The snow had stopped falling by the time they finished securing the Caravan, leaving the mountain pass suspended in a silence so complete that every footstep, every breath, every whispered word seemed to echo through the pines like a bell. The three armored trucks sat motionless on the logging road, their engines dead, their guards unconscious and bound with zip ties in the rear of the transport vehicle. The self-destruct system was disarmed, its explosive charges rendered inert by the override codes Elias had transmitted. The hostages were free.
Lena Cross was the first to emerge from the transport truck. She was thinner than Caleb had described—thinner than Nyla had imagined from the photograph hidden in the hollowed-out book—with dark hair streaked with grey and eyes that carried the w
