Emma wouldn’t?—
She couldn’t?—
I think of last night. Her honesty. Her nerves. The way she admitted she’d never even kissed a man. That kind of vulnerability doesn’t feel fake. But I’ve been trained to know one thing: The best lies are wrapped in truth.
I swallow hard, forcing air into my lungs. “Maybe she saved a pin after she found the note.”
Silas shakes his head once. “Timestamp doesn’t match. The pin is older.”
My hands flex at my sides, fighting the urge to smash something. “So what are you saying? That she’s bait?”
Silas breathes in deep, letting it out slowly. “I’m saying we don’t know who she is yet.”
My chest tightens like a fist closes around my heart. “No,” I say, furious and terrified all at once. “You’re wrong.”
Silas doesn’t move. “Rhett?—”
I step closer, voice dropping into something dangerous. “I will not treat her like a suspect.”
Silas’s eyes flash. “And I will not let you get all of us killed because you want to believe she’s innocent.”
I want to roar. I want to storm across the room and pull Emma into my arms and demand answers and prove—prove—prove she’s mine and good and real. But all I can do is stand here with a piece of paper in my hand that threatens to blow my entire world apart.
Silas’s voice softens, just a fraction. “I’m not saying she’s guilty. I’m saying we need to be smart. We need to verify. Quietly.”
I stare at the evidence again, then at Emma across the room—still laughing, still alive in the light, still looking at Haven 7 like it’s the first safe place she’s ever found.
My stomach churns. Because if she’s lying… If she’s playing us… Then I’ve already given her access to my cabin. My routines. My blind spots. My bed. My trust.
And I don’t know which thought is worse: That she might be the enemy. Or that she might be innocent—and someone else is using her like a weapon.
Silas lowers his voice to a final warning. “We handle this carefully, Rhett. But we handle it now.”
I nod once, jaw clenched so hard it aches.
“Fine,” I grind out. “Tell me everything you have.”
Silas leans in, eyes hard. “Then start by answering me this.”
He taps the pinned coordinates on the page.
“How does a civilian get a pin drop on Haven 7…weeksbefore she shows up?”
And I have no answer. Not one that doesn’t crack something inside me wide open.
NINE
EMMA
I don’t mean to eavesdrop. I’m not proud of it. I’m not even good at it. My sneakers squeak on hardwood like they’re trying to announce my presence to the entire mountain. But when I walk past the meeting room and hear my name—low, sharp, like a warning—I stop without thinking. Because hearing your name in a place like Haven 7 doesn’t feel like gossip. It feels like a trigger being pulled.
“…she walked onto the ridge like she had a map in her head,” Silas is saying.
Rhett’s voice follows—deep, tight, familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. “She had a note.”
“A note with two words doesn’t get you past patrol patterns,” Silas counters.
Then my stomach drops through the floor.