Chapter 5: Landing in the Crosshairs
The wind bit through Kaelen’s jacket as he descended, the powerful downstroke of his wings kicking up a spray of brown slush and pine needles. He landed with a soft, practiced crunch in the muddy clearing, his boots sinking an inch into the muck. The soreness in his wing was a persistent, hot whisper, but it held. He folded the black membranes tight against his back, the motion stiff but complete.
The yard felt off. The usual roar of idling trucks and shouted morning greetings was muted, replaced by a low hum of machinery and scattered, watchful silence. A few guys by the equipment shed glanced over, their eyes lingering a second too long before turning away. The story had spread, just like Pete said.
Pete’s trailer door swung open with a metallic squeal. The foreman emerged, a steel travel mug in hand, his breath fogging in the cold air. He gave Kaelen a once-over, his gaze lingering on the tightly-folded wings. “Thorson. You’re early.”
“Wanted to beat the chatter,” Kaelen said, his voice low.
“Smart.” Pete took a sip, nodding toward the tree line. “Got a paired job. Western buffer zone, lot 14. Selective thinning. You’re with Jax.”
Jax. That was okay. Jax was quiet, mid-forties, with forearms like knotted rope and a perpetual streak of grease on his temple. He’d never been overly friendly, but he’d never been unfriendly either. He worked hard and kept his opinions to himself. It was probably the best assignment Pete could have given him.
“Okay,” Kaelen said.
Pete stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Camera?”
Kaelen gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. The tiny lens was clipped inside the collar of his flannel shirt, a black pebble against the red plaid. Liam had synced it to his system before dawn, a window to this world now sitting on his desk at home. The thought was equal parts comforting and unnerving.
“Good. Keep your head down, work hard. Jax won’t give you shit.” Pete’s eyes scanned the yard again, hardening. “Anyone else does, you tell me. Immediately. Not a debate.”
“Understood.”
Pete clapped him on the shoulder, the gesture public and deliberate. “Grab your gear. Jax is fueling the skidder. Meet him at the west gate.”
The walk across the clearing felt longer than it was. Kaelen kept his shoulders square, his tail relaxed but aware, a subtle counterbalance to his stride. He felt the weight of stares like a physical pressure. He caught a snippet of conversation as he passed two men uncoiling a cable.
“…flying in today, at least.”
“Wouldn’t want to be his partner right now.”
A gruff laugh. “Bet Howard’s chewing nails.”
Kaelen didn’t react. He just walked, the mud sucking at his boots. He collected his chainsaw and hard hat from his locker in the silent, tin-sided shed. The familiar weight of the saw in his hand was a grounding thing. This, he knew. This was simple.
Jax was waiting by the heavy steel gate, already perched in the seat of the small, treaded skidder. The machine smelled of diesel and heated metal. He gave Kaelen a nod, no smile, no frown. “Thorson. Heard you were back. Wing good?”
“It’ll do,” Kaelen said, swinging his saw into the holding rack on the machine’s side.
“Good. We’re marking for thinning. You cut. I’ll skid. Simple.” Jax’s voice was flat, all business. He put the machine in gear, and it growled to life, vibrating through the frozen ground.
They moved into the forest, the noise of the yard fading behind them, swallowed by the dense, damp quiet of the woods. The air changed, cleaner, sharp with the scent of sap and decaying leaves. For the first time since landing, Kaelen felt his breath come a little easier. Here, it was just the trees, the job, and a coworker who preferred silence.
The work was methodical, rhythmic. Jax would point to a scrawny pine or a leaning birch marked with a blue paint dot. Kaelen would move in, his chainsaw roaring to life, biting through the wood in a plume of sawdust and the rich, sweet smell of fresh-cut timber. The physical exertion was a relief. It burned away the static of anxiety, replacing it with the pure, animal focus of muscle and task. His wing twinged with certain movements, a sharp reminder, but he adapted.
He forgot about the camera. He almost forgot about Howard.
