Page 20 of Collateral Damage
His eyes find mine, and the faintest worry line appears between his brow before he asks whoever has called to hold on.
“Can you get the fire started? I’ll check on the generator and take this outside.”
I nod and shrug out of my coat, the chill already seeping into my bones. I crouch by the hearth and strike a match to the kindling.
The fire takes reluctantly at first, then settles into a steady crackle. Heat begins to push back the cold, inch by inch. Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the windowpanes. Snow falls thicker now, flakes streaking sideways, blurring the trees into a wall of white.
I straighten and wrap my arms around myself, forcing my breathing to slow. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. The way I teach patients when panic presses in too close. The way I’ve done a thousand times for other people.
Doing it for myself is harder.
Silas’s voice carries faintly through the door, words indistinct, tone unmistakable. Controlled. Focused. The sound of someone already several steps ahead of where I’m standing emotionally. I’m grateful for that, even as part of me wants him back inside, where I can see him.
I lower myself into the chair by the fire and bow my head.
Lord, I don’t know how to do this without You.
The words come quietly, without ceremony. No careful phrasing. No effort to sound composed.
I need wisdom. I need restraint. I need courage.
My hands tighten together in my lap.
Please protect my mother. Please put the right people around her. Please let her be safe and unaware of what I’m going through.
The ache in my chest sharpens, but I don’t push it away. God doesn’t require tidy prayers. Just honest ones.
And help me trust that You’re here — even now.
Silas
I set the sat phone down on a rusted crate, the speaker hissing with digital static that competes with the wind whistling through the gaps in the shed.
The generator is a squat, cast-iron beast positioned with tactical intent—close enough for a dead-of-night sprint, far enough that the carbon monoxide won't put us to sleep before an intruder would.
The scent of diesel cuts sharply through the freezing air as I tip the jerrycan. The liquid glugs in a steady, heavy rhythm. I don’t rush. Speed is how you spill; spills are how you give away a position with a single spark. While the tank fills, I listen to the voice on the line, my hands working the machine by feel.
“There’s no living Reagan O’Connell that fits,” Delilah says. Her voice thins out, shredded by the mountain terrain, but the core of it lands like a lead weight. “The closest match died twelve years ago. Industrial accident. Pennsylvania.”
I run a gloved hand along the fuel line, checking for the brittle cracks that sub-zero temperatures love to carve. Cold is a silent saboteur—it thickens oil, starves batteries, and turns a minor oversight into a fatal mechanical heart attack.
“Background?” I ask, my breath blooming in a thick cloud.
“Army contractor,” she says. “Pre–9/11 transition work. Surveillance training. Target acquisition. Influence ops.”
I close my eyes for a second, letting the data points click into an internal map.
“So this ghost stepped into a dead man’s life,” I say. “He’s using the name as a skeleton key for access.”
“Probs,” she replies. “Adena would have known. Identity construction is her jam.”
I don’t answer. I don’t answer right away. I’m standing in a shed protecting a woman inside a borrowed cabin, and a threat that just graduated from theoretical to operational.
“Identity theft doesn’t grant you a specialized skill set,” I say flatly.
“Agreed,” Delilah agrees, her tone losing its usual bounce. “He didn’t learn how to vanish his digital footprint from a YouTube tutorial.”
I pull the choke and thumb the starter. The engine coughs, a violent metallic hack that echoes off the mountain, then settles into a low, thrumming growl. It smooths out as the internals warm, a mechanical heartbeat in the middle of the wasteland.
