#brandon witlock

Charlie didn't say any of it out loud.

She waited until the wagon was put away, until the horses were settled, until the noise of Valentine dulled into its usual evening murmur. She waited until Brandon had gone, gone to lay down for the night.

Only then did it start to burn.

It simmered first—low and controlled, the way she'd learned to hold anger like a live coal in her gut. The kind that kept your voice even and your hands steady. The kind that didn't betray you in front of people who had already decided what you were allowed to feel.

Gracie's words replayed anyway.

I need my brother, not a caged animal.

Charlie leaned against the hitching post and closed her eyes, jaw tightening. Not because the words were wrong—because they were careless. Because they landed on a man already broken open and called it motivation.

She could still see Brandon sitting on the cell floor, shoulders curved inward, badge heavy in his hand like it weighed a hundred pounds. Could still hear the way his voice had frayed when he said too late, like that phrase had been living in him for weeks, chewing him hollow.

And Gracie had stood there—scarred, furious, alive—and demanded strength from a man who had been drowning in guilt since the moment her blood hit the snow.

Charlie understood why. God help her, she did.

Gracie had been flayed and stitched and carved and still standing. She had survived something no one should have to survive, and survival had sharpened her into something brittle and bright and cutting. Pain like that didn't leave room for gentleness. It demanded absolutes. Action. Certainty.

But understanding didn't soften the anger.

Because kicking a man while he was down and calling it truth didn't make it right.

Charlie dragged a hand down her face and stared out at the street. People passed. Laughed. Lived. None of them had seen Brandon fold in on himself like he didn't deserve to take up space. None of them had heard him say he should have been caged, like maybe that would have kept everyone safe.

You should have been there for me.

Charlie exhaled slowly through her nose.

As if he hadn't been trying to carry the weight of everyone at once. As if knowing about the letters—knowing about the taunts—had been some kind of privilege instead of another cut.

And that was the part that made her chest ache with something sharper than anger.

The implication that she shouldn't have known.

That Brandon shouldn't have told her.

That his pain was a private failing, to be borne all alone.

Charlie had seen that thinking before. She'd lived it.

The idea that strength meant silence. That needing anyone made you weak. That you proved your worth by how much you could endure without breaking in front of witnesses.

It ruined people.

She pushed off the post and started walking, boots scuffing dust, thoughts pacing faster than her steps. Gracie wanted her brother back upright and armored and functioning. Wanted him fixed—as if healing was something you could bark into existence.

Charlie wanted him breathing.

Wanted him sitting on a wagon watching herds drift across open land, wanted him talking about anything that wasn't guilt or blood or failure. Wanted him alive enough to feel tired instead of empty.

And maybe that was the difference.

Gracie had survived hell and demanded the same of him.

Charlie had watched too many strong men crumble under the weight of being told to endure.

She stopped, fists clenched at her sides, and stared at nothing.

You're not a caged animal, she thought fiercely, like she could send it after him on the wind. And even if you were—animals don't deserve punishment for surviving.

She didn't know if Gracie would ever see that. Didn't know if she ever could, not with scars still fresh and rage still burning hot enough to cauterize empathy.

But Charlie knew one thing with painful certainty.

If Brandon disappeared again—if he folded in on himself and decided the world would be better without him—Charlie would never forgive the people who demanded strength without offering grace.

Charlie spotted Graham before he spotted her—silhouetted on horseback against the dirty white of the snow, reins slack, shoulders hunched against the cold.

"Hey, Graham," she called, already walking toward him. "Come let me in the back door."

She didn't ask if Brandon was inside. She knew he was. The sheriff had said it plainly—locked himself in one of the cells like a wounded animal that didn't trust its own hands anymore. Charlie's jaw tightened at the thought.

Graham swung down from his horse. "Which door?"

"The one nobody watches," she said, already turning away.

Inside, the jail smelled like old iron and damp wool. Voices echoed low and strained from the cellblock.

Alex Ashcroft stood just inside one of the open cells, speaking carefully, like every word was meant to be a handhold.

"…you get yourself better. You get back on your feet," Alex was saying. "At the end of all this healing, you're gonna get out there again. And you're gonna prove to everyone—especially him—that we are not the animals he wants us to be. He doesn't win by making you sit in this cage all day hating yourself."

Charlie slowed without meaning to.

Luna, sitting inside the cell, snapped back hard. "Just because Gracie says death isn't good enough for him—that's fucking bullshit. If he wants to know what a caged animal is, he's talking to the wrong fucking Witlock."

