Holden

HOLDEN

The landscape shifted around as he ventured deeper into the night, his eyes already adjusted to the dark. The once-descending ground now leveled out amongst pines perfectly spaced apart. Moonbeams dashed across his face like Morse code. Too bright. He'd never seen the moon illuminate the sky like this.

Why had he gotten up? To pee? No, his bladder didn't feel heavy. Unless he'd already done so and was on his way back to camp. He couldn't remember.

The forest smelled different. An entire world of vegetative rot, festering and nutrient dense, waiting to grow something beautiful. Up ahead, a curtain of mist glistened. The trees parted for him in a path.

He dredged up a memory from deep within the folds of his brain. This place was a sanctuary, the land, the trees meticulously maintained by those who serve...

Panic throttled 's heart. He could still escape. Turn around and run.

No... a despicable option driven by fear. Change was coming, and it was time to embrace it. Not hide.

The towering pines fanned outward and circled an enclave, the center glowing like a hearth. Torches, each one held by a moss-eaten statue. Spindly mushrooms covered the statue of him, a crack splitting the stony version of his face. He wouldn't look but instinctively knew it was there, just beyond the grasp of his vision.

Before him, a woman in a plain linen dress sat atop a rotting stump. She stood when she saw him, graceful but frail. Mortal. Her ashen hair should be dull, but it shone like silk, undulating waves brushing the bottom of her rib cage. She held something dark and glistening in her stained hands.

hated towering over her, so he knelt, the damp ground soaking the knee of his pants.

"Look at me." The woman's voice was quiet and carried no hint of authority. looked up just as she knelt in front of him.

Once beautiful, still was. Painfully so. Her face was a familiar warmth that coiled around his belly. She did this often, demanding reverence without asking for it simply by falling to his level. By reminding him that despite her power, they were the same.

Her eyes glistened. She offered her hands, and glanced down at a heart made of shadow, expanding and contracting as it beat.

"You may have come into the fold on your own," she began. "But I chose you from the moment you entered. Trust me, and I will protect you."

Trust . The heart resting in her soft hands could kill him, but he needed to show as much loyalty to her as she had with him.

"Thank you," whispered. And then he lowered his head to the offering, and bit.

Sharp rays of sunlight pierced the jelly of his eyeballs and cooked his brain .

He came to on top of his deflated tent, sitting upright in a sleeping bag soaked in sweat. Hopefully sweat. God, had he pissed himself? No, he couldn't have... Where the hell was he?

A pounding rhythm struck every nerve in his head with the persistence of a tolling bell. His attention drifted to a plum-red tent. Tiffany's.

He rolled to the side, an automatic, desperate response to the sudden revolt in his stomach, and vomited into the dirt. His nostrils stung with the harshness of it, a punishing welcome back to reality.

Memories of yesterday intruded: the towering mountain with its relentless switchbacks, his own defeat at the hands of altitude sickness. Tiffany, guiding him down with unwavering patience, her presence both a comfort and a reminder of his own fucking incompetence.

They had set up camp as best they could at Glass Lake. His failed attempt at erecting his tent without Clyde's help had left him sleeping on top of the limp nylon, too sick and exhausted to do anything else, even when Tiffany tried helping him into her tent so she could fix up his.

And then what? He'd woken in the middle of the night to take a leak, illness magically vacant, and walked down the hill into a sanctuary.

No. That was a dream. An extremely screwed-up dream, a symptom of the sickness, a reminder of his vulnerability, a figment of his imagination, a remnant of his fear, a dream, a dream, a dream...

Dust speckled the collapsed tent, evidence of a tumultuous sleep. Uncomfortable itching spread across his arms and neck and distracted him from the throbbing in his head. Mosquito bites. He cringed at the swollen, angry marks, and a fresh wave of humiliation washed over him.

It was almost as if the universe was mocking him, piling up one inconvenience after another. He scratched at the bites before dragging his body from the damp sleeping bag, and studied the blood caked beneath his dirty, broken toenails. He'd hiked over twenty miles the past couple of days, having never hiked before. His feet had taken a beating.

blinked against the sunlight, lifting his hand to shield his eyes. Cheerful laughter and the splash of water drifted on the breeze from Glass Lake a couple hundred feet away. God, what time was it? Noon?

