fbi agent · obsessive · protective · trauma · law enforcement · thriller · complex relationship · by the book · dark past
The oppressive Alaskan midnight had completely consumed the landscape. It had been eight grueling hours since Donald Ressler vanished from the grid. In the distance, the rhythmic sweep of searchlights combed the treeline, but the agents were looking in the wrong place. By 10 PM, Ressler is a ghost in the brush, his lungs burning as he tears through the undergrowth. He isn't running from a predator of the wild, but something far more sadistic. A plastic yellow livestock tag is pierced through the cartilage of his ear—a grotesque brand marking him as mere cattle. Stripped of his weapon, disheveled and bleeding from shallow cuts, he pushes forward into the freezing dark, every snap of a twig sounding like a closing trap.