She stood abruptly and brushed past Charlie without a glance, boots heavy against the floor as she stormed out.

Alex sighed, rubbing his face. "I don't expect you to just take this and magically feel better," he said more quietly. "Take the time you need. As long as you need. But do not let it keep you here. Okay?"

A gunshot cracked outside—sharp, too close.

Alex straightened. "You know what to do, Witlock," he said, already moving, then he was gone.

Charlie stepped into the cell.

Brandon sat on the floor with his back against the stone wall. His hair hung loose around his face instead of slicked back, too long now. His beard was uneven, neglected. A cast swallowed his leg. One hand was wrapped tight, white bandages stark against dirt and blood. He didn't look up when she sat beside him.

For a moment, she said nothing. Just existed there. Solid. Quiet.

"You told her?" Gracie's voice cut in sharp from outside the cell.

Brandon lifted his head slightly. "What?"

"You told her?" Gracie repeated.

"Told her what?"

Charlie felt it then—that edge in Gracie's tone. Accusatory. Territorial. Like Charlie was trespassing somewhere she hadn't earned the right to be.

"You know exactly what you told her."

"I'm very confused with what you're asking me right now." His voice was tired and weak, like that of a man beaten down.

"Thomas," Gracie said flatly. "Ring a bell?"

Brandon let out a hollow laugh. "What? That he got in my head? That he called me a dumb caged animal who should've been locked up? Is that why I'm sitting in this goddamn cell?"

Charlie's fingers curled against her knee, hard enough that she felt it in the joint. Every instinct in her wanted to step forward, put herself between them, snap something sharp and ugly back at Gracie until she stopped aiming her words like knives at a man already bleeding.

Careful, she warned herself. Careful.

"Do you believe that?" Gracie pressed. "Do you physically believe you're a caged animal?"

Charlie's gaze flicked to Brandon before he answered—saw the way his shoulders drew in, the way the bars framed him too neatly for comfort.

"Do I look it?" he asked.

"No. I never believed that," Gracie snapped. "I never believed Luna was unhinged. Never believed Bobby was a kid playing at marrying into the name. Never believed any of it. I stayed strong on that damn mountain longer than I can remember. I told you I didn't want him killed. I didn't want corruption touching any of us. And as much as I wanted to put a bullet in his head, I didn't."

Charlie swallowed hard. She could hear it—the truth and the fury tangled together, the way pain sharpened everything it touched. If Gracie hadn't earned every ounce of that anger in blood, Charlie would've been on her feet already.

"Did I?" Brandon shot back.

"No."

"I didn't," he said again, firmer.

"But you punched him. You fought Alex to get to him."

Charlie's teeth ground together. And I'd have done the same, she thought. Every time.

"What the hell was I supposed to do while he kept taunting me?"

"You were supposed to be there for me."

That landed.

Charlie saw it hit him like a blow to the chest, watched the fight drain out of him all at once. The words were quieter than shouting, but heavier—because they were the one accusation he already believed.

"Yeah," Brandon breathed. "Like he said. I wasn't."

Charlie's jaw clenched. Her mouth opened, just a fraction, then shut again. Don't you dare let that stand, she thought—and then, just as quickly, Don't. Not now.

"I don't believe his words," Gracie said. "But yesterday I needed my brother, and he was too angry to even talk to me. I understand you're pissed at him—but how do you think I feel? I'm the one with scars. All you got were letters."

Charlie felt heat flare behind her eyes. Letters don't carve skin, she wanted to say. But they can still cut to the bone. She dug her nails into her palm instead, grounding herself in the sting. Gracie had scars Charlie couldn't see, things no one should have survived. That mattered. It had to.

But so did this.

"Don't you dare think I wouldn't trade places with you."

"I'm not saying you wouldn't."

"I would," Brandon said. "Without hesitation."

Gracie exhaled hard. "He wasn't after you. He wanted your blood boiling so you'd do something irrational. I don't know what happened to you—but I had to force myself to talk to you because you wouldn't come to me."

Charlie looked at Brandon again—at the cast, the bandages, the way he sat folded inward like he was trying to take up less space in his own skin. You broke trying to hold all of it, she thought. And she's asking why you cracked.

"Same goes for you," Brandon said to Gracie.

Charlie let out a slow breath through her nose, staying seated, staying silent. She hated it. Hated every second of holding her tongue. But she knew if she spoke now, it would be a fight Gracie couldn't afford—and neither could Brandon.