During a break, leaning against a felled spruce, Jax offered him a thermos of black coffee. “Pete says you’re okay,” he said, not looking at Kaelen, his eyes on the canopy. “Says Howard’s full of it.”
Kaelen accepted the thermos. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I just work here.” Jax took the thermos back. “But causing trouble for a man doing his job? That’s poor form.” It was the closest thing to solidarity he was going to offer, and coming from Jax, it meant something.
They worked through the morning. The rhythm felt good, restorative. The camera was forgotten.
It happened just before lunch.
Jax had skidded a bundle of logs to a small landing area near a steep, rain-cut gully. Kaelen was walking the perimeter, looking for the next marked tree. He heard the skidder’s engine rev, a higher, straining pitch. He turned.
The machine was tilted, its left tread spinning uselessly in the air. The ground at the edge of the landing, hidden under a layer of moss and old needles, had given way. The skidder was sliding, slowly but inexorably, toward the gully.
Jax was fighting the controls, his face tight. The machine lurched.
Kaelen moved before he thought. He dropped his saw and ran, his boots skidding on the wet ground. His wings snapped open, a reflexive burst of motion. The sore one protested with a fiery tear, but he ignored it. He reached the tilting skidder as its rear end started to tip into empty space.
He didn’t try to lift it. That was impossible. Instead, he planted his feet, grabbed the lifted corner of the machine’s steel frame with both hands, and pushed. His wings beat hard, not for lift but for anchor, straining against the air for purchase. His tail lashed, coiling around the base of a solid cedar for leverage.
Muscle and tendon screamed. The world narrowed to the grating shriek of metal, the roar of the trapped engine, the sickening slide of earth.
“Get out!” he roared at Jax.
Jax scrambled, kicking open the door and throwing himself clear onto solid ground just as Kaelen, with a final, gut-deep heave, shoved the skidder’s center of mass back over the crumbling edge.
The machine slammed down, upright, its treads biting into firm soil. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by Kaelen’s ragged gasps and the distant cry of a jay.
He released the frame, his hands trembling. He folded his wings, the left one shuddering as he forced it closed. A hot, sharp pain was radiating from the healing wound.
Jax got to his feet, pale, his hands on his knees. He stared at the skidder, then at Kaelen, his eyes wide. “Holy hell.”
Kaelen just nodded, sucking in air. The adrenaline was a tsunami, now receding, leaving his legs weak.
Jax walked over, his gaze tracing the path of the slide, the hidden soft spot. He knelt, brushing away the moss and needles. His fingers found something. He held it up.
A buried, rotting log, disguised by forest litter. It had collapsed under the skidder’s weight. It could have been natural. It looked natural.
But the landing area had been inspected and flagged as solid last week. Everyone knew that.
Jax looked from the rotten wood to Kaelen’s face, his earlier neutrality gone, replaced by a dawning, cold understanding. “This spot was clear,” he said quietly.
The implication hung in the damp air, heavier than the sawdust. An accident. A very convenient, very dangerous accident on Kaelen’s first day back, in a paired operation.
Kaelen’s hand went instinctively to his collar, to the tiny, hard lump of the camera. Had it seen? Had Liam, safe at home, watching his brother’s first-person view of the trees, seen the ground give way?
The forest, a moment ago a sanctuary, now felt like a closing web. The workday wasn’t over. They still had hours left, and the long, careful walk back to the yard ahead of them.
Jax stood, brushing dirt from his knees. He met Kaelen’s eyes and gave a slow, deliberate nod. It was no longer just about doing a job. The lines had been drawn, right there in the mud.
“Let’s get this machine secured,” Jax said, his voice gravelly. “And then we finish the fucking plot.”
He didn’t say ‘we should report this.’ He didn’t say ‘someone messed with the site.’ He didn’t have to. The look they shared said it all. It was them against the gully now, and whatever—or whoever—had helped dig it.
The rest of the plot was finished in a teeth-gritted silence. Every rustle in the underbrush felt intentional. Each creak of a distant tree was a warning. Jax operated the skidder with a new, grim precision, avoiding any soft-looking ground. Kaelen cut and trimmed, his senses stretched thin, his wing a burning knot of protest. The camera against his collar felt like a third eye, a tether to sanity.
