The next time I see Cade, he’s cleaning a wound I didn’t know he had. The sleeve of his shirt is rolled up to the elbow. Gauze covers a crescent of abrasion on his forearm. It’s not serious, but ugly. Seeing him tend to flesh feels almost obscene in its intimacy. I stand in the doorway and watch.
“Was that from—?” I start.
He cuts me off. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
He looks up, then away. “Glass in the gravel. It happens.”
I want to prod, but instead I ask, “Did you get it out?”
“Yes. I’m not a rookie.”
I move closer, hoping he’ll flinch away; he doesn’t.
“There’s a lot I don’t know,” I say, more to myself than him.
He tapes the bandage and tosses the wrapper into the trash. “That’s true for everyone.”
He leaves without another word. I stand over the sink and stare at my reflection in the microwave’s black glass. I look the same, but I can feel myself adapting: to the containment, to the rules, to the cadence of this new, smaller world.
Night comes, and with it, a new round of headlines. My phone vibrates with notifications from every news outlet. I scroll past the official statements and dig into the dark vein of the internet, finding the memes, the rumors, the deep fakes. It’s been less than a week, and I’m already a complete spectacle.
The consensus is that I “asked for it.” That being too loud, too visible, too anything means you wear a target. Dad will do a televised prayer, his hands trembling for maximum effect, and maybe, if he gets the angle right, he’ll wring one brief uptick from the overnight polls. The meme-makers will love it. If I’d actually died, Dad would’ve called it optics.
I wake at midnight, my bandaged leg pulsing with pain and the gauze scratching against my skin. In the silence of the house, even the labored breathing of the air conditioner seems loud. I catch the soft sound of Cade moving in the hallway. When I drag myself to the kitchen for water, he's already there—a silhouette against the sliding glass doors, his head turning just slightly to acknowledge my uneven steps as I enter.
He doesn’t speak, just waits while I fill a glass at the sink. I should probably say thank you or at least acknowledge that he’s kept me alive this week, but the words are heavy and misshapen in my mouth. I fear I’m adapting faster than I want to admit.
I drink, keep my back to him as long as I can stand it. “How long do you think you’ll be here?”
He answers without hesitation. “’Til you’re out of danger.”
I turn. “How would you know when that is?”
He shrugs, crossing his arms. “I’ll know.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
CADE
3:42 AM: Every second on this job comes with its own timestamp. I've learned to mark them, not just in memory but in sensation—the chill of the air on my bare arms, the flush of adrenaline under skin, the way these old floorboards highlight every footstep through wool socks. This is the hour when even predators sleep.
I'm flat on my back, head pillowed on a rolled-up hoodie, listening to the hum of the A/C and the wind lashing the cypresses outside. The perimeter sensors run silent until they're tripped, but I've keyed myself to the frequency of micro-events. This is how you live through the dumbest ambushes: expect noise, fear silence.
There’s a tone, muffled and mean, from the base of the south window. Not the glass, but the wood. Like something nudging from beneath. I’m off the couch in three heartbeats. My handgun finds my hand because it’s where it belongs, and I’m moving, cat’s feet, no hesitation or self-talk. It could be nothing. It could be local wildlife. But if this is a decoy, she’s the target. Always, always, she’s the goddamn target.
I sweep the main hall, confirm the kitchen and the bath. All clear. Her bedroom door is shut and locked, as I left it. I triggerthe earpiece: no signal from the overnight detail stationed at the gate. I toss a look at the clock—03:43—and cue up the routines.
The window’s lowest pane is nearly level with the exterior grade. On the other side: deep shadow, a clump of sagebrush, and beyond that, the boneyard of useless garden furniture someone stockpiled as “ambush cover.” The nudge comes again, insistent. This time, a seven-second interval and a low, animal whine. No breathing on the other side, no footfalls. Nothing but absence and the suggestion of something hungry.
I secure the main floor—bathroom, mudroom, laundry—before I crack the side door. The deck is spongy with morning dew, slick enough to turn a step lethal. I sweep left and right, listening for the source of that noise. Nothing at the window. I follow the perimeter fence line, gun raised, scanning the darkness between posts. That's when I see it.
A calf. White face, eyes rolling, hoof caught between fence slats where the wood had rotted through. The whine is all lungs and terror. Its chest heaves, pink froth at the lips, eyes wide as any rescued hostage. There's no shooter out here, no crosshairs—just livestock in pain and the absurdity of rural Texas: threats, real and imagined, always overlapping.
I holster my weapon and kneel. The calf tries to suck its whole body from my reach, but there's nowhere to go. I grip the leg just above the joint, steady it against the fence, and spot the culprit: a corroded metal staple jutting from the center of the hoof, rust-flecked and deep enough to bleed. If I yank it out now, it'll bleed like hell. If I leave it, she bleeds out more slowly across the front lawn. There is no scenario in which this is neat or quick.
I dig the multitool from my waistband, wedge it under the staple, and work it side to side, not fast, but inexorable. The pressure has to match the animal's panic—steady, never sudden. I think about how many times I've done this with humans. Thewounded are the hardest to handle, not because of the injury, but because of the noise. The need to be loud enough to call for help and quiet enough not summon a second wave of violence.