The Calculus of Dust and Copper: A Chronicle of the Ghosts on the Mountain Ridge
CHAPTER 1: THE FRICTION OF EXPOSURE The heat did not merely sit on the ridge; it pressed against the skin like a dull blade. Elena pulled her cheek away from the carbon-fiber cheek weld of the rifle. The movement was slow, deliberate, a practiced theft of inches that kept her silhouette flat against the calcified…