They didn’t speak about the gully again. They didn’t need to. The shared understanding was in the way Jax double-checked every choke chain, in the way Kaelen’s tail never fully relaxed, its tip always subtly probing the ground behind him. The work was a grim ballet of mutual vigilance.
“That’s the last of them,” Jax finally said, securing the final log on the grapple. His voice was hoarse from the cold and the tension.
Kaelen just nodded, wiping sweat and sawdust from his brow with the back of a glove. The light was leaching from the sky, painting the woods in deep blues and long, stealing shadows. The walk back to the yard felt longer, the forest no longer a retreat but a tunnel they needed to escape.
When they rumbled back through the west gate, the yard was mostly empty. The day shift was done. A few lights were on in the office trailer, a yellowish glow against the deepening twilight. Pete was standing outside, arms crossed, waiting. He’d been waiting a while.
Jax killed the skidder’s engine. The sudden quiet was a shock. He climbed down, his boots hitting the mud with a thick slap. He looked from Kaelen to Pete and jerked his head toward the trailer. “We need to talk.”
Pete’s expression tightened. He held the door open.
Inside, the trailer was overheated, smelling of stale coffee and wet wool. Pete leaned against his cluttered desk. “Well?”
Jax spoke first, blunt and unvarnished. “Landing zone at the north end of 14 gave way. Skidder nearly went into the gully. Would’ve been a mess.” He paused, his jaw working. “Ground was tagged solid. It wasn’t. There was rotten wood buried under the duff. Could’ve been natural.”
Kaelen removed his hard hat, running a hand through his damp hair. The heat in the cramped space made the pain in his wing throb in time with his heartbeat. “It wasn’t natural.”
He didn’t raise his voice. The flat certainty of the statement hung there.
Pete’s eyes flicked to Kaelen’s wing, noting the careful, stiff way he held it. “You reinjure it?”
“It held.” Kaelen’s violet eyes were hard in the trailer’s fluorescent glow. “Jax got clear. I braced it.”
“He didn’t just brace it,” Jax cut in, giving Kaelen a look that was almost respectful. “Shoved the damn thing back from the edge. Would’ve been a write-off. Or worse.” He turned back to Pete, his voice dropping. “Someone knew that was a weak spot. Someone knew we’d be working there today, hauling weight to that landing.”
Pete pushed off the desk, his easy-going facade completely gone, replaced by the stern foreman. “You’re saying sabotage.”
“I’m saying it’s fucking convenient,” Jax replied.
A heavy silence filled the trailer, broken only by the hum of the space heater. Pete looked at Kaelen. “The camera.”
Kaelen unclipped the tiny device from his collar. It was warm from his skin. He placed it on the desk beside a spilled pile of paperclips. “It was on. The whole time.”
Pete picked it up, turning the small black lens over in his calloused fingers. It looked insignificant. It felt like a brick. “Your brother has the feed.”
“Yeah.”
“He would have seen it happen. In real time.” Pete’s voice was quiet. He was picturing it—Liam, four inches tall, watching his brother’s point-of-view tilt toward a ravine. The thought made something dangerous flash behind his eyes.
“He saw,” Kaelen confirmed, his own stomach clenching at the imagined panic on Liam’s face, miles away in their safe, modified home.
Pete set the camera down with deliberate softness. “Okay. Here’s what we do. Jax, you write up the incident report. Standard near-miss. Stick to the facts: ground failure, rotten substrate. Don’t speculate. Not on paper.”
Jax nodded once. “Got it.”
Pete turned to Kaelen. “You. Go home. Ice that wing. Let your brother check the footage, save it, back it up to a cloud he controls. Not the company server. Somewhere private.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This stays between us three. For now. We have a record. That’s our advantage.”
“And Howard?” Kaelen asked, the name like acid on his tongue.
“Suspended. Officially, he wasn’t here.” Pete’s gaze was flinty. “But his buddies were. And they’re pissed he’s gone. This has their stink on it. The coward’s way. An ‘accident.’”