So she stayed where she was. A witness. A wall. Waiting for the moment she was allowed to speak.

She paused. Then nodded, tired. "Yeah. Maybe. I need my brother—not a caged animal. Because you've never been that. Everything he's said—to you, to Pops, to Luna, to Bobby, to Ryan—it's all false. And I know I'll never get an apology."

Charlie stayed still, back straight, hands folded like restraint alone could keep her from stepping in. Gracie was right—and wrong—in ways that tangled together so tightly Charlie couldn't pull one thread without tearing the rest apart. She understood the anger. She understood the exhaustion. She understood that Gracie was speaking from scars that went deeper than bone.

But god, she was flaying him alive.

"You know what hurts the most?" Brandon asked quietly.

Charlie felt her chest tighten before Gracie even answered.

"What?"

"That one line he wrote. That I was supposed to protect you. And I didn't. I came too late."

Charlie closed her eyes briefly. Don't you dare carry that too.

"I didn't need a knight in shining armor."

"That's not what I mean. When it mattered," he said, voice breaking, "I wasn't there."

Charlie's fingers twitched. She wanted to tell him that being late wasn't the same as failing. That sometimes survival itself was proof enough. But this wasn't her ground to speak on—not yet.

"The only thing I believe," Gracie said slowly, "is that sometimes when I need you, you storm off. Everything else—you've always been there. What happened on that mountain was my mistake. I chose to be the hero."

Charlie inhaled through her nose. You shouldn't have had to be one.

"You did what you thought was right."

"Yeah." Gracie answered the first soft break in anger Charlie had heard.

"You tried to get away so no one else would get hurt," Brandon said. "I wasn't there. That's what hurts."

"If you were too late," Gracie snapped, "I wouldn't be standing here."

"You were unconscious when I found you."

"And yet I'm alive," she shot back. "So how is that too late?"

Charlie's jaw tightened. She could picture it too clearly—Brandon finding her broken and bloodied, thinking he'd failed while she was still breathing. That kind of moment didn't leave a man. It nested.

"You had skin flayed off your arm," he whispered.

"And 'debt paid' carved into my back," Gracie said sharply. "And I'm still standing. So stop calling that too late."

Charlie swallowed hard. Jesus Christ.

Brandon folded in on himself, shoulders caving. "Pops taught me to stop the bad guys."

"No one can stop him," Gracie said. "Not you. Not Pops. Not Luna. He's clinically insane. This is not the man I married." She reached through the bars and gripped Brandon's sleeve. "I'm annoyed—but not at you," she said. "I'm annoyed at myself. And I can't watch you become what he called you."

Charlie watched Brandon's face crumple, tears finally breaking through. She stayed where she was. Didn't touch him. Didn't interfere. Gracie needed to say this—and maybe Brandon needed to hear it—even if it hurt like hell.

"I can't see you like this," Gracie finished. "Get up. Clean yourself. Put your badge back on. Until then, I don't want to hear it."

She turned and walked away.

The sound of her boots faded.

Brandon stared after her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he unpinned his badge and lowered it into his palm.

That was when Charlie moved.

Not fast. Not sharp. Just enough to remind him he wasn't alone.

"So," she said lightly, like she hadn't just watched him get torn open, "you made me spend a whole night in the snow just to find you in Valentine?"

He huffed a weak breath. "Didn't mean to. Was gonna come get you. Go huntin'."

"You wanna go now?" she asked softly, careful with every syllable, like a hand offered to a skittish horse.

He gestured vaguely at himself. "Broken leg. Broken hand. Fractured skull."

"We could sit on the wagon."

"I can't shoot."

"You don't have to."

Charlie let a small, steady smile touch her mouth. "We don't even have to hunt. Just look. See where the herds are moving."

Brandon nodded, slow and thoughtful. "I like that."

"Want me to get the wagon?"

He nodded again.

The snow had no mercy for him.

It crept into the seams of his coat, settled into the folds of wool and leather, clung to his boots until they felt twice their weight. Brandon sat where the rock broke the slope, high enough that all of New Hanover lay spread beneath him—dark forests, pale rivers, distant lights swallowed by the coming dusk.

He didn't look away.

His coat was heavy, thick-lined, the kind meant for men who expected to be out in weather like this. Gloves hung useless at his side, fingers bare and red, knuckles cracked. Snow gathered in his beard, caught in the wild, untrimmed growth like frost on a dead hedge. His hair had fallen loose from whatever tie he'd once bothered with, curling damp against his temples, sticking to his face.

