Chapter 5 - Echoes in the Timber
The front door of the cabin creaked open before Leo could reach the top step. The woman standing in the threshold was wrapped in a faded wool blanket, her dark hair falling loose around her shoulders, her face pale and etched with the same haunting grief that had consumed Toby hours earlier.
It was Elena.
Leo froze, his breath catching in his throat. For three agonizing seconds, neither of them moved. The rain dripped rhythmically from the pine boughs overhead, filling the deafening silence between them.
"You shouldn't have come here, Leo," Elena whispered, her voice cracking as tears welled in her eyes. "Vance is just a symptom. The whole network is still looking."
Leo crossed the distance between them in two long strides, his arms wrapping around her with desperate, ferocious strength, as if letting go would cause her to dissolve back into the mist. Elena buried her face in his shoulder, her shoulders shaking with silent, restrained sobs that mirrored the quiet sorrow of their sleeping son out in the car.
Clara stood by the sedan, watching them from a distance, her hands tucked neatly into the pockets of her black apron. She didn't intrude on the reunion. She had delivered them to the threshold, but the burden of what came next belonged entirely to them.
"They followed us," Leo said against her hair, his voice choked with emotion. "Vance was at the diner. He knows we're together."
Elena pulled back slowly, her hands resting against his chest, her dark eyes searching his face with fierce urgency.
"Vance isn't the one who ordered the hit, Leo," Elena said, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "It was your own commanding officer. The entire unit was compromised from the very beginning."
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Before Leo could process the devastating implication of her words, a sharp crack echoed through the silent forest—not thunder, but the unmistakable snap of a dry twig beneath a heavy boot on the western perimeter of the clearing.
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