A First Look
Chapter One — Dove Gray
Roads Home • Book 1 • The Last Safe County
“Dove gray.”
That was the color of the sky. She couldn’t remember when she’d set out that morning — it had been inky black then. By what felt like late afternoon, the vast space beyond the distant Cascade range had softened into something she hadn’t named at first.
It wasn’t metal gray. Not like the hilt of the rifle hidden beneath her parka.
It wasn’t the horrid brown-gray of the smolder she had passed through Stevensville.
It was dove gray.
Delicate wings fluttering in a memory of wind, their tips faintly iridescent. Like something close to magic.
Her shoulders softened. Her pace slowed without her deciding it would.
Her parents had called her dove — a term of endearment spoken with quiet reassurance when she was small. My dove, if you do it this way. She could almost feel her mother’s fingers working patiently through her blond hair, braiding it into neat loops, threading a soft blue velvet ribbon through the waves.
It was a relief her mother wasn’t here. Wasn’t suffering through the damp, incessant rain. And her father….
Mabel stopped in the middle of the muddy road.
“One, two, three, four,” she whispered, drawing in a long, measured breath. She held it. Released it just as slowly, counting the rhythm the way she always did. The urge to close her eyes pulled at her, but she resisted.
Careless was not the reason she’d survived.
She began the cycle again, her gaze fixed on the narrow passage cutting through the Cascade range ahead. The pass was still two miles out. She’d make the top before dark if the rain held.
Then she heard it.
A sound that did not belong to the rain or the wind.
A whimper.
Her breath stalled.
Far down the road, barely visible through the drifting mist, a dog stood motionless.
Waiting.
For her.
Mabel did not move.
The animal stood several yards ahead, its coat darkened by rain, body rigid, as if carved from the mist itself. It neither barked nor approached. It simply watched her. And waited.
Something lay in the road beside it.
From this distance the shape was indistinct — a darker interruption against the mud and washed-out gravel. Too still. Too deliberate. Rain gathered along its edges without disturbing it.
Not debris. Not a fallen branch.
She took a cautious step forward.
The dog shifted instantly, placing itself between her and the object, a low, uncertain sound vibrating from its throat. Not aggression. Not quite fear.
Warning.
Mabel stopped.
The wind moved across the valley in a long, hollow breath, rippling dark fabric — and carrying with it, beneath the smell of rain and pine and wet stone, something metallic and deeply wrong.
Her stomach tightened.
She took another step. The shape sharpened.
The dog shifted again, uneasy now, paws pressing into the mud as it adjusted its stance. Something tugged at its movement — a resistance that did not belong to flesh or bone.
Mabel frowned.
Then she saw them. Strings. Dozens of thin, rain-darkened lines trailing from the animal’s harness, stretching outward before collapsing into a tangled mass of fabric sprawled across the road.
Parachute silk.
The canopy lay pressed into the mud like a collapsed wing.
The dog moved. The lines tightened. Fabric dragged. And slowly — almost reluctantly — the shroud peeled back.
A boot emerged from beneath the folds. Half-buried in the mud.
Mabel did not yet allow her eyes to travel higher. Instead her body reacted first — shoulders stiffening, breathing shallowing, every muscle drawing tight with a familiar, unwelcome clarity.
Troops did not fall alone.
Her gaze snapped outward, sweeping the tree line in a sharp, practiced arc. Dark pines stood motionless beneath the dove-gray sky, their rain-heavy branches sagging under the weight of water and silence. Too still.
She turned slowly, scanning the opposite ridge. Mist clung low against the slopes, drifting in pale ribbons that obscured distance and distorted shape. Perfect cover. Perfect concealment.
Wind. Rain. Nothing else.
But absence meant nothing.
She listened harder. Beyond the dull hiss of rainfall the world held its breath — no engines, no voices, no metallic rhythm of movement. Yet the quiet felt fragile, as though something had only just passed through it. Or was waiting within it.
The dog whined softly.
Mabel’s eyes returned to the road. Only then did she let her gaze rise.
Fabric clung to the figure’s frame, rain-darkened and heavy, the folds no longer concealing what lay beneath. Not the broad mass of a soldier. Not the rigid geometry of equipment.
Something smaller. A narrow shoulder. A slight torso.
The still form of a boy lay half-veiled beneath the parachute silk, limbs arranged in the careless disarray of impact. Pale fingers rested against the mud, unmoving, as though sleep had taken him mid-motion. Light brown hair matted dark against his scalp.
