The house was dead quiet, all the lights off except for the faint glow from the kitchen nightlight, the kind you leave on for children or people who aren’t used to feeling safe.
I closed the door behind me, locked it, and padded back upstairs. Knox’s room felt like a bunker. I shut the door, clicked the lock, and crawled under the covers, fully dressed and still clutching his shirt to my chest.
I didn’t bother with the knife. I’d figured out by now that my best defense wasn’t sharp, it was stubborn.
I lay on my side, staring at the shadowed outline of the dresser. In my head, I repeated all the names of the men who’d told me I didn’t belong, the teachers and uncles and parole officers who’d tried to make me smaller.
I pictured each one, then replaced their voice with Knox’s. The effect was immediate. The fear didn’t vanish, but it faded, replaced by something bigger and louder.
Hope, maybe, or just the knowledge that for the first time, I had someone who would fight for me, and not because it was their job or obligation.
I let myself believe it. Just for a second.
The house shifted and creaked, but nothing came through the door. I pressed my face to the pillow, breathed in deep, and waited for dawn. Tomorrow would be a war. But tonight, I’d hold this little peace as long as I could.
Chapter Eleven
~ Knox ~
If you ever want to know what eternity feels like, try waiting for someone to come at you in the dark, knowing they want blood.
I lay prone in a ditch at the east boundary of McKenzie land, my rifle snug against my shoulder, breath coiling in the frigid air. There was a trick to breathing in this kind of cold, especially if you didn't want your sight picture fogged up every time you exhaled.
I counted three breaths to every sweep of the scope, forcing the muscle memory back into place. I hadn't been this dialed in since Kandahar, and even there, at least I had the benefit of a forward observer and a drone overhead.
Out here, the best I could hope for was the shittiest cell signal west of the Cascades and a couple of brothers who still understood what "fireteam" meant.
I watched the line of trees where the neighbor’s land abutted up against ours. Fog clung to the ground, muting the fence posts and blurring the world into monochrome.
Somewhere past the tree line, I heard the faint crackle of laughter—drunk, careless, like a bunch of idiots on a camping trip. They weren't even trying to be stealthy.
It was almost insulting.
I ran a quick mental inventory. My own position was bulletproof, unless they came at me with mortars or an actual tank. The ground was soft enough to absorb sound, and the wind, when it picked up, would carry any approaching voices straight to me.
I had a clear field of fire all the way to the river. The only variable was whether the enemy would be stupid enough tocome in on foot, or if they’d try to crash the old barbed-wire fence with a truck.
From what I knew of Luther Bridger, subtlety wasn’t in the playbook.
A new voice cut through the darkness—higher, whinier, and unmistakably panicked. One of Luther’s minions, or maybe just a local idiot conscripted for muscle. The sound drew closer, punctuated by thuds and curses, and then I saw the ghostly shape of a man staggering into the open.
He was maybe nineteen, already swaying, one hand clutching a baseball bat and the other glued to a cheap bottle. His eyes shone flat in the moonlight, and he looked right past me, which almost made me want to break cover just to teach him the value of a real perimeter check.
Thirty seconds later, the rest of the pack blundered into view—Luther, two more goons, and a big black dog on a chain. The dog saw me, or maybe just sensed me, because it immediately stopped, bristling, and let out a deep, guttural warning.
Luther cuffed the animal, hard, then turned his head to address the others. His voice was slurred, but not so much that I couldn't make out the words. "He’s here. He’s fucking here, I told you."
He was talking about me. Or maybe about Newt, if he'd caught wind of where the kid was hiding out. Either way, it didn't matter. The only question now was how many of them I'd have to put in the ground before they got the message. The thought didn't bother me. If anything, it calmed me down.
I tracked them as they fanned out along the fence line, each man taking up a position with all the tactical finesse of a middle school dodgeball team.
I could tell, just from the way Luther moved, that he hadn't slept in at least two days. His hands shook when he fumbled thelighter for his cigarette. His skin was gray, sallow, eyes like little black marbles. He’d been in a spiral for weeks, maybe months.
I almost pitied him.
Almost.
I fingered the safety on the rifle, toyed with the idea of sending a warning shot through the hood of their car just to see if I could make them piss themselves, but then I caught a flicker of movement to the west.