The word was a grenade in the tiny room. They all let it lie there, unexploded but live.
Jax stood, pulling his jacket on. “I’ll write that report now.” He paused at the door, looking back at Kaelen. “You pushed a ten-ton machine today, Thorson. Thanks.”
He left, the door banging shut behind him, leaving Kaelen alone with Pete.
Pete sank into his chair, the weariness suddenly evident. “You okay?”
“My wing hurts. I’m angry.” Kaelen’s tail tip twitched, a sharp, frustrated motion. “He scared Liam. That’s the line.”
“I know.” Pete looked at the camera again. “That footage is leverage. It’s proof of a pattern. But we use it smart. We go public with it now, it’s a war. And wars get messy. People get hurt.”
Kaelen understood. He gathered his things, the weight of the day settling into his bones. The sanctuary of home, of Liam’s sure hands checking his wing, of the throat pouch’s dark peace, called to him like a physical force.
“Go,” Pete said, his voice gentler. “Report’s filed. You’re done. Let me handle the yard gossip.”
Kaelen stepped out into the cold, darkening evening. The yard was truly empty now, just pools of light from security lamps on barren mud. He unfolded his wings, the left one screaming in agony as he stretched it. He ignored it, focusing on the deep beat that lifted him into the indigo sky, the lights of the trailer and the dangerous earth falling away below.
He flew toward the distant, warm pinpoint of home, a silent shape against the first stars, the memory of the skidder’s scream and the feel of rotting wood under moss carried with him in the chill air.
The flight was a blunt exercise in pain management. Each downward thrust grated the torn muscles in his wing, a hot, sickening pull that made his vision pulse at the edges. He focused on the rhythm of his breathing, on the single, yellow square of their kitchen window growing larger in the distance. The stars were cold, indifferent pinpricks above.
He landed in the soft dirt of the front clearing harder than intended, his left wing buckling as he touched down. He hissed, stumbling forward a few steps before catching himself on the rough bark of the porch post. The cabin was dark except for that one window. Silent.
He pushed the door open, the hinges giving their familiar soft whine. Warm, still air washed over him, carrying the scents of their home—old wood, the faintest trace of Liam’s citrus-scented cleaning spray, the underlying peat from the fireplace. He didn’t bother with the lights. He just needed to stop moving.
Kaelen is sitting on the front step, just inside the front door, as he unlaced his boots. He’s barely got them off before Liam’s tiny weight is climbing up his back.
Kaelen sighs, ‘I’m sorry. The wound reopened a bit.’ His voice tired and weak.
His brother reaches his shoulder and immediately plasters his face into the side of Kaelen’s neck. ‘Right at this moment, that’s the least of my concerns.’ His voice was rough and choked, obviously having been crying.
Liam didn’t let go. His tiny hands gripped the collar of Kaelen’s flannel, his whole body trembling. The vibration went straight into Kaelen’s neck, a silent earthquake of fear finally released.
“I saw it tip,” Liam whispered, the words muffled against skin. “I saw the ground disappear.”
Kaelen’s own throat closed. He brought a hand up, his finger carefully stroking the length of Liam’s back. “I’m here. I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay.” Liam pulled back, his amber eyes glistening in the dim light from the kitchen. They scanned the tense line of Kaelen’s shoulder, the unnatural fold of the left wing. “You’re hurt. Again.”
“It’s just strained. A pull.” Even as he said it, the ache radiated down his spine.
“It’s because you pushed a machine that weighs more than this house.” Liam’s voice cracked. He swiped at his eyes with a fist, anger battling the relief. “I have the footage. It’s… it’s really clear, Kae. How it happened.”
Kaelen closed his eyes for a second, absorbing that. The proof was in their home now, a digital ghost of the gully waiting on Liam’s screen. He nodded, too tired for more words, and carefully rose, Liam holding tight to his shirt. He toed off his filthy boots, leaving them by the door.
