Page 37 of What Remains

Outside, Jay shut the other SUV’s door and brushed snow off his jacket, nodding at Seth. “She’s safe. That’s what matters tonight.”

Seth let out a slow breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. But she’s going to need time.”

“We all do.”

They climbed into their beast. The interior was dark and cold, save for the faint glow of the dashboard. Seth leaned back in the passenger seat, the leather groaning under his weight as he exhaled. Jay turned the key, enough for the heater’s low hum to fill the silence.

Seth spoke, his voice low, “They gotta stay with us. No way we’re leaving them out here alone.”

Jay didn’t argue. “Wasn’t planning to.”

Back in the other SUV, Josie finally let her head drop to Cara’s shoulder, her voice small but steadying. “I don’t know how to repay any of this.”

Cara looked down at Layla’s tiny fingers curled into her mother’s jacket and gently shook her head. “You don’t. You simply stay alive. Both of you.”

The cold night pressed against the windows, and Josie slept. Outside, Jay and Seth kept watch through the dark hours, two silent figures against the gloom.

Josie woke with a start, heart pounding as if she’d been running. For a disorienting moment, she couldn’t place where she was—the ceiling a shadowed blur, cold glass pressing lightly against her shoulder. Then, memory snapped back, one brutal frame at a time.

The parking lot. The man. The gunshot. Cara holding her as she fell apart.

Layla.

She turned her head sharply. There, her daughter lay, curled on her side beneath the sleeping bag Cara had tucked around her, a small fist beneath her cheek, her hair a tangled golden mess against the blanket. She was completely unaware of the nightmare she’d slept through. Completely innocent.

A shaky breath escaped, and the tension that had locked her shoulders eased fractionally.

Thank God.

The sky outside remained mostly dark—blue-black with the faintest gradient of dawn threatening the horizon. Her muscles ached and her eyes burned. She’d slept but it wasn’t restful, every fragile doze broken by flashes of grabbing hands, her daughter screaming, that voice promising every imaginable horror before a single shot silenced it forever.

She pressed her palms into her eyes, forcing the tears back. She didn’t have the luxury of breaking down— not now—but last night had broken something in her the way nothing else had, not even the end of the world itself.

She glanced toward the other SUV through the foggy window, she could make out two silhouettes: Jay in the driver’s seat, and Seth reclined on watch with the rifle across his lap. He wasn’t sleeping. His posture was too rigid for that, his jaw too sharp against the faint dashboard glow.

He looked like someone whoed seen things, Josie thought.

She’d known soldiers like that. She could spot a military man even in the dark: the way he carried himself, the way he’d automatically positioned himself between danger and her and Layla. Everything about Seth spoke of training, discipline.

And something else, too. A stillness she recognized—a heaviness in the shoulders, like he was carrying gear he never set down.

What had he lost? Who had he lost? And why did she carry this overwelming gratitude toward him—a killer, yes, but the kind who killed to save?

Her hand drifted to Layla’s hair. Without him, they would have died out there. Or worse.

She swallowed hard, trying to ground herself. The soldier in her took over: assess the facts, steady her breathing, build a plan, then get moving. Get distance. Get to Denver. But the mother in her—the part that had lived through hell in the last twenty-four hours—could only circle back to one truth: she and Layla were alive this morning because of him.

She glanced back through the window. His face was turned toward the dark horizon, unreadable, eyes fixed on nothing and everything at once.

Cold, she had thought last night.

Now, in the quiet, she wasn’t so sure. Not cold. Just empty, by what she couldn’t say. And maybe protecting others had become the only thing keeping him going—a purpose to stand in place of whatever he’d lost.

She understood that better than she wanted to.

She reached for Layla again, pulling the sleeping bag higher and brushing a kiss across her forehead. The little girl sighed softly in her sleep.

The world lay in ruins. Danger found them everywhere they went. But against all odds—they were still breathing. Because of him, A man with a rifle and eyes that seemed full of too many ghosts.