Ryker looked down at the silver cylinders in the case.

“The children need someone they trust in this cabin,” Ryker said.

“If they wake up and we are both gone, they will panic.”

“They have had enough terror for one lifetime.”

I looked at Lily’s small, sleeping hand.

Her fingers were slightly dirty from the airport floor, a detail we had not yet washed away.

He was right.

They needed to wake up to a familiar face and a warm kitchen.

“Alright,” I said. “But you take the satellite receiver with you.”

“I will,” Ryker said.

He closed the leather case with a firm snap.

The wind outside seemed to die down, leaving only the steady dripping of rain from the eaves.

The damp cold of the Pacific Northwest was seeping through the floorboards.

I walked to the wood stove and added another log of dry birch.

The fire crackled, casting orange sparks against the glass window of the stove.

We sat in silence for the next thirty minutes.

Ryker spent the time checking the action on his sidearm.