The walk to the bedroom was slow, every step emphasizing the deep, throbbing fatigue in his wing and the sharper, fresher pain from the afternoon’s rescue. The familiar walls, the tartan blankets, they usually felt like armor. Tonight they just felt like a very thin shell.
He sat on the edge of the wide bed, the old frame groaning. With infinite care, he peeled Liam from his shoulder, his fingers a cradle. He bent down and placed him gently onto the center of his own pillow, the white cotton a stark contrast to Liam’s brown hair and worn jeans.
“Gotta get the dirt off,” Kaelen murmured, his voice gravelly.
He stood, each movement deliberate. He shrugged out of the heavy flannel, wincing as the fabric caught on a sensitive part of his wing. The t-shirt underneath followed, damp with sweat and pine-scented from the forest. The cold air of the room raised goosebumps on his skin.
Liam watched from the pillow, his knees drawn up to his chest. He didn’t look away, his programmer’s mind probably already analyzing the subtle hitch in Kaelen’s breathing, the guarded way he held his left side.
Finally in just his boxers, Kaelen turned off the lamp, plunging the room into a deep, velvety darkness. He carefully slid under the heavy wool blankets, the chill of the sheets a shock that quickly yielded to his own warmth. He shifted onto his right side, his body a crescent moon around the pillow where Liam sat.
He curled one arm around the pillow, his large hand creating a protective wall behind his brother. His breath stirred the air between them, a steady, calming rhythm he forced himself to maintain.
“The camera worked perfectly,” Liam said into the dark. His voice was small but clear. “It got everything. The whole… slide.”
Kaelen let out a long, slow breath. “Pete knows. Jax knows it wasn’t right.”
“But it’s not proof of who. Just proof of what.” Liam was quiet for a moment. Kaelen could hear the faint click of his teeth worrying his lip, a habit from childhood. “What if he tries something at the house?”
The question hung there, the fear they usually kept locked away now spoken aloud. It echoed the violation of Howard’s first visit, but darker, more dangerous.
“He won’t,” Kaelen said, the words feeling inadequate. He shifted, trying to find a position where his wing didn’t scream. “The suspension, the attention… it’s too risky for him now.”
“You don’t know that.” Liam’s whisper was sharp with frustration. “He’s already risking everything. He tried to bury you in a ravine and make it look like an accident.”
Silence settled between them, thick and heavy. The truth of it was a third presence in the bed.
Then Liam moved. He scooted to the edge of the pillow, right up against the curve of Kaelen’s jaw. He lay down, pressing his back against the warm skin. Kaelen felt the minute weight, the faint pressure of a tiny hand resting against his cheekbone.
“I saved the footage three different places,” Liam said, his tone shifting into something quieter, more resolved. “One he’ll never find.”
“My smart guy,” Kaelen murmured, the vibration of his voice humming through Liam’s small form.
“Don’t ‘smart guy’ me. I was scared.” Liam’s admission was a raw thing in the dark. “I just sat there, watching your view shake and tip, and I couldn’t do anything.”
“You did do something.” Kaelen turned his head just enough to rest his lower lip gently against the top of Liam’s head. “You were my eyes. You’re my proof. That’s everything.”
They lay like that for a long time, breathing syncing in the shared dark. The purr started deep in Kaelen’s chest, unbidden, a rough, healing sound that filled the space between them. It wasn’t the calm rumble of peace. It was the sound of a storm being held at bay, a engine of comfort forcing itself to turn over.
Eventually, Liam’s breathing evened out into sleep, his tiny form going slack. Kaelen stayed awake. He stared at the deeper black of the bedroom wall, feeling the pull of his wounded wing, listening to the settling sounds of the old cabin.
Every creak was a footstep. Every rustle of wind in the pines was someone in the clearing. The sanctuary felt porous. He tightened his arm around the pillow, feeling the slow, steady rise and fall of Liam’s ribs against his face.
He had pushed a ten-ton machine today. But the weight of what was coming, of protecting this single, precious life curled against him, felt infinitely heavier. The purr stuttered, then deepened, a vow made of sound into the silent dark.