Residual bile stung the back of his throat, and the pounding in his head had ramped up to a full-blown construction project.

"Tiffany," he croaked. Her tent was gone, but her pack was still here. Before could panic, she entered the clearing, a collapsible bucket of lake water in one hand and a filter pump tucked under her other arm.

Her brows knitted as she took him in, a sympathetic grimace pulling at the corners of her lips. "You look like hell."

He winced. "Thanks."

"I really tried getting you in my tent last night. Don't think I gave up easily." Tiffany set the bucket on the ground, blanched at 's vomit puddle, and then moved the bucket to his other side. She unraveled the filter. "Where's your bottle? I'll fill it."

He pointed to his bag propped against a nearby tree. Tiffany fussing over him was unexpected and not necessarily unwelcome, though he couldn't get over the guilt of pulling her away from the mission. "I'm sorry?—"

"Please, not again." She handed him his bottle, a flicker of humor in her eyes. "If I figure out a way for you to pay me back, will you stop apologizing for something you couldn't control?"

swallowed a gulp of the cold, clear water. "Only if ." It was kind of her to remind him the altitude sickness wasn't his fault, except it was. He'd spent most of his life a few hundred feet above sea level. He'd never backpacked a day in his life. He'd voluntarily joined the search team. Altitude sickness or not, had set himself up to fail.

"I hope they search the cabin on Mount Agnes again. "

"They will." Tiffany pumped the filter as she filled her own bottle. "I don't think Clyde would have it any other way. I know what it's like, being a parent. You feel you know your kids better than anyone, even if that isn't true. Clyde probably thinks he can find evidence of Cameron better than the last team. He told me he wanted to see the cabin for himself, anyway."

breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good."

She stole 's bottle to top it off. "So, you really saw someone on the drone feed?"

"Dr. Dupont," said. "I don't know for sure, but I think it was her. It felt like her."

"Felt . . ."

" Felt as in intuition. Not felt her spirit pass through me, or some shit."

Tiffany's eyes crinkled as she smiled. "Thanks for the clarification."

She was easy to talk to. really hoped he could pay her back for helping him get back down to the ranger station, and not superficially, either. Everyone liked food, right? Maybe he could cook something. He was much better at cooking than climbing mountains.

Tiffany handed his bottle back. "We've got only three more miles until we hit the ranger station, but I was hoping..." She hesitated, winding the tube around her hand and walking to her bag, stuffing the filter inside. "Well, last night I was hoping we could reach a certain spot on the other side of the lake, but you were in terrible shape. But maybe we can stop by today. It may have a thing or two to make you feel better."

She was being vague on purpose. "A certain spot?" he asked.

"A cabin." She returned to 's deflated tent, picked up the bucket, and dumped the rest of the water at the edge of their campground. " My cabin."

raised his eyebrows. "Yours?"

"Yeah," she said lightly. "Let's pack up, and I'll show you. "

Despite how horrendous felt, he was too intrigued by this mysterious cabin Tiffany owned to say no to the visit. So they took the trail around the lake, the shore busy with midday hikers and families breaking for lunch. Glass Lake was beautiful. He wished his head weren't screaming so he could actually appreciate it.

On the western edge of the lake, Tiffany led him off the main trail to a branching path, which slithered into thick brush. "I don't think anyone's been back here in a couple of years," she grunted, shoving her way through the thicket.

The brush soon parted, and a cabin stood in the center of the clearing. The word cute came to mind, tiny evergreen cutouts carved into shutters above empty window boxes once painted white. Two hundred square feet at most, hardly bigger than some rich kid's playhouse. Needed some serious TLC, too. A solar panel covered one side of the A-frame roof, but it looked dated as hell. would be shocked if it was still working.

"Looks sadder than I remember it." Tiffany pulled a key from the belt pocket of her pack, walked to the door, and wiggled it into the deadbolt. The door groaned loudly when she pushed it open, like the wood had expanded beyond the frame. She stomped her feet before entering, and followed her.

The cabin's innards were small and stale. A twin bed, covered in a limp comforter, took up a corner of the room. A narrow counter with a pump sink lined the opposite side, beneath it an antique upright cooler and a military ammo box. Dust motes plumed in the air as Tiffany shoved a window open. "Filthy," she stated, clapping her hands clean.

