Chapter Twenty-Five
918 Words
Ghost stood up. Nadia had never seen him stand during an operation. Not once.
Everything about him had always suggested permanence. A rifle. A rock. A shadow. Something built to remain exactly where it was placed.
Yet he was standing.
The rifle remained on the granite. The quarry below continued erupting with gunfire. And Ghost stood.
"Ghost." No response. The name felt too small now.
He took one step toward the edge of the ridge. Then another.
Nadia's stomach dropped.
"What are you doing?" Still nothing.
Down below, Reaper was watching. Waiting. The woman was watching too.
The entire night seemed to have narrowed into a single invisible thread stretched between three people.
Ghost.
Reaper.
The woman.
Everyone else had become background noise. Including her. She watched him without calling his name again.
Ghost moved toward the narrow trail that descended into the quarry. Nadia grabbed his sleeve. The decision happened before she thought about it. Before she considered whether touching him was smart. Before she considered whether she'd regret it.
She simply grabbed him.
Ghost stopped. The pause lasted less than a second. But it was enough. Enough to make him look down. Enough to make him actually see her.
"What are you doing?" she repeated.
His expression didn't change. His eyes looked different, though: crowded, as if too many thoughts were trying to occupy the same space.
"I have to go." The answer came quietly, like a man trying to convince himself.
Nadia tightened her grip.
"Into that?"
A burst of automatic fire ripped across the quarry floor. Neither of them looked toward it. Ghost's attention remained fixed on her hand around his sleeve.
"I have to verify."
The words sounded ridiculous. Even he seemed to know it.
Verify. As if this were data. As if the woman wasn't turning him inside out.
Nadia stared at him, then shook her head.
"No."
Ghost turned. He looked at her fully.
"No?" he repeated.
"No."
For a moment she almost let go.
Almost.
The man in front of her was Ghost. The most dangerous person she'd ever met. But she couldn't stop.
"You told me to separate the math from the consequence."
His eye dropped to her hand on his sleeve, then came back up.
"You said if I looked at the consequence, I couldn't do my job."
The wind howled across the ridge. Neither moved.
"So do your job."
Ghost looked away first, toward the quarry, toward the woman, toward Reaper. The movement felt strangely human. Like losing an argument. Or trying to.
"You don't understand."
The words came out rough. Nadia pressed her grip tighter on his sleeve.
She didn't understand. Not really. She didn't know who the woman was. She didn't know what Reaper had done. She didn't know what Ghost had buried. But she knew one thing. Walking into Reaper's hands wasn't going to fix it.
"You think she's alive."
Ghost's jaw tightened.
"You don't know she's alive."
The words landed. Hard. Harder than Nadia intended.
Ghost's silence answered for him. Because she was right. He didn't know. He wanted to know. Needed to know. But those weren't the same thing.
Below them, Reaper slowly began guiding the woman toward the quarry's eastern wall. Just walking her. Like he knew exactly what he was doing. Like he knew exactly what Ghost was feeling.
Ghost took a step forward. Nadia stepped with him, still holding his sleeve.
The movement startled both of them. For one awkward second they nearly lost their footing on the uneven granite.
Ghost reached out automatically. His hand caught her elbow. Instinct. Nothing more. Yet neither let go immediately.
The moment stretched. Strange. Uneven. Human.
The cold leather of his glove pressed against her skin.
Neither of them looked at the quarry. Neither of them looked at the woman. They looked at each other.
Then Ghost abruptly released her arm. Nadia held on a beat longer than made sense before letting go.
The silence that followed felt louder than the gunfire.
A distant explosion echoed somewhere below. Neither reacted.
Finally Ghost spoke. To her.
"If that's really her..."
He stopped. The sentence never finished. Didn't need to.
Nadia looked from Ghost to the woman, putting them both in the same frame at once. He was hesitating because her existence broke reality. If she was alive, years of certainty died. If she wasn't alive, he was about to walk into a trap. Either way he lost something.
She stopped pulling at his sleeve.
"You don't have to decide right now."
Ghost looked at her. The answer, whatever it was, didn't arrive. Men like Ghost made decisions. Immediately. Relentlessly. The idea of waiting appeared almost foreign.
Below them, another burst of rifle fire cracked through the quarry. This time the radio came alive.
"Nadia."
River. Breathing hard. Moving. Alive.
"We've got movement on the east wall."
Nadia's eyes snapped toward Reaper, toward the woman, toward the direction they were heading. The same direction.
River saw them too.
Ghost grabbed the radio. "Pull back."
River laughed. Actually laughed. A short, exhausted sound.
"Not happening."
Ghost closed his eyes. Just for a second. The gesture belonged to every person who had ever cared about someone impossible.
Then River spoke again.
"Whatever that is, brother," River said quietly through the radio, "you don't have to carry it alone."
The transmission ended.
Ghost didn't move. The quarry continued burning beneath them. Reaper continued walking. The woman continued disappearing into the darkness.
And Ghost stayed. Because of people.
- Writer
