The silence after the man's recognition sat on Ethan's chest like a hand.
Hale — he'd given the name in a rush, Captain Hale — lowered his weapon the rest of the way, and the woman, Sergeant Nia Carrow, stepped back from the fire with her eyes still sharp on Ethan's face. Nobody moved for a long moment. The snow hissed faintly against the flames.
Ethan's earpiece crackled — the tiny Firefly comm he'd pocketed at the crypt, tested once, kept ever since. "They making a move?" Joel's voice, low.
"Not yet," Ethan murmured. "They know my name."
He turned back to the pair. "Tell me what happened to them. Why they vanished. Why they left me."
Hale glanced at Carrow, then gestured toward the station. "Inside. Snow's picking up, and there's too many eyes out here."
Ethan hesitated — every instinct screamed at him to stay in the open — but this was the first real lead he'd ever had. "I have people," he said. "They stay outside."
"Fair," Carrow said.
The station's interior was warmer than it had any right to be. A crude stove ticked in the corner. Hand-marked maps papered the walls, routes drawn and redrawn. A pair of silent radio units squatted on a desk. Ammo crates had been turned into furniture, and on one shelf a half-burned Firefly flag lay folded with something like care.
"They told me Task Force Nightingale was gone," Ethan said, settling onto a crate. "Disbanded after the Houston collapse."
"Officially," Hale said. "The unit fractured. Most of us went underground or disappeared. But not everyone quit."
"And my parents?"
Carrow leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "They were working something off-books. Classified even from Firefly intel." She paused. "David believed there was a genetic component to immunity. Something inheritable. He thought you might be the key."
Ethan's throat closed. The stove's ticking filled the room.
"So they left me," he said.
"They were taken," Hale said. "A splinter group out of what used to be Firefly command. We tried to get them out. We failed."
Ethan stared at the flame behind the stove's grate. "You're saying they're alive."
"We don't know," Carrow said. "But there's chatter. A facility west of Jackson — a place called Greyreach. Blacksite secrecy. That's where they took the others."
"Greyreach." The word sat strange in his mouth.
"Ghost site," Hale said. "Started before the fall, kept running in secret. Biotech, genetics. Some say it's where the vaccine research never stopped."
The earpiece crackled again. "Ethan, you good?"
"I'm fine. They're not enemies." Ethan looked at Hale. "What is it to you?"
"A mission. The last one. We lost people chasing the trail." Carrow's jaw tightened. "We were heading to Jackson to warn Tommy — he coordinated with our people back when the Fireflies were still active in the region. Stronghold and a conscience. If anyone can help us make sense of what's left, it's him." A beat. "But we have to get there before the Wardens do."
"Wardens?"
Hale's face darkened. "Ex-FEDRA. Mercenary-led. Smart, cruel, coordinated." He looked at Ethan. "They're hunting immunes. Not to cure them. To control them."
Ethan turned the name over in his mind, cold at the back of his neck. "You know Tommy."
"Not personally," Carrow said with a half-smile. "Nightingale and the early Fireflies ran together for a while. He was a contact. Trusted." The smile faded. "David knew him. And your grandfather — he was part of that network too. Tommy helped us once, years ago, when a Firefly relay station got compromised near Salt Lake. Didn't ask questions. Just acted."
Ethan felt the map of his life redraw itself behind his eyes. He sat with it a while, hands flat on his knees, and finally stood. "I'll bring in my team."
Joel entered first, Ellie at his shoulder, switchblade turning restless in her hand. Her eyes swept the room — the flag, the maps, the two soldiers — and came back to Ethan.
"You trust them?" Joel asked, low.
"No," Ethan said. "But I believe them."
Carrow's attention had fixed on Ellie. A stillness came over her. "You're immune too."
Ellie stiffened. Ethan's stomach dropped.
"How do you know that?" he said sharply.
Carrow blinked. "I guessed. The way you three talk around things. The way she carries herself." She held up a hand. "I didn't mean to pry."
Joel's eyes narrowed to slits. Nobody said anything.
Ellie looked at Ethan. He gave her the smallest nod, and she turned back to Carrow. "Yeah," she said. "I am."
"Then you're already in this," Carrow said quietly. "Greyreach isn't a place you stumble into. It finds you."
Joel's grip on his rifle didn't shift. "If they touch her," he said, under his breath, "I burn that place down."
Nobody argued with him.
The storm outside had eased to a thin rattle against the windows. The light coming through was blue and failing. Ethan sat back down, hands steepled, and looked at Hale.
"You said my parents thought immunity could be inherited."
"Not randomly," Hale said. "Engineered. Your father had samples. Your mother had access. They forwarded encrypted logs to Nightingale command, days before they disappeared." He shook his head. "Logs we never cracked."
Ethan closed his eyes briefly. "If they were alive — would they still be at Greyreach?"
"If the Wardens hold it," Carrow said, "they don't keep guests."
Joel broke his long silence. "Then we go west. Jackson, then Greyreach. No detours. No delays."
Ellie was already on her feet. "We're not doing this alone anymore."
Ethan looked at the four of them — this thrown-together, impossible team — and nodded once. "We move at dawn."
That night he couldn't sleep. He sat by the stove while the others drifted off, watching the flame shrink and recover, shrink and recover. His mind kept circling back to Grandpa's hands — the rough, steady way they'd wrapped a bandage around Ethan's arm once, all those years ago, tight and sure and kind.
The wind moved over the snow outside, and the stove ticked in the dark, and Ethan watched the last of the fire and let it burn.