He hadn't moved in a long time.

The wind worried at him, low and constant, carrying that particular smell that meant more snow was coming. A storm. The sky was already bruising purple and gray, clouds rolling in slow and heavy like something massive and uncaring.

He drew his knees up slightly, boots digging into the crusted snow. His hands trembled—not from the cold alone. That was the part he couldn't control anymore. The shaking had started hours ago, maybe longer. Time had gone soft around the edges.

You failed her.

The words weren't on paper now. They were etched into him.

Gracie's face rose unbidden in his mind—not as she was now, hurt and frightened and changed, but as she'd been. Laughing too loud. Standing too close. Trusting him without question. His little sister, who had always assumed he'd be there. That if things went wrong, Brandon would fix it. Brandon would stop it.

His jaw clenched so hard it ached.

"I was there," he said aloud, the wind stealing most of it. His voice sounded strange to his own ears—thin, scraped raw. "I was right there."

But the mountain didn't answer. The valley didn't care.

He had been loud. He had been angry. He had paced and postured and told himself that meant something. That being ready to explode was the same as being ready to act.

When the moment came, he'd hesitated. That's what the letters said. That was the truth he couldn't outrun, no matter how high he climbed.

His shoulders folded inward, the weight of his coat suddenly unbearable. He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, fingers digging into the snow until they went numb. The cold bit down hard, sharp and clean, and for a moment he welcomed it. Pain was simple. Pain made sense.

"She needed me," he muttered. "And I didn't—"

The words failed him. His breath hitched, fogging thick in front of his face. He swallowed hard, throat burning.

He'd told himself he was protecting her. The letter had laughed at that idea.

Animal.

The word stalked him now, circling slow.

He could see it when he closed his eyes: himself rushing headlong, teeth bared, all instinct and noise. Snarling at shadows. Bolting when things turned real. A creature that didn't know when to stand or when to strike—only that it made a mess either way.

Animals didn't understand consequences. They just reacted.

Animals got people hurt.

His hands curled into fists, snow crunching beneath his grip. His shoulders began to shake—not violently, but steadily, like something inside him was coming undone thread by thread.

"Maybe that's all I am," he whispered. "Just that."

The wind picked up, tugging at his coat, lifting loose snow into the air. The first flakes of the coming storm brushed his face, melting against his skin. The sky darkened another shade.

Cages came to mind without warning.

The thought slid in quiet and smooth, like it had been waiting for the right moment to show itself. It didn't frighten him at first. It settled. Heavy. Certain.

Animals belonged in cages.

That was the truth of them. You didn't reason with an animal. You didn't ask it to be better than its nature. You contained it. Locked it behind iron and wood and distance so it couldn't lunge, couldn't break something precious just by being what it was.

Cages were honest in a way people never were.

They didn't pretend something could change if it just tried harder. They didn't lie about potential. A cage said this is what you are and this is as far as you're allowed to go.

If he were caged, he wouldn't be able to hover uselessly at her side, all noise and fury and empty promises. He wouldn't be able to mistake standing nearby for protection. He wouldn't get to tell himself next time.

There wouldn't be a next time.

The idea tightened around his chest until his breaths came thin and shallow, each one scraping like it might be his last. He folded inward, shoulders rounding, chin dropping until his beard brushed his coat, posture instinctive—as if he were bracing for a blow he knew he deserved.

Maybe that was the point.

Below him, the world went on.

New Hanover lay spread out beneath the storm-dark sky, lights flickering to life one by one as dusk deepened. Somewhere down there, people shut their doors against the cold. Someone fed a horse, rubbed warmth back into stiff muscles. Fires crackled. Supper cooked. Life continued with a stubborn, indifferent rhythm.

It felt obscene.

Up here, there was only him. The cold seeping into his bones. The wind cutting through every layer. The truth pressing down until it felt like it might crush his lungs flat.

Once again, Gracie is in need of protection and you are too late.

The words landed like a final judgment.

A sound wrenched itself out of him—raw and broken, somewhere between a breath and a laugh that had forgotten how to be anything but cruel. He bent forward sharply, pressing his forehead into his knee as if he could drive the thought out through sheer force. Snow clung to his lashes, melting there, cold water streaking down his face indistinguishable from tears he refused to name.

“I know,” he rasped into the wool of his coat. His voice shook apart around the words. “I know.”

The storm answered him.

