They all watched, helpless, as Samuel took one agonizingly slow step after another, closing the distance between himself and Dinah. When he was close enough, he reached out, and that’s when the world seemed to explode. Dinah screamed, and Robby’s ears rang as he watched a red bloom across Samuel’s white shirt, just beneath his belly button. Dinah dropped the gun, and Robby hurried to pick it up and stuff it in the back of his pants.
Samuel stood there, just staring at the girl. Robby pulled Dinah away, shoving her beside Ezra, before Samuel could make another move. He looked down at his wound and laughed. “It will take a lot more than that to get me out of your life, Dinah. You little bi—”
The second bang was louder and far more jarring than the last. For a moment, he thought a bomb had detonated, but then he looked to Samuel, stomach lurching as he noted a neat hole between the man’s eyes and the back of his skull sprayed across the concrete floor a split second before the man crumpled to the ground.
There was a blissful moment of relief where Robby thought, for just a second, it was over. Calder had finally come for him and everything would be okay. But the man emerging from the front of the barn wasn’t Calder at all. It was his father.
“Hello, children.”
Calder parked his truck just before the private property sign. His truck was too loud to risk taking it any farther. He holstered his weapon before pulling an extra clip and his knife from the lock box in the truck’s bed. He scanned for anything—sensors, tripwires, sentries. But there was nothing. Nobody. He carefully hopped the rusty gate that provided little protection should anybody choose to enter the property without permission. It was all too easy.
Calder didn’t like the eerie silence. A place with this many people would be humming with activity with the sun still high in the cloudless blue sky. He followed the makeshift dirt road, always aware of the treeline on either side, listening and watching for any signs of life, but there was only the occasional rustling of the leaves when the wind blew.
As Calder rounded the bend in the road, the trees opened up to a large clearing with several brick buildings. He drew his weapon, releasing the safety and chambering a round. It didn’t look so much like a farm as it did a compound or a makeshift military installation. That sent a shock of adrenaline through his system. Where was Robby? Was he okay? Was he still alive? The idea of finding Robby’s limp and lifeless body made Calder stumble, but he shook the thought away, swallowing the lump in his throat. No. He’d already lost too much. He wouldn’t lose Robby too.
He made his way from building to building, looking inside and finding nothing. It was practically a ghost town. Jonestown. Calder scanned, looking for the biggest building. The one where a crazed cult leader might gather his flock for a final sacrament. He zeroed in on the large rudimentary building in the center of the compound, hoofing it double time to the side of it, grateful there were small windows along the edge that allowed him to peer inside.
Calder shivered as he noted the people on the other side of the glass. A hundred at least, all of them huddled together, some clutching toddlers and infants, as they all looked at each other with uncertainty. On the stage was a large yellow cooler the size of a beer keg, and two people filling paper cups and lining them along a table. Jesus. He really did want to kill all of these people. Shit. Where was Robby? He studied each face, but none of them were him or Rebecca. Had Samuel moved them somewhere else? Had he killed them already?
A hand settled on his arm, and he turned, jamming his gun into their ribcage, coming nose to nose with Connolly.
“At ease, killer. I’m assuming you didn’t check your phone,” Connolly said, nonplussed at the barrel poking against his massive frame. Connolly had a black eye and a busted lip but still grinned like, somehow, he was the one who’d come out on top. He wore camo pants tucked into military issue boots and a black t-shirt. His gun holstered under his left arm.
Calder caught Linc and Webster creeping towards them from the left. Calder relaxed a bit at their presence. “I have to find Robby and Rebecca.”
“The only place we haven’t searched is the barn,” Linc said. “But you need to be aware of something.”
“Yeah?” Calder prompted impatiently, eyes trained on the barn in the distance.
Linc rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “We’re not the only visitors today. There’s a dark blue sedan registered to Magnus Dei parked down the road, not too far from where we arrived.”
“Robby’s father? What the fuck is he doing here? Didn’t he and Samuel part ways?” Calder asked.
It was Webster who answered. “Maybe not. I kept asking myself, ‘Where would a hippy cult get the money to buy black market weapons?’ They don’t sell anything. They don’t import or export anything. There had to be some kind of financial backer. That backer is Magnus Dei.”
Calder shook his head. “What? But why?”
Webster shrugged. “The only people who know that are Jeb Shaw and our phony messiah over there.” He pointed to the barn.
Calder sighed. “Can you de-escalate the situation in there?” he asked, pointing towards the group inside the building.
Connolly peered through the nearest window and snorted. “Yeah, I don’t foresee a lot of pushback from this lot.”
“I’m coming with you,” Linc said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Calder gave a stilted nod before jogging across the open field to the barn doors, which were sitting slightly ajar. He peered inside, his eyes attempting to adjust to the shadows after spending so much time in the sunlight. They could faintly hear voices coming from deep within. Linc gestured for them to breach the barn and separate so they could flank the group and use the hay bales for cover. Calder gave a single nod, then they both slipped inside. Calder was grateful for cement floors instead of aged wood, which might have given away their position.
His heart tripped when he finally got eyes on a living, breathing Robby. He stood with two young children crowded behind his back, fear etched along his face as he stared at something just out of range. Calder took two more steps, then stopped short when he saw Samuel’s body on the ground, blood staining the dirt and hay that littered the flooring. There was a bullet hole in his forehead and a blood stain on his shirt that indicated he’d been shot twice or had sustained another injury. All thoughts of Samuel left him when he saw Jeb Shaw with a forty-four magnum Ruger Blackhawk trained on his son.
Calder almost would have laughed at the ridiculous weapon if he didn’t know the damage a single shot could do. If Jeb Shaw pulled that trigger, Robby was dead in an instant. The look on his face told Calder that Robby was very much aware of the peril he was in.
“What are you even doing here?” Robby asked.
It wasn’t Jeb who answered, but Rebecca. “This is all my fault,” she cried. “Before I came to you, I went to him. I’m the reason he showed back up in your life. I knew Samuel was losin’ it, and I thought Father might be willin’ to help, but he just sent me back to him.”
Jeb shrugged. “A woman belongs to her husband, Rebecca. You know that. If a man can’t trust his wife, he has nothing.”
“So, you showed up at the police station that day, why?” Robby asked, voice wavering slightly.
