“Walter Boone died alone on this ridge because he confused possession with victory.”
I held his gaze. “And you’re here because he was right.”
That landed.
Voss looked past me at the hut, the roofline, the drifted clearing, calculating. “You can’t stay up here forever.”
“No,” I said. “Just longer than you.”
He laughed once, sharp and joyless. “We’ll see.”
He turned and drove away.
That night, I moved the last irreplaceable items into a steel locker below and kept one of Boone’s notebooks in my coat pocket while I slept, though I couldn’t have said why. Maybe because by then Walter Boone no longer felt like a dead stranger. He felt like the first person in a long time who had left me anything but a bill.
The fire started two nights later.
I woke to smoke and the ugly, hungry crackle no stove should ever make.
For one blind second I thought the pipe had failed. Then I saw orange light pulsing around the front door.
Someone had poured accelerant along the outer threshold and set it alight.
I was on my feet instantly, grabbing the shovel and the snow bucket I kept inside. Flames licked under the warped door and climbed the interior wood bracing I’d added to shore it up.
I threw snow. Then more. Steam blasted my face. The hut filled with smoke so thick my eyes streamed shut.
Another thought hit me harder than the fire.
The bunker.
If the hatch heated enough, everything below could turn into an oven.
