Page 23 of Returning to Pine Ridge
“What plan?”
He kisses me once more, soft and lingering, before pulling back just enough to look at me. “The plan to win you over so you never want to leave my bed.”
The words hang between us, playful on the surface but weighted with a deeper charge. The jolt of it makes my heart stutter. His eyes widen slightly, like he’s just realized what he said—what it might mean.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
Then Kai clears his throat and pulls away, sliding out of bed in one fluid motion. “I’m going to make breakfast,” he says, his voice a little too casual. “You want eggs? I make good eggs.”
He disappears into the kitchen before I can answer, leaving me sitting here with a smile I can’t quite suppress spreading across my face.
Over breakfast—scrambled eggs and toast—we plan our approach.
“We can’t tell him everything,” I say, sipping coffee. “If we come in too aggressive, he’ll just dismiss us. We need to present it carefully. Give him enough information to be concerned but not so much that he feels attacked or questions our sources.”
“And if he dismisses us anyway?” Kai asks.
“Then we go public. We present it to the community. We make it impossible for him to ignore.”
“Okay. Let’s try the mayor first.”
The town hall is a small brick building with a flagpole out front. We walk in together, and I’m acutely aware of how close Kai is walking next to me. How natural it feels to have him here. How much stronger I feel with him beside me when up until last weekend I mostly felt like a failure.
The mayor’s assistant, Carol Hutchins, according to the name plate, looks up from her desk. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Atlas Navarro, and this is Kai Grant from Neighbor Stories, the library’s oral history program. We need to speak with Mayor Whitmore,” I say.
“He’s a busy man. You don’t just turn up to speak to him,” she says as if she spends half her days pushing people away.
I lean over her desk a little and pitch my voice low so no one else overhears. “It’s important. It has to do with HelixGen Corp and how they might be set on destroying the town and our way of living.”
Carol’s expression shifts. Sympathy flashes across her face, and I wonder if she might already have concerns about the mayor’s eagerness to partner with HelixGen Corp.
“Let me speak with him,” she says, standing up. “Wait here a moment.”
She disappears through the door behind her desk. Kai gives me a tight smile, and I smile back. We’re in this together.
Carol returns a moment later. “He’ll see you. Come on in.”
Mayor Whitmore sits behind a large desk, looking slightly annoyed by the interruption. But his expression shifts to neutral when he sees us.
“Mr. Navarro and Mr. Grant. What’s this about?”
I take a breath and launch into our carefully prepared explanation. “We’ve been doing some research into HelixGen Corp’s practices,” I say. “And we have concerns about their involvement in Pine Ridge.”
“What kind of concerns?” The mayor leans back in his chair, clearly unimpressed.
“They have a track record of unethical practices,” Kai says. “Data farming, privacy violations, exploiting communities.”
“They’ve been sued multiple times,” I add. “And they always settle discreetly to avoid public scrutiny.”
The mayor waves his hand dismissively. “Every company gets sued. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does when there’s a pattern,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “And there is. They come into small towns, gain trust, then extract whatever they can before moving on.”
“That’s speculation,” the mayor says. “I’ve seen their financial projections. They’re offering substantial funding. Jobs. Growth. Pine Ridge needs that.”
“Pine Ridge needs to protect itself,” Kai says, his voice firm. “From corporations that only see us as data to be harvested.”