"This is... yours ?" peered through the back window at the collapsed outhouse. He took off his pack and sat on the bed, groaning louder than the mattress springs.

"My dad's," she elaborated. "One of the few private pieces of property left in Deadswitch. State wouldn't let him sell it, only give it away. He was going to give it to Siena before he rewrote his will last year, when the cancer came back. "

Based on her audio files, Siena and Dr. Feyrer had been close, but to pass up his daughter seemed callous, especially if...

"You wanted it?" he asked.

"No. This place is a craphole." With her hands on her hips, Tiffany scanned the emptiness of the small room. "But it's my craphole."

In other words, this dinky cabin in the middle of nowhere had history. sensed that was why Tiffany had brought him here. Her eyes flitted about, searching.

Maybe she'd wanted to come here in the first place, and that was why she'd volunteered to escort back.

"What are you looking for?"

Her eyes met his, and she flushed, as if caught in the act. "I don't know." She knelt near the cooler and opened it. Bottles clinked as she rummaged around. "Here." She popped off the bottle cap on a Mexican Coke with the carabiner on her keys and held the drink out. "The good kind. None of that high-fructose garbage."

took the Coke and spun it, the expiration date stamped on the bottle neck. "Expired last year. Your dad used this place recently?"

Tiffany shrugged, flipping the latches on the ammo container lid. She pulled from the container a wad of gauze bandages and blister pads and continued to dig, finding an orange prescription bottle and shaking it. "Here." She tossed the bottle to , who missed. He picked it off the floor and read the label. Dexamethasone .

"Take two. Anti-inflammatory for your altitude sickness," Tiffany explained. "Surprised Diego wasn't carrying any on him, being SAR and all. Seemed a little full of himself, didn't he?"

smiled as he twisted the lid off, happy he wasn't the only one who felt that way. He took two pills and swallowed them with a swig of warm Coke.

Tiffany shoved the ammo container back beneath the counter. She seemed disappointed. Maybe her mood had something to do with the state of the cabin. A craphole , she'd called it.

took a large gulp of Coke and set it on the floor, lying on his side on the bed. It was too early to feel the effects of the dexamethasone or the sugar, but the placebo effect was almost as good. "So, what will you do with this place?"

"Probably give it to Siena like Dad wanted, if we can find her. Just wanted to see it one last time while it was mine. Felt like I had to."

"Did you spend a lot of time here?"

Tiffany's gaze swept the low ceiling as though she were staring up at the inside of a gothic cathedral. "You could say that. Summers, mostly. When Dad worked. But that was a long time ago."

rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The only thing he noticed was a water stain.

His ears started ringing again, and he sat up with a grunt, jamming a finger into one. Altitude sickness? Diego hadn't included ear ringing in his laundry list of symptoms.

"You hear that too?" Tiffany winced.

dropped his hand. "Yeah. I thought it was inside my head. Some inner ear thing."

"What is it?" She stood to peer out a window. "Is it coming from the lake?"

shook his head. The ringing sounded like it was literally originating inside his skull. "This isn't the first time I've heard it since driving up here a few weeks ago. I thought it was a part of the altitude change."

Tiffany glared at the window. "I don't think this is the first time I've heard it, either." She took a step back, as if expecting the window to shatter, and then stuck her fingers in her ears. "It's terrible. Drink up so we can get out of here."

He didn't need to be asked twice, swiping his Coke from the ground as Tiffany hoisted her bag onto her shoulders.

slumped against the wall of the ranger station, an ice pack chilling his sunburnt neck. As the EMT—a wiry, stoic woman who'd introduced herself as Liz—rummaged for something in her bag, drank occasional gulps of ice water to wash away the residual taste of Coke-flavored vomit.

The AC on the wall opposite kicked on with a whir , the cold blasting him in the face. The filtered air made his body odor smell even worse. How anyone could live in the wild for weeks at a time was beyond him. He couldn't handle two days.

Frank sat in his chair with the phone's receiver, relaying information to whoever was on the other end. Liz squatted in front of and gripped his wrist, her fingers pressing into his pulse point.

After checking the rest of his vitals, Liz said, "You're probably fine. You need fluids and rest."

All that vomiting and he was probably fine ? "What's my diagnosis? Weak constitution?"

