Burn Season novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Second Phone

Walker's POV

The camp radios had to go back to the loft by Wednesday, and I was the only one with a truck and nothing to jump out of.

Rory had said one thing before I left the mountain.

"Don't let her see that we know. Not until I can prove it."

I had said okay.

She had looked at me for a moment, and I knew that word was not enough.

The loft smelled of canvas and machine oil.

Kasey stood alone at the long packing table with a drogue chute spread in front of her, humming.

She looked up and smiled, glad to see me.

"Walker. You're limping worse. Sit."

"I'm fine."

"You're gray. I'll get you coffee."

She poured it before I could answer and put the cup in my hand, and her fingers stayed on my wrist a second too long.

I stood still and let them.

I had stood in this room on the twentieth of August, with that letter open in my hand, and thanked her.

I looked at her fingers, because I could not look at her face.

"You haven't slept," she said. "She isn't worth that."

"Don't."

"I'm only saying it because I care about you. Walker, she's been planning to walk out for weeks. I just said out loud what everyone was thinking."

I drank some coffee.

It was good coffee.

She had always known how I took it, and for a month I had been grateful for that.

"I'm the one who told you," she said. "I did you a kindness. You'd still be walking around with your head in the dark."

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