Wind rose into a howl, fierce and relentless, snow thickening until it blurred the line between sky and ground. The mountain seemed to close in on itself, white and gray swallowing everything beyond a few feet.

Brandon stayed hunched before the gathering storm, trembling, shrinking, convinced down to his marrow that the world was safer—she was safer—without him loose in it.

And the snow kept falling, eager and unending, burying the shape of him inch by inch.

Brandon stayed where he was.

A dark figure hunched against the coming night, shaking beneath the weight of his own skin, convinced—utterly—that whatever part of him had been meant to protect was broken beyond repair.

The cabin was barely more than four walls and a roof, but it held. That was something.

The wind screamed itself hoarse outside, snow clawing at the shutters like it wanted in. Charlie had dragged the table against the door, more out of habit than fear, and led Silver Bell inside once it became clear the storm wasn't passing anytime soon. The mare had resisted at first—confused, stamping—but eventually settled in the middle of the room, folding herself down with a huff and a grateful shake. Charlie sat with her back against Silver Bell's warm flank, one hand resting on the familiar solidity of muscle and hide.

It helped. A little.

The telegram lay folded and unfolded so many times it had begun to soften at the creases.

I am Broken.

She read it again. And again.

The words didn't change. Their meaning didn't sharpen or dull with repetition—if anything, they frayed. What kind of man wrote something like that and vanished into the snow afterward? Brandon wasn't dramatic. He wasn't poetic. He was steady, plain-spoken, earnest to a fault. If he wrote those words, something had cracked hard enough to force them out of him.

Her thoughts chased themselves in circles.

The deputies in Valentine hadn't looked shaken. No whispered conversations. No sudden tightening when his name was mentioned. If something terrible had happened—if there had been blood, or arrests, or deaths—someone would have said something. Wouldn't they?

Unless they hadn't told her.

The idea crept in sideways, quiet and suffocating. That she was outside the circle. She wasn't a lawman anymore and everything was a secret. If something had happened they wouldn't have told her. She had no right to know.

Charlie shut her eyes and pressed her forehead briefly into Silver Bell's shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of horse and leather and cold. No. She wasn't doing that. She wasn't letting herself spiral down that old, lonely well where every unanswered question became proof she didn't matter.

She opened the telegram again, forcing herself to read it slower this time.

What worth of a man am I if I can't protect my family…

Family. So something had happened—or nearly had. Something he felt responsible for, whether it was his fault or not. His sister. His father. God, maybe even something smaller that had grown claws in his mind and wouldn't let go.

Her jaw tightened.

Had she pushed too hard? Asked too many questions about the cult, about the threats, about what he planned to do next? She'd meant it practically, not critically—meant it the way lawmen talked to one another, the way problems were solved by naming them. Her thoughts had been too much on that last case, the one that had been the last straw. The reason she'd quit being a lawman, and the man who shouldn't have gotten away scott free.

And she'd stood there, arms folded, suggesting action.

The thought twisted unpleasantly in her chest.

She'd told herself he was too forward. That the touches—his hand on her arm, the brief clasp of her fingers—were things she ought to stop before they turned into something else. And she had stopped them, stopped them by feigning that she was ignoring them, not returning the gestures.

Not because she didn't like them.

Because she did.

Because liking them felt dangerous. Because the last time she let something move fast and easy, it had burned down around her and taken parts of her with it. Too fast. Too soon. Always the same mistake, dressed up in a different face.

Outside, the wind howled louder, rattling the cabin like a warning.

Charlie stared at the telegram until the words blurred.

She had wanted a hunting partner. A friend. Someone steady. Someone uncomplicated.

And now she was alone in a snowbound cabin, clutching a piece of paper that felt heavier than it had any right to be, wondering where a good man had gone to fall apart.

Silver Bell shifted slightly, pressing closer, and Charlie let her head rest back against the mare's shoulder once more.

"Damn it," she murmured to no one.

Charlie told herself she wasn't waiting.

She was just… lingering. Tidying things that didn't need tidying. Checking the clock too often. Standing in the doorway of the saloon longer than necessary, watching the dirt road like she expected someone to materialize out of the dust.

Brandon had mentioned Nordheim casually—offhand, even. A hunting trip up north. Snow and quiet and clean air. She'd said it sounded nice, nothing more, careful not to lean into it. Careful not to sound eager.

But she was.

