More shots surged from the treeline, rifles raised. I raised my pistol—three rounds left. Three, for a sea of them.
My gut twisted, not from fear but from fury. “Where the hell are the Rangers?” I spat, voice raw. “Where’s backup? Where’s anyone?”
No answer came but the storm. Just rain, and gunfire, and the steady press of masked men who should’ve broken by now but hadn’t.
Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
And as I leveled my pistol for another shot, the sick certainty lodged in my chest:
We weren’t just fighting the flood.
We were fighting someone powerful enough to make sure no one else showed up.
40
Raine
The barn creaked with every gust, the rotten wood straining against the storm. Boone sat slumped against a beam, pale but alert, his hand never far from the pistol he’d salvaged. The mother held her son in the corner, rocking him gently, whispering a prayer over and over like it might hold the walls up around us.
My ribs ached, my arm throbbed, but I kept my rifle steady, eyes on the doorway. The gunfire from Adam’s team had thinned to a sick, irregular rhythm—then gone quiet altogether.
The silence was worse than the fight.
Shadows moved outside. Heavy boots splashing through mud. Low voices we didn’t recognize.
Boone swore under his breath. “They found us.”
The boy whimpered. His mother clutched him tighter.
I raised my rifle, heart hammering so loud it drowned the rain. My voice came out raw, steady. “Stay behind me.”
Figures appeared in the doorway—black masks, rifles up, moving with brutal precision.
One step.
Two.
They were coming for us.
I shifted my stance, finger brushing the trigger. If this was it, they weren’t taking us without a fight.
Then—shouts. Different voices. Deeper, louder.
The masked men froze.
Floodlights swept across the barnyard, blinding in the rain. Sirens cut through the storm, the thrum of heavy engines rolling closer.
“Texas DPS! Drop your weapons!”
Relief crashed through me so sharp my knees buckled.
The masked men backed off, slipping into the dark as the floodlights grew brighter, rifles raised in our defense instead of against us. Boone’s head dropped back against the beam, a ragged laugh breaking free.
“About damn time,” he rasped.
I didn’t lower my rifle, not yet. My chest heaved, my throat tight. Because even as the cavalry finally arrived, one thought still screamed in my head.
Adam.
