Chapter 5: The Cabin in the Mist
The hike through the damp forest was quiet and agonizingly slow. Mateo carried Maya on his shoulders for the first five miles until the steep incline leveled out into a marshy plateau. The fog was rolling in thick from the coast, turning the towering evergreens into ghostly monoliths that seemed to watch their progress with silent judgment. Mateo’s shoulder muscles burned from the weight, and his chest still ached dully from the epinephrine, but he refused to stop. Every shadow cast by the moonlight looked like a spotter drone or a patrolman from Vance’s security detail.
When they finally broke through the dense brush, the weathered cedar cabin came into view. It looked abandoned, its porch sagging and its tin roof rusted orange, but a faint curl of blue smoke drifted from the stone chimney. This was Hector’s place—a man who had vanished from the grid a decade ago and never looked back.
Mateo approached the heavy wooden door, rapping three times in a distinct, syncopated rhythm: two short, one long, two short.
A moment later, the heavy deadbolt slid back with a loud clack. The door opened just enough for a weathered eye to peer out through the gloom. The barrel of an old Remington shotgun was resting casually against the doorframe, but it lowered instantly when the homeowner recognized the pale face and tattooed neck of the man standing in the freezing mist.
""Mateo?"" Hector rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones. He quickly pulled the door wide open. ""Jesus, man. Look at you. Get inside, before the thermal sat-surveillance catches your body heat.""
They stepped into the warmth of the cabin, which smelled heavily of woodsmoke, roasted coffee beans, and gun oil. Maya slid off Mateo’s shoulders, her yellow dress slightly stained with mud at the hem, clutching her stuffed rabbit. Hector looked down at the little girl, his hard eyes softening instantly. He had known Mateo since they were both runners for the cartel in Tijuana, before Mateo tried to build a legitimate life, and he knew the child was the only reason Mateo was still drawing breath.
""Put the kettle on, Hector,"" Mateo said, dropping his heavy jacket over the back of a worn leather armchair. ""We've got company behind us. Professional detail. They tracked us faster than they should have.""
Hector walked over to the small wood-burning stove, lifting a battered kettle. ""That means your house was compromised from the inside, Mateo. You had a leak.""
""I know,"" Mateo said, pacing across the creaking floorboards. ""Which means we can't run to any of the standard safe houses in Seattle or Portland. Every single one of them is flagged.""
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""Then we don't go south,"" Hector said, setting the kettle on the iron burner. He looked at Maya, who was quietly sitting at the wooden kitchen table, unpacking her yellow blanket and laying her stuffed rabbit neatly beside it. ""We go north. Across the border into the Yukon. There are logging towns up there where no one asks for papers, and Vance's corporate hounds can't operate without drawing the attention of the Mounties.""
Mateo stopped pacing. The Canadian border was two hundred miles away through some of the most rugged terrain in North America. But looking at Maya’s calm, trusting eyes, he knew Hector was right. Staying meant death; moving north was their only shot at a real future.
