The coastal town of Meridian Bay was the antithesis of Oakhaven. Where the valley had been green, claustrophobic, and shadowed by mountains, the coast was vast, blue, and stripped bare by the wind. The air here didn't smell of pine and secrets; it smelled of salt, rotting kelp, and the cold, indifferent spray of the Atlantic.
They arrived on a Tuesday, stepping off the bus with nothing but a single duffel bag and a laptop. Kevin's eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and Michel was leaning so heavily on him that he felt like a part of his own body. They found a room in a boarding house for fishermen—a place called "The Gull's Rest." It was a weathered gray shingle building that looked like it was being held together by nothing but habit and layers of sea salt.
The landlady, a woman named Enid whose skin looked like cured leather, didn't ask for their IDs. She just took the crumpled bills Kevin offered and handed him a heavy skeleton key.
"Don't bring no trouble, and don't make no noise," she said, her voice like sandpaper. "The ocean provides enough of both."
The New Skin
Inside the room, the world finally slowed down. The only sound was the rhythmic, distant boom of the surf against the pier. Kevin helped Michel onto the narrow bed, gently peeling back the shirt that had become stuck to the wounds on his side.
"We need to get you to a doctor," Kevin whispered, his heart aching at the sight of the purple-black bruising along Michel's ribs.
"No doctors," Michel gasped, his eyes wide. "The moment we enter a system, a flag goes up. We stay off the grid, Kev. We heal the old-fashioned way."
Kevin nodded, though it felt like a betrayal. He spent the afternoon at a local pharmacy, buying antiseptic, gauze, and heavy-duty painkillers with the last of their cash. As he walked back along the boardwalk, he saw a newspaper rack.
The headline was a punch to the gut: "OAKHAVEN MASSACRE: SHERIFF AND THREE OTHERS DEAD IN STANDOFF."
Kevin gripped the railing of the boardwalk until the wood bit into his palms. He didn't even need to read the article to know what had happened. When the files went live, the fragile peace of Oakhaven had shattered. The "Brotherhood" hadn't gone quietly. They had turned the town into a war zone rather than face the light.
He hurried back to the room and opened the laptop, his hands shaking. The internet was a firestorm. The "Oakhaven Files" were being dissected by every major news outlet in the country. Names were being named. Careers were ending. But there was a darker thread running through the coverage: the "anonymous whistleblowers" were being hunted. Not just by the law, but by the remnants of the Miller organization—men who had lost everything and had nothing left but the desire for vengeance.
"They're calling us heroes," Kevin said, his voice hollow as he read a tweet from a national journalist.
Michel looked up from the bed, his face pale in the dim light of the room. "Heroes? Heroes are usually dead, Kev. I just want to be alive."
The Shadow of the Father
Three days passed in a blur of fever and bandages. Kevin took a job at the local docks, hauling crates of frozen fish for cash. It was backbreaking work, his hands blistered and raw by the end of every shift, but it was honest. It was anonymous. He was no longer Kevin, the librarian. He was "Red," a drifter who didn't talk much and worked harder than the regulars.
Michel was getting stronger, though the trauma remained etched in the way he jumped at every slamming door. One evening, as the fog rolled in from the sea, thick and white as wool, Michel sat by the window, staring at a small, silver locket he had kept hidden in his pocket.
"My father is in the hospital," Michel said suddenly.
Kevin stopped mid-motion, a bowl of soup in his hands. "How do you know?"
"I checked the local Oakhaven news site," Michel said, his voice devoid of emotion. "During the standoff at the mill, he tried to run. One of Miller's own men shot him in the back. They say he's paralyzed."
Kevin sat down on the floor beside the bed. The silence between them was heavy with the ghost of the man who had raised Michel and then betrayed him.
"Do you want to go back?" Kevin asked, though the thought made his stomach turn.
"No," Michel said firmly. He looked at Kevin, his amber eyes hard as flint. "He died to me the moment he let Miller take me to that mine. I'm just... I'm wondering if the poison ever really leaves your blood, Kev. He's my father. Am I going to wake up one day and find out I'm just like him? A man who sells his soul for a quiet life?"
