Page 116 of Run Wild Omega

“Where do we go from here?” she asks.

I hold her, my arms locked around her frame. Her breath is warm on my collarbone.

The morning light is strengthening through the windows, and somewhere outside, a truck engine turns over in the cold.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’m not letting go.”

She nestles closer. “Then don’t.”

I don’t.

Dylan

I’ve been staring at my phone for twenty minutes.

The group chat is dead. Not a single message since Miles’s last text about suspending the registration filing. No explanation. No follow-up. Just radio silence.

I tried calling Wyatt twice. Straight to voicemail. I texted Miles. Read, no reply. I even pinged Kyle at the station, and he just said Miles and Wyatt headed up North Ridge with Leo to survey the avalanche debris field and document the fracture line for the legal defense file. Something about establishing a timeline of the snowpack conditions for the negligence lawsuit.

Which is important. I get it. Leo needs the data, and Miles is the only one who can read the telemetry. Wyatt went because Wyatt goes everywhere Leo goes when it involves the trail, probably because Leo is the one being sued and Wyatt doesn’t trust anyone else to have his back.

But that doesn’t explain why the filing got pulled. We had a deadline. Eight o’clock this morning. Miles was crystal clear about it last night at the café. Emergency protective clause, twelve-hour window, all signatures required. I was supposed to be at the county clerk’s office by seven-thirty.

And then, at seven o’clock, a text from Miles:

Miles: Hold off on filing. Need to regroup. Will explain later.

I’m still staring at the phone when a knock comes at my cabin door. I open it and find Tess on the other side, balanced on her crutches, wearing a flannel shirt that isn’t hers and a pair of jeans that look like they’ve been slept in.

“Hey,” she says. “Ready?”

“Yeah. Let me grab my keys.”

I don’t ask about the shirt.

She’s quiet on the drive. Unusually quiet. Tess has never been a silent car ride person. She fiddles with the radio, hums along to whatever country station she lands on, asks questions about my shift, tells me about the café gossip. She fills spaces. That’s what she does.

Today, she sits in the passenger seat of my truck with her forehead against the window, watching the snow-dusted pines roll past without a word.

And she smells different.

The apple scent is still there, bright and crisp underneath everything, but layered over it is sagebrush and mountain rain. Miles. And beneath that, something woodier, deeper. Pine and smoke and leather.

Wyatt.

She smells like both of them.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I glance at her, and she’s picking at the hem of the flannel shirt, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on the passing scenery.

I don’t ask.

The hospital visit is straightforward. Dr. Patel goes over yesterday’s images one more time, confirms the bone is healing cleanly, and tells Tess she needs to start physical therapy next week. Twice a week for the first month, then a re-evaluation.

“You need to keep the muscle active,” Dr. Patel says, pulling up the scan on the monitor. “The tibia is responding well, but the atrophy in your calf is significant. If you don’t start PT soon, you’re looking at a longer recovery and possible gait issues.”

Tess nods. “When can I start?”

“Monday. I’ll send a referral to the rehab center in Glenwood Springs. In the meantime, you can begin gentle stretching at home. Dylan, you can help her with that, right? Basic range-of-motion exercises.”