For a moment her mind refused the shape.
The dog whined again — a soft, broken sound. Mabel stared. No movement. No breath visible at this distance. No sign of life.
She took a cautious step forward. The dog reacted instantly. A low, guttural snarl cut through the rain as it bared its teeth, body rigid. When Mabel extended her hand, it snapped — a quick, desperate strike that grazed her glove.
She recoiled.
Of course. Fear. Pain. Loyalty. Instinct.
“I don’t need a dog,” she murmured, more to herself than the animal. She would have to share her meager rations with a dog.
And the dog did not need her. It would not leave him. It would only cause her trouble. She had a task. She had a pass to clear before dark, a valley to reach, a council waiting on proof of one thing and nothing else.
Mabel hesitated only a moment before stepping carefully around the scene, boots sinking softly into the mud as she continued down the empty road.
The dog’s whimper followed her. She ignored it.
Then came the sound of dragging fabric.
Mabel stopped.
Slowly, she turned.
Behind her, the animal strained forward, parachute lines pulled taut as it tried to follow. The silk resisted, clinging stubbornly to the mud — until the tension overcame it. Fabric shifted. Lines tightened. And with a sickening, unnatural lurch, the boy’s body jerked across the road, dragged several inches through the wet earth.
Mabel’s stomach turned violently. The dog persisted. Another step. Another horrible pull of motionless limbs against the ground.
“Damn it—” She spun back.
The nausea rose hard and fast — a hot, dizzying wave that tightened her throat and hollowed her stomach. The smell of wet earth and damp fabric and that metallic tinge underneath it all. Mabel swallowed.
Not now.
Experience had taught her a simple rule: sometimes the body’s protests were irrelevant. The task existed. Therefore it had to be done.
She moved. Quick, controlled strides back toward the struggling animal. Even as she advanced her eyes continued their restless work — tree line, ridge, the shifting curtains of mist along the valley’s edges. Nothing. Which meant nothing.
Her right hand slipped beneath her parka, fingers closing around the grip of her knife. The blade caught the flat gray light as she drew it free.
The dog saw her coming. It backed away instantly, panic in its movement, paws skidding in the mud as the parachute lines pulled taut behind it. A sharp, desperate growl vibrated in its chest.
Fear, not aggression. Good.
Mabel closed the distance in two swift steps. Her gloved hand shot forward and seized the loose fold of the animal’s collar at the back of its neck. It jerked violently in surprise, but the angle of her grip robbed it of leverage.
“Shhh,” she breathed. “I’m setting you free.”
The animal trembled beneath her hold, muscles rigid, breath rapid and uneven. She did not hesitate. The knife moved in short, efficient strokes, slicing through the rain-darkened lines binding the harness to the collapsed canopy. Tension snapped and released with each cut, silk dragging weakly across the mud.
The smell hit her harder now. Wet fabric. Cold air. Blood. And beneath it — the unmistakable scent of death. Not fresh death. Old death. The kind that had already done its work elsewhere before the wind carried it here.
The boy’s hand caught her eye. The pinky finger twisted sideways, rigid and wrong. The final line fell slack.
The dog staggered backward, free, body low and uncertain, eyes wide with confusion. Mabel released her grip but did not step away. She made herself look.
Rain traced thin paths across the boy’s face, washing streaks of mud along skin far too smooth, far too young. Light brown hair stiff where blood had dried and oxidized at the scalp. Not fresh. Not flowing.
Old impact. Hard landing.
He couldn’t have been more than eight. Perhaps ten. Small. Light-boned.
Mabel’s jaw tightened. Parachuting with a dog was reckless enough. Parachuting a child bordered on madness. The animal could panic. Tangle the lines. Break the descent. Break everything.
Who the hell had been responsible for this?
Her eyes tracked the body with cold, detached efficiency. No visible movement. No defensive posture. No tension. She leaned closer. Watching. Measuring. Searching for the signatures she knew too well.
Then she saw it. So slight she nearly dismissed it.
A faint rise beneath the soaked fabric at his ribs.
Mabel froze.
Another. Shallow. Uneven. But unmistakable.
Breath.
She stared at the boy. Then at the dog.
The dog’s snarl was gone. Its mouth hung open, rain collecting along the curve of its tongue, breath fogging softly in the cold air between them. It watched her with an expression that was not animal. It was something older and more specific than that.
It was waiting to see what she would decide.
Mabel’s head dipped slightly. Her eyes closed for the briefest moment.
“Oh, come on.”
