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"Minimum forty-eight hours before crews can begin clearing. Possibly longer." Julia ran a hand through her wet hair, the gesture uncharacteristically harried. "Morgan's implementing secondary protocols. We maintain radio silence except for emergencies."

"Two days," Ivy repeated, the words feeling like stones in her mouth. "Minimum."

"That's correct."

"Alone. In this cabin. With you."

Julia's eyes finally met hers, something flashing in their depths before being carefully contained. "Also correct."

Ivy resumed pacing. "This is ridiculous. I have testimony to prepare and evidence to organize. I should be working with the DA's office, not hiding in the woods like some?—"

"Would you prefer to be dead?" Julia interrupted, her voice taking on an edge Ivy hadn't heard before. "Because that's the alternative. Knox's people won't stop because your schedule is inconvenienced."

"Don't patronize me," Ivy snapped. "I'm fully aware of the threat. I'm the one who uncovered it, remember? While you were—" She cut herself off.

"While I was what?" Julia stepped closer, water still dripping from her clothes. "Say it."

The challenge hung in the air, the first crack in Julia's careful professional veneer. Ivy could almost see the internal struggle as Julia fought to maintain her compartmentalization.

"While you were following protocol," Ivy said finally, the words deliberately neutral but weighted with everything unsaid. "Doing your job, Detective Scott. Isn't that what this is? Just another assignment?"

Something shifted in Julia's expression before the professional mask reasserted itself. "My job is keeping you alive. Everything else is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant," Ivy echoed. "Yes, you've made that perfectly clear."

She turned away. The cabin walls seemed to press closer, the storm sealing them in this pressure cooker of unacknowledged tension.

The real storm, Ivy realized, wasn't the one raging outside. It was the one building between them, gaining strength with each careful avoidance, each deliberate distance, each unspoken recognition.

And like the deluge beyond the cabin walls, there was nowhere to go but through it.

Hours crawled by, marked only by the storm's shifting intensity. Ivy had abandoned pacing in favor of reviewing case files, but her mind refused to focus. The same paragraph swam before her eyes three times before she finally surrendered, tossing the folder onto the table with a frustrated sigh.

Julia glanced up from her own position by the window. She'd spent the morning alternating between perimeter checks and surveillance, somehow remaining dry despite the deluge. Her efficiency was infuriating.

"Problem?" Julia asked, her tone neutral.

"Besides being trapped in a cabin during a flood with a woman who treats me likeunexploded ordnance? No, everything's wonderful."

Julia's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. She returned her attention to the window without responding, her profile sharp against the gray light.

That composed silence ignited something in Ivy. All her life, she'd been surrounded by people who maintained careful masks: parents whose pristine public image concealed emotional neglect, colleagues who praised her work while resenting her success. She'd developed a talent for finding pressure points and provoking reactions that revealed what lay beneath.

Some people collected art. Ivy collected truths.

She rose from the table, deliberately positioning herself in Julia's line of sight. "Do you practice that stoic expression in the mirror every morning, or does it come naturally?"

Julia didn't take the bait. "If you're looking for conflict to pass the time, I'm not interested."

"Of course not. You're only interested in protocol." Ivy moved closer, invading thecareful bubble of space Julia maintained between them. "I'm just curious—does compartmentalizing everything make life easier or just lonelier?"

Something flashed in Julia's eyes, there and gone so quickly Ivy might have missed it if she hadn't been watching so intently.

"Psychological analysis isn't necessary," Julia said, her voice deliberately measured. "We just need to coexist until the roads clear."

"Like strangers."

"That's what we are."