Chapter 23

Hold Down The Fort.

Conner

The feed blinked to life in front of me. Two angles. One wide and distant, one intimate and telling. The first showed black trees swallowing the frame, the faint silhouette of her cabin just visible, isolated, shielded, defensible. Smart. The second was where my eyes landed and stayed. She was lying down, back turned to the camera at first, curled slightly toward the couch cushions like maybe she could pretend this was comfortable. But that thing was ancient, mustard green and sagging in the middle like it gave up supporting people sometime in the 90s. She shifted after a few minutes, restless, flipping over with a quiet huff like she was trying to find a better position. It looked impossible. That couch wasn’t made for sleeping, not really. It was the kind of thing you sat on during stakeouts or bad news. Temporary. Just like everything else around her. In the background, I spotted a small kitchen, barebones. No warmth. No homey clutter. Just the cold functionality of survival. A chipped kettle sat beside a few empty cups of noodles stacked beside the sink like a record of her meals this week. No plates. No signs of someone who intended to stay long. This wasn’t a home. It was a bunker. A war room. She adjusted again, legs pulled in closet, hoodie bunched at the neckline. Her fingers fidgeted with the sleeve, rubbing circles into the fabric, a quiet tell. She was trying to self- soothe. Stay grounded. And when her gaze flicked once, just once, toward the camera… I knew she remembered I was watching. She didn’t settle. Not just on the couch, but in life. There was no exhale in her body. No real rest. Like she was always one sound away from drawing a weapon and yet, she let me see this. Let me in. That mattered more than anything she’d said to me out loud. I leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes on the screen. She wasn’t the Ghost in this moment. She was just a woman, tired, alone, and still standing despite everything. Still watching. Still fighting.

“Sleep, Ghost,” I murmured into the comms, not even sure she was listening, but saying it anyway. “I’ve got you.”

I think she believed it. I hope she believed it.

Sage

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