Liz blinked at him, either not getting the joke or not finding his self-deprecation amusing. Tiffany was a better medic. She'd already taken off to the Fort to shower, but he needed to thank her again the second he had the chance. She'd given up helping with the search to coddle his probably fine , pathetic ass. The research team needed Tiffany's efforts out in the wilderness, and had impeded that.

He needed to not just thank Tiffany again, but make up for what he'd done. Figure out some other way to uncover where the research team was and why they were in danger, even if he had to do it from the Fort.

Frank hung up the phone and turned to , his weathered face breaking into a friendly grin. "Don't be so hard on yourself. Even seasoned hikers get altitude sickness. "

scratched the cluster of mosquito bites on his neck. Seasoned hikers got altitude sickness, but they also had boots that fit right and could set up their own tent and applied sunblock correctly and knew the limitations of their own bodies. He wasn't being hard on himself for getting altitude sickness, but for burdening the rest of the team.

wanted to say something like this, hoping at least Frank would forgive him, but he was interrupted by the door to the station flying open. Francis barreled in, jumping on to lick his face. The dog's whimpers and squeaks of joy sounded more like a Pomeranian than a seventy-pound German shepherd.

scratched the dog's scruff, a much better option than scratching at his bites. "Sorry to worry you for no reason, boy."

Frank stood. "I've got a supply run to make. Liz, you need a ride back to town?"

Liz nodded and packed up her supplies, and they filed out as Angel entered. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun that could rival a librarian's, though she was dressed in an old t-shirt and jean shorts. She avoided 's eyes and sat across the room, pulling a lip balm from her pocket and applying it. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, then sighed, standing, and walked to the mini fridge behind Frank's desk.

She could make an Olympic sport out of ignoring the only other person in the room. He didn't blame her—he'd left things on a shitty note, and had regretted it the entire time he was on the trail.

When the fridge opened, Francis immediately forgot 's existence and wandered over to Angel, sniffing around.

Angel stood with the door open, though it didn't seem like she was staring at anything in particular. Either she didn't know what to say, or didn't want to say anything.

Or was waiting for him to say something. So he did.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked without looking at him, bending over to select a cheap beer from Frank's meager stash. After pushing Francis out of the way, she shut the fridge door.

She would make this hard for him, and he deserved it. "I'm sorry I didn't consider your feelings. I'm not used to people caring about what happens to me."

Angel scoffed like he'd said something dumb, and he immediately felt dumb, but couldn't think of anything to add. He was telling the truth, after all, not because he wanted her to feel sorry for him, but because it had been a while since he took up someone else's emotional bandwidth, and he'd forgotten how complicated friendships—hell, all relationships—were. He couldn't reconcile both Angel being Angel, and Angel being someone who didn't want to get hurt.

"Yeah," she finally said when she sat again. "And I'm not used to people considering my feelings, so I guess I should have expected you not to listen."

"That..." He scrambled for a way to refute her belief, but doing so would only prove her right. "That sucks."

Angel blinked, her guarded expression softening. "I gotta say, , I'm also not used to men owning up to their mistakes. Thank you. But I also don't buy the pathetic loner act. Just because you're too big of a knucklehead to notice people caring about you doesn't mean they don't exist." She paused before a marked shift in her tone broke the quiet. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Same." Could he name anyone other than Angel who actually cared about him? Even the woman he'd been living with had moved all his shit from their apartment and disconnected her phone so he couldn't call her. That didn't seem very caring.

"You ready to head up to the Fort?" Angel asked.

He picked up the rotary phone's receiver. "I need to call my apartment manager first."

Even with the help of 411, it took a bit for to get connected to the right person. When he finally reached his apartment manager, she gave him the same news as Becca.

"Lauren said she spoke for the both of you, and according to our lease terms..."

interrupted her. "But how could she end the lease without my agreement? We cosigned. Isn't that why there are two names on the contract?"

"Normally, yes, but she claimed you'd already moved out. Given those circumstances, it was her decision. She was very convincing."

gripped the phone tighter, mentally detangling every potential consequence that stemmed from this woman believing a very convincing Lauren.

"What about my things? All my stuff is gone."

"Lauren must have packed it up and taken it. I know there was a van, but I can't tell you much else."

"So that's it, then?" he asked.

