I had to trust Ghost. Watching the foliage for enemies wasn't going to be helpful to anyone. Bait didn't flinch every time a fish passed it by. Bait looked vulnerable. Gamely, I set up my phoneagainst a railroad tie that was shoved up against a deteriorating outer wall and pressed record.
I flounced in front of the lens with a hammer in my hand. "Let's fix a barn."
I bullshitted in front of the camera for a while, talking about all my grand plans for turning the barn into a dual animal barn and poem-writing space. Absolute nonsense, really. I couldn't string together three words in a coherent way if I wanted to. But the more I talked about my fake barn, the more immersed I became in the deception. The same cool wind from yesterday swept through the space, rustling the leaves and raising the hair on the back of my neck. I forged onward, changing the camera angle and starting to yank rotting boards off the outer walls with the back of my hammer.
I worked up a sweat, concentrating on each nail, each board. A twig cracked in the distance, and my pulse jettisoned itself into a frenzy. I paused only for a second before yanking on the board until it creaked loudly. Another rustle distracted me, and I closed my eyes hard, willing my heart not to jump out of my throat. "Keep going," I whispered to myself.
I want Benjamin. He'd tell me this is crazy. He'd wrap me in his arms and kiss my temple and tell me that being with him is safer…
A shape shifted in my peripheral vision. I swallowed hard, wondering how long I could get away with ignoring whatever was there. I pulled the board off the wall, staggering back a few steps. The shape flitted away, fast as lightning and moving behind me. My fingers gripped the splintering wood with punishing force. Footsteps sounded behind me, and I braced myself, letting the board fall to the ground. Then there was a shuffle of movement, and I heard the sound of several other feet joining the first one.
I spun around and found three operatives in black vests tackling a man in a white T-shirt and wearing a grotesque pig mask. He hit the ground with a muffled "Shit!" Three more shapes darted out of the cover of the leaves, heading right for me.
Ghost sprinted into my line of vision, took my arm in a firm hold, and pushed me away from the barn. "Evelyn, go. Now."
His controlled, calm tone snapped me out of my shock. I didn't stop to think about it twice. I ran. As I sprinted away, catching up my skirts and barreling into the long grass, I was dimly aware that there was a major scuffle happening behind me. I wanted to look over my shoulder, but I knew if I happened to glimpse someone who had gotten through Ghost's defenses, I would scare myself into immobilization. So, I ran instead. I sprinted for all I was worth, and in seconds, it was over.
Two operatives in the same gear as their cohorts—black vests, black cargo pants, black masks—met me near the van. They each took hold of an arm and guided me into the cover of the forest where the van had been cleverly tucked away. The sliding door was already open, and then we were inside the cool, dark space. One of the operatives slammed the door closed, and the other one guided me to an office chair between a desk and the driver’s seat.
My breath sawed in and out, too loud in the muted interior of the van. It looked like they’d made the van into a traveling office of sorts, with long counters on either side of the van’s cargo area and computers on the surfaces. One of the operatives, a tall woman, pulled her mask off her face and crouched in front of me. She had a round, kind face, and she looked entirely unbothered by this whole scenario. "You okay?" she smiled.
I tried to calm my breathing, swallowing hard. "Yeah."
The other operative was taking a seat at a stool in front of a wall of monitors. It looked like they were connected to thebodycams of some of the operatives. I watched with some awe as four assailants were neutralized and summarily detained within seconds. The operative on the stool had a walkie talkie, and he was checking in with the others.
I rotated a wide-eyed look to the woman who was backing up and taking a seat across from me in the back of the utility van. "Wow."
She shrugged, grinning. "Child's play. We got you."
"You do this… every day?" I asked, partly conversationally and partly because I found it fascinating.
"Nah, it's project based." She leaned back and crossed her legs at the ankles. "I take what sounds good." She paused, looking up with amusement. "And when my bank account is looking sad."
"Exciting," I panted, putting a hand to my chest and massaging it like it might calm my heart.
"You had an adrenaline jump," she observed, leaning over and taking a bottle of water out of a cooler. "Take a drink. Your body will come down from it in a minute."
Something beeped on a monitor in front of the masked guy, and I watched his brows furrow. As I absently took the water from the woman, he rolled his stool over to a monitor on the far right that looked like it was showing a full, digitized layout of my property. A little red circle was beeping on the south side. "Breach," he said into the walkie talkie.
Breach?I set the water down, starting to rise. "Breach, where?"
"Just sit down," the woman said, getting up and joining her coworker.
"Second house, south perimeter," he said into the walkie talkie.
That was Nan's house. My heart stopped beating altogether. "Nan," I breathed.
The woman and man ignored me, both of them going into a flurry of action and trying to contact operatives over their walkies. Panic clawed at my thoughts, shredding any logical train they might have taken. I darted forward, wrenching the van door open and running for their house. I heard a shout and someone going after me, but I knew this property better than anyone. I dove to the left, under new trees and between flowering bushes. There weren't thoughts in my head. There was only fear.
Nan. Tessa. They were in danger because of me.
The panic blinded me like a white-hot iron to my frontal lobe. I dashed through my own woods like a stricken doe, my boots pounding over loose twigs and crashing through green branches. Over the river bend, past the twisted oak, under the sheltered copse, around the jutting river and back over the water. Nan's back wall loomed into view, and I didn't pause for a second. I cleared the low stone wall and tore around the small white cottage. "Nan!" I shrieked. "Tessa!" No one responded, and I banged into the front door in my haste to open it. "Nan," I cried, twisting the doorknob. I fell into the kitchen, stumbling over my feet and barely managing to keep myself upright in the doorway. My breath froze.
Nan sat at the table like she always did, but she wasn't alone. A bulky man stood behind her with a handgun pointed at the back of her head. I recognized him instantly even though half of his face was still swollen and mottled by an angry-looking bruise. Benjamin had clocked him with his bulky flashlight in Micah's parking lot, and we'd left him zip-tied on the asphalt.
My breath left my lungs in a painful gust, and I gripped the doorknob. "Please, don't."
The man jabbed the barrel of the gun into the back of Nan's head so hard, she gasped, leaning forward. Her hands were splayed out on the table, white and trembling slightly. Fearcoursed through my veins like poison, robbing my breath and causing my legs to shake. I held out my arm. "Take what you need. Please."
