Don't I Know You?

The road curved into a sun-baked gulch, lined on both sides by ragged hills that funneled the wind into a moaning whistle. Hep trudged ahead, the reins in one hand, a pistol in the other. Lily stayed a few paces behind, scanning the ridgelines, her boots dragging through loose gravel. The horse limped, still not recovered from the last sprint, its ribs visible beneath its coat.

They hadn’t seen a building in miles. Just brittle trees, old signage half-swallowed by sand, and silence. It felt like the Earth itself had exhaled a final breath and stopped trying.

Then the trap sprung.

Three figures emerged from behind a crumbling guardrail—two men and a teenage girl, each of them armed. They were thin, wired tight with hunger, and sunburned beneath hats and scarves. Their weapons weren’t steady. But they didn’t have to be.

“Drop it,” said the tallest one, a man with a broken nose and a rifle that shook in his hands.

Hep hesitated, lowering the reins slowly. He dropped the pistol, and it struck a rock with a dull clatter. Lily didn’t move.

The girl was already at the horse, her hands running along the saddlebag straps. “You got water?” she asked. “Food?”

“No,” Lily said.

“She’s lying,” the second man growled. “That bag’s too full to be empty.”

The rifle jerked upward, aimed right at Lily.

“I said drop it!”

And that’s when the horse bucked.

Startled by the rising tension, it reared onto its hind legs, whinnying loudly. The girl shrieked and stumbled backward into the taller man, who lost his footing and slipped off the edge of the cracked road, tumbling into a shallow ditch below. His rifle clattered down beside him.

The second man raised his shotgun—too fast, too erratic.

Lily reached for her knife.

But someone else moved first.

A flash of dark fabric dropped into the fray from the ridge above, silent as a shadow. The stranger hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet with inhuman grace, a long coat whipping around him like smoke.

In a single movement, he disarmed the shotgun-wielder, knocking him to the ground with the butt of the weapon. The girl tried to scream again, but the stranger was already behind her, disarming her before she could so much as blink.

By the time the tall man had clambered halfway out of the ditch, the fight was over.

The three attackers lay moaning in the dust. Alive—but barely.

The stranger stood tall in the sun, his entire body covered. A black scarf wrapped around his neck, tucked under a hood. Goggles shielded his eyes, and thick gloves covered his hands. No inch of skin was visible.

He looked at Lily.

Something about the way he stood.

The way he moved.

His voice when he finally spoke.

“You all right?” he asked.

It wasn’t gruff, or commanding. It was soft, careful. Familiar in a way that knocked the breath out of her.

“I…” She took a step forward. “Do I…?”

But the stranger had already turned away, moving toward the fallen shotgun. He tossed it into the brush and turned back.

“You should go,” he said. “Before they come to.”

Lily wanted to ask more. Wanted to pull that hood down and see his face. Wanted to know why her chest felt tight and her legs wouldn’t move.

But Hep had grabbed the reins again, already tugging the horse back onto the road. “Come on,” he said, not taking his eyes off the man. “Let’s not wait for a second act.”

She hesitated.

The stranger gave the faintest nod. Almost like goodbye.

Then she turned and followed Hep.

They didn’t speak again until the road had taken them over the next ridge. When they did, it was Hep who broke the silence.

“You know him?” he asked.

Lily didn’t answer.

She just looked back, but the stranger was gone, swallowed by the dust.

They made camp in the lee of a half-collapsed train bridge, tucked between rusted steel beams and slabs of fractured concrete. The horse grazed quietly on brittle weeds that clawed their way through the gravel, and Hep started a fire small enough to cook by but low enough not to draw eyes.

Lily sat with her back to the stone, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them. The wind moved through the canyon like a whisper, tugging at the strands of her red hair as she stared at nothing.

But in her head, the scene replayed.

Slowly.

Every movement. Every breath.

The way the stranger dropped from the ridge—fluid and deliberate, like someone who’d done it before. He hadn’t stumbled. He hadn’t looked for his footing. He had known how to fall.

That meant training. Experience. A confidence that bordered on the unnatural.

She pictured the stranger’s gloved hands—strong and precise, never lingering, never unsure. When he’d disarmed the girl, it was with a swift twist of the wrist, and not once had he hurt her. He could’ve. But he didn’t.

Then came the voice.

“You all right?”

Two simple words, spoken with care. Not caution. Not fear. Care.

And something about that voice echoed inside her like a memory she couldn’t quite place. There was something in the softness at the end of the sentence. The subtle way the “you” had drawn out, just slightly. Like he wasn’t asking about now—he was asking about everything.

Lily rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. Her heart beat louder than the crackling fire.

She thought of the nights in the old farm house, of the way they had spoken when he was tired, when he didn’t have to be anything to anyone except himself. That slow, quiet cadence. That edge of weariness under something warm.

It was the same voice.

She was almost sure of it.

“Hey,” Hep said, handing her a battered tin cup of warm water. “You keep starin’ like that, and your eyes are gonna dry out.”

She took the cup. Her hands trembled slightly. “I know that man,” she murmured.

Hep raised an eyebrow.

“I think…” She hesitated, afraid to say it aloud. As if naming the impossible might scare it away.

But she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“I think it might’ve been Marcus.”

Part 20 of a series