had a condo in Alexandria, a career trajectory, a life that made sense even if it wasn't particularly exciting. Now I'm a fugitive with a service weapon and no badge, following a former, disgraced Delta Force operator through Montana wilderness while helicopters hunt us.
And when we reach that extraction point, Kane will offer me witness protection. A new name. A new city. A quiet life somewhere the Committee can't find me.
Safe. Hidden. Dead in every way that matters.
I watch Alex move ahead of me, rifle ready, every movement controlled and efficient. He survived eight months alone. Built a life with Echo Ridge. Found purpose after losing everything.
What will I find? An apartment in Phoenix or Portland or Pittsburgh? A job filing insurance claims under a name that isn't mine? Years of looking over my shoulder, never trusting anyone, never using the skills I spent years developing?
"Stop," Alex says quietly, hand coming up.