Kevin reached out, taking Michel's hand. His own hand was rough now, calloused and smelling of salt, but his grip was steady. "You're the man who chose the truth over his own life. You're nothing like him."
The Breach
The peace of Meridian Bay was shattered on the sixth day.
Kevin was walking back from the docks, the sun setting behind the town in a brilliant, violent pink. He felt a prickle at the back of his neck—the same sensation he'd had in the woods behind the cabin. He stopped, pretending to tie his boot, and glanced at the reflection in a shop window.
A dark sedan was idling at the end of the street. It didn't belong in Meridian Bay. It was too clean, too expensive.
He didn't run. Running was a confession. He walked calmly to the boarding house, his mind racing. Had the GPS tracker been more than just a car component? Had they been followed by the city men? Or was it someone from the federal investigation?
He burst into the room. "Michel, get your things. We're compromised."
Michel didn't ask questions. He was already grabbing the duffel bag. "Where?"
"The sedan at the corner. It's been trailing me since the docks."
They exited through the kitchen, Enid barely looking up from her knitting as they passed. They slipped into the shadows of the alleyways, moving toward the pier. The fog was their only ally now. It swallowed the world, muffling the sound of their footsteps.
"We can't take the bus," Kevin whispered. "They'll be watching the stations."
"The boats," Michel said, pointing toward the harbor. "The fishing fleet leaves at dawn. If we can get on one of the trawlers heading north..."
They reached the end of the pier, the water churning black and cold beneath them. But as they turned the corner toward the slips, a figure stepped out from behind a stack of lobster traps.
It wasn't a man in a suit. It was a woman, young, with sharp eyes and a leather jacket. She held a badge in one hand and a phone in the other.
"Kevin. Michel. Stop," she said. Her voice wasn't aggressive; it was urgent.
"Stay back," Kevin warned, stepping in front of Michel, his hand gripping a heavy iron gaff he'd taken from the docks.
"I'm Special Agent Sarah Vance, FBI," she said, keeping her hands visible. "I'm the one who received your upload. The encrypted site? I'm the lead on the Oakhaven task force."
"How did you find us?" Michel asked, his voice shaking.
"The metadata on your last login. You were careful, but not careful enough for a federal trace," she said. She stepped forward, the fog swirling around her. "I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here because you're the only witnesses left who can put the city men behind bars. Miller's dead, but the people who bought his silence are still in power. And they know you're here."
"We're not going back," Kevin said, his grip on the gaff tightening. "We're not being pawns in another game."
"You don't have to go back to Oakhaven," Vance said. "But if you don't come with me, you won't survive the night. The men in that sedan aren't FBI. They're 'fixers' hired by the Miller estate. They're not here to talk."
As if on cue, the sound of car doors slamming echoed from the street above the pier.
The Choice
Kevin looked at Michel. In the pale light of the pier lamps, Michel looked small, tired, and broken. They had run three hundred miles to find a new life, only to find the old one waiting for them in the fog.
"If we go with you," Michel asked, "what happens to us?"
"Witness protection," Vance said. "New names. New lives. For real this time. But you have to testify. You have to finish what you started in that mine."
The sound of footsteps on the wooden planks of the pier was getting closer. The "fixers" were no longer hiding.
Kevin looked at the sea, then back at the woman with the badge. He realized then that Volume Two wasn't about running. It was about standing still.
"Michel?" Kevin asked.
Michel took a deep breath, the salt air filling his lungs. He reached out and took Kevin's hand. "No more shadows, Kev. Let's end it."
Kevin turned to Agent Vance. "Get us out of here."
As the first of the men in dark coats rounded the corner, guns drawn, Vance pulled a heavy service weapon from her holster and signaled to a boat hidden in the fog.
"Get down!" she yelled.
The world exploded into noise—the crack of gunfire, the roar of a boat engine, and the screaming of the gulls. But as Kevin pulled Michel down behind the crates, he wasn't afraid.
He held Michel's hand, and for the first time, he didn't feel like a victim. He felt like a witness. And a witness was the most dangerous thing in the world to a man with a secret.