"I... I'm truly sorry," she whispered, her voice lost between the cracks of their conversation and the static of the landline.

numbly hung up.

He'd already tried calling Lauren. Fourteen times, to be exact, the unfriendly, mechanical voice greeting him each time: We're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected. A mantra of betrayal, mocking him.

Angel monitored him from the top of Frank's desk as Francis lay sprawled at her feet, his alert ears twitching at the tension in the room. leaned against the desk as he relayed to Angel what the apartment manager had told him.

"A couple months after I broke up with Becca, Lauren responded to my post on a local message board about the room. I didn't know her, but she had seemed desperate, so I only charged her half the listed rate. And she pays me back by screwing me over."

Angel sighed. "Oh, ." She cracked her can open. "Sorry, sickie. I know this moment calls for a beer, but you can't have one until you've recovered." She jerked her head toward the battered screen door .

grabbed his ice water, pushed off from the desk, and followed Angel outside, where she sat on the porch's worn steps. He sat next to her, the sun's heat prickling his skin. Francis wiggled his way between them and nudged his snout against Angel's can, licking the condensation with long swipes of his tongue.

"I should go back to Corvallis," said more to himself than to Angel. "Find a place to crash and figure out what the hell happened." He ran his fingers through Francis's soft fur, the rhythmic motion calming.

"You think Lauren stole and sold your stuff?" Angel asked.

"The total value of my belongings is probably less than three grand. More effort to sell than it's worth." His gaze drifted to the shadows stretching across the parking lot. "Lauren was a bioengineer here in California. She left all that to work the front desk at the Marriott in Corvallis. Made no sense."

"Maybe she's running from something. People don't just leave a career like that for a front desk job." Angel took a sip of her beer, her gaze drifting toward the sun. "People rarely abandon a life without good reason."

followed her gaze. The sky carried the hue of an orange sunset, even though it was only afternoon.

"If her past caught up to her, she would have just left, right? Why take the time to pack up all my stuff?" He tightened his grip on his water as his head throbbed, far too exhausted to piece together any sound reason Lauren would clean out their apartment and disconnect her phone.

Angel noticed. "You okay?"

"I got my ass handed to me in the woods."

"Sure did," she drawled.

"I was just trying to help. I feel useless."

Angel laughed, and regretted opening up until she said, "You know, we're not here for a Boy Scout merit badge. We're not the A-Team of wilderness rescue. We're here for the evidence protocol misses." She paused, dramatically swirling her beer can before finishing, "All those IT skills and sleuthing that got us here. We can still help out around the Fort. I'm even getting comfortable walking to and from the station. Not alone, don't worry. I made Zaid go with me. That dummy needs some exercise."

whistled. "A walk in the woods. That's a big deal for you."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't be too impressed. Anyway, your stuff. You can file a police report from here. Let them sort this mess out. How much is your crap actually worth to you?"

thought. "Well, I liked my bed."

"Which I'm sure reminded you of Becca. Perfect opportunity to get rid of it."

"And my desktop?"

She threw him a side-eye. "How old?"

shrugged. "Ten, twelve years. Fine, I see your point." Plus, he wanted to stay in Deadswitch. Find a way to not be worthless with Search and Rescue efforts to pay back Tiffany and the others.

Angel raised her beer can in a mock toast. "Here's to getting all your crap carted away for free," she declared, and drank to the crunch of tires rolling over gravel.

shielded his eyes from the sun as a vehicle swerved into the parking lot. Frank was back, hopping out of the Jeep and jogging toward them, Liz in tow.

Francis barked and dashed toward the ranger, and jumped up at the panic on Frank's face. "What's wrong?"

Frank slowed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. He clutched his walkie in the other. "Wildfire up on Wolf Ridge, spreading fast. I can't get a hold of Diego to warn him."

Wolf Ridge . Clyde and Diego weren't the only ones in jeopardy, not if had really seen Siena's face on the drone feed. And wildfire could eat up miles of California forest in mere hours. Regardless of where the research team was now, they were in trouble .

"What do you need us to do?" Angel asked as Liz darted past them into the station.

"I need to make calls," Frank said. "Go run and let Zaid know. That kook can track the spread faster than the state can. We can't waste time..."

Frank's voice faded behind , who was already jogging up the trail toward the Fort.