She missed the idea of it more than she cared to admit: the ride north, the cold that sharpened the senses, the easy companionship of someone who didn't demand anything from her except presence. Gentle touches—accidental brushes of hands, and after, before leaving the frozen town shared warmth by a fire. Things she'd learned to live without, and apparently still noticed the absence of.

It wasn't smart to get wrapped up in anything. Everyone in the east seemed to be dating a Whitlock, and that alone felt like a warning written in block letters across the sky. Bad timing. Bad odds. Bad sense.

She tried not to spiral on it.

The day wore on. Morning slipped into afternoon. Brandon didn't come by. Didn't send word.

Eventually—after arguing with herself far longer than she should have—Charlie sent a telegram. Short. Casual. Carefully balanced on the line between concern and indifference.

If you're still wanting to head north, I'll be around the saloon.

Nothing more.

Hours passed.

By late afternoon, the quiet had started to itch.

Charlie closed up and headed into Valentine, telling herself she just needed air, or like his father he'd gotten caught up in work and would be stood on the porch. She ran into Deputy Russell near the station, sitting on his horse waiting for his posse member to finish their telegram.

"Hey, have you seen Brandon today?" she said, keeping her tone light.

Russell frowned, thinking. "Not since earlier. He's around somewhere. Probably."

Probably wasn't comforting.

That was when she decided she’d go find him.

Not because anything felt wrong. Just because it felt natural. Charlie had always had an easy habit of drifting through sheriff’s offices, leaning in doorways, trading small talk. Even if she didn’t want the badge anymore, she still liked the company—the rhythm of it, the way time passed more honestly there. If Brandon was around, someone would know.

First stop was Bobby's place—his soon-to-be brother-in-law. The house sat quiet, shutters closed, no smoke from the chimney. No tracks fresh enough to matter.

Charlie hesitated only a moment before turning north.

Colter wasn't exactly on the way, but Bobby's house skirted the edge of the snow line, and curiosity tugged at her. There'd been talk of a missing wagon caravan—rumors, nothing solid. A narrow pass where snow liked to swallow things whole. She didn't expect to find Brandon there, but it was a rumor she'd meant to check on all day and now seemed as good a time as any.

She checked the pass anyway, then finished the trek up to Colter. She might as well.

Nothing but wind-swept drifts and the distant shapes of locals who knew better than to linger in the open. The cold had a way of making everything feel watched. There in the town, as she popped into the telegram station to warm her hands, the man behind the desk flagged her down.

"Got somethin' for you."

Charlie's brows raised in hopeful consideration, maybe he had gotten her telegram after all. She smiled as she took the letter and read it over.

The paper was damp, the edges soft from snow. She unfolded it carefully.

Telegram received from Wallace Station titled Broken. Charlie, I am broken.

She frowned and continued to read.

What worth is a man if he can't protect his family? What worth is a man if he can't protect, even with a badge? I am no one. A fever dream to most—seen only as an animal, brazen enough to hurt anything he touches, anything he sets his eyes on. Don't look for me, Charlie. I'm lost.

The ink had run in places. Snow, maybe. Or tears.

Charlie stared at it longer than she meant to, the cold suddenly sharp and invasive, like it had found a way inside her coat.

So much for a carefree search.

Whatever this had been—whatever she'd thought she was doing—it wasn't that anymore.

She folded the telegram with shaking hands and tucked it into her pocket. The urge to chide him rose fast and fierce, a familiar defense. Foolish man. Dramatic. Always carrying the world like it was his alone.

But beneath that was something colder.

She'd seen people crumble under isolation before. Seen what happened when responsibility became a closed circle with no way out.

Snow, then. If not here—then further.

Her mind mapped the area quickly. Barrows Lagoon, with its lonely little cabin. Houses to the north, scattered and quiet. An old mining camp to the west, half-swallowed by ice. Nordheim itself.

Weren't they supposed to go there?

The thought tightened her chest painfully. Poetic in the worst way.

Charlie reined Silver Bell toward Barrows Lagoon.

The wind picked up halfway there. Snow thickened, flakes stinging her cheeks, the world narrowing to white and motion. By the time she reached the cabin, the blizzard had arrived in earnest—howling, relentless, erasing tracks as quickly as they were made.

She broke in out of necessity, fingers numb as she forced the door. The cabin was empty. Cold. Undisturbed.

No Brandon.

The storm trapped her there, night falling fast, the world beyond the door reduced to sound and whiteout.

Charlie sat by the small, unlit hearth, telegram clenched in her hand, listening to the wind batter the walls.

Somewhere out there, he was lost.