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I grip the radio. “Okay. You’re doin’ good. Are you out of the water?”

“Yeah,” Jonah says, then hisses like he moved wrong. “Yeah, I’m out. I’m soaked, though, and it’s cold as shit. Sorry. Mom says I’m not supposed to say curse words over a radio.”

I almost laugh. He sounds so painfully like himself for one second that it nearly breaks me. “I’m not tellin’ your mom if you don’t. Can you see the split pine clearly?”

“Yeah. Big one with the lightnin’ scar, right? Creek bends left after it.”

“That’s the one.” My brain is already mapping the route, distance, access points, the fastest way in by truck before we cut on foot. “Any bleedin’?”

“I don’t think so. Just my ankle. It hurts bad, and I dropped my pack in the water like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” I say too quickly. The idea of him being out there after months of refusing to go near those woods does something to my throat. “Y’hear me? You did good callin’ in. Stay where you are. Don’t try to walk on it. We’re comin’.”

“Okay,” Jonah whispers. “I… I was tryin’, y’know? I thought maybe if I just went a little way, I coulda—”

“I know,” I say, and my voice drops because suddenly I am so proud of him I could almost fall apart right there in the station. “I know, kid. And I’m proud of you. We’ll be there soon.”

The radio crackles again, and then Sarah is already moving, grabbing the logbook while Parker reaches for the first-aid kit I dropped. Tom’s office door opens down the hall, his brows drawn low, his body shifting from old-ranger stiffness to command with a speed that reminds me why everyone still listens when he speaks.

“Location?” Tom asks.

“North Ridge lower creek crossing, split pine,” I say, grabbing my jacket from the chair. “Twisted ankle, wet, conscious, cold. I’m the closest familiar. Parker and I can take my truck up service road three and cut in.”

Tom nods once. “Go. Sarah, get Reyes looped in and keep the channel open. Lucas, you call if anythin’ changes.”

“Will do.”

The second I say it, the bond stirs—a hard pulse of alarm from somewhere deep in the forest, like he felt the shape of my fear before he knew its name. I shut it down as much as I can because if he feels North Ridge and Jonah and panic together, he’ll come tearing through the woods like judgment with antlers.

And after last night, I don’t know what that would do to us.

I hate that I have to think that.

Parker is already at my side with the first-aid kit and emergency blanket. He’s quieter than usual, face pale. I know it’s concern because Jonah is my nephew and Parker knows what that kid has been through. Sarah looks at me as I pass the front desk, and her expression has softened into something that almost undoes me.

“Bring him back,” she says.

I offer a nod. “I will.”

Outside, the air is too bright and too cold. The sky is a hard, washed-out blue, and the wind moves through the station lot with the faint smell of wet leaves and exhaust. Parker tosses the kit into the backseat while I climb behind the wheel. My hands shake once on the steering wheel before I force them to steady.

Parker gets in beside me and shuts the door. “You good to drive?”

“No,” I say, starting the truck. “But I’m drivin’.”

The tires spit gravel as I pull out too fast, the station falling behind us in a blur of weathered wood and Sarah standing in the doorway with the radio still in her hand. I take the county road fast, then the turnoff toward service road three, every bump in the old track jolting through the truck.

Parker braces one hand against the dash but doesn’t tell me to slow down. Usually, he’d make a joke about me driving like I’m auditioning for a low-budget action movie. Today he only looks out the windshield, jaw tight.

“He’ll be okay,” he says after a minute. “He called in. He knew the landmark. That’s good.”

I nod too sharply. “Yeah.”

“He’s smart.”

“I know he’s smart.”

Parker glances at me. “Luke.”