She lunged, all the fear, fury, and desperation that had been building inside her exploding into action. Her palm shot upward, slamming into the bridge of Kalen’s nose with a force that vibrated through her own flesh.
The crack was immediate and sickening.
His head snapped back, blood gushing, hot and fast, covering his face and spraying her arm. He screamed in pain, but he’d yet to drop the weapon.
Hadley’s left hand clamped down on his wrist before he could recover. She twisted, hard, her tendons straining under her grip. He fought her with an almost feral strength, blood bubbling athis lips. She used her body weight to add pressure and send another bolt of agony through his wrist while his free hand shot up to cradle his nose.
That was her opening.
Hadley finished turning around and drove her elbow into his solar plexus. Hard. His body instantly buckled, a strangled wheeze escaping as he lost his breath. His knees dipped, his arm weakened, and she ripped the gun from his hand.
She spun back toward him, stumbling back, wanting distance, needing space. The firearm was heavy in her hands, familiar, grounding. She brought it up, aimed square at his chest, her arms trembling but steady enough to fire.
“Don’t move, Kalen.”
He straightened slowly, his face a mask of blood and violence, his chest heaving. In the seconds that followed, she witnessed anger, sadness, and eventually acceptance.
“Do it. Pull the trigger,” Kalen finally begged as he sagged against the door. “I can’t be what he was…what he wanted me to be.”
Kalen began to cry in what could only be described as a wet, broken sound. He slowly slid down to the floor while Hadley glanced briefly at Missy. Her vacant eyes had yet to focus, even though there was a shift of energy in the air.
Hadley understood the girl’s continued need to protect herself.
The aftermath threatened to implode the town, and the residents would once again have to accept that one of their own—two of their own—had committed unspeakable horrors.
Only this time around, there would be an exchange.
Hadley began to understand that there was some truth to the legend of theThreshing Man. Mason had just been given a new lease on life. One that she’d helped take from him.
He doesn’t reap what’s sown—he takes what’s owed.
34
Hadley Dawkins
October 2025
Tuesday – 8:24pm
The rough blanket someone had draped around Hadley's shoulders did little to chase away the chill that had settled deep in her bones. She sat motionless on the fallen log, hiding her fingers that still trembled from the residual adrenaline coursing through her system.
The patch of woods around the Telfort cabin pulsed with activity. Numerous flashlight beams cut through the darkness as state police and sheriff's deputies carefully combed the area. Their movements cast long, distorted shadows against the cabin's weathered exterior.
Every muscle in her body ached from being in such a tense situation. It had been over two hours since Kalen had pressed the barrel of his firearm against the back of her skull. She honestly wasn’t sure how long she’d spent talking to him, hoping for a chance to walk out of the cabin alive.
She hadn’t known at the time that Nick and some of his deputies had been setting up a perimeter around the cabin. Before she’d reached out to him and Ramos, Hadley had discovered Ty Hobbs, bloody but alive, in the small bathroom. He’d been bound with duct tape and an electrical cord.
Now, the isolated cabin that had held so many secrets over the decades had been transformed into a crime scene that would occupy investigators for days, if not weeks.
“They're bringing her out now.” Ramos had been standing beside her for the past ten minutes. Not only had it taken him over an hour to reach Whistlerun by exceeding the speed limit, but he’d needed one of the deputies to meet him on a back county road for an escort to the crime scene. He was a city boy, through and through. “She hasn’t said a word.”
Hadley hadn’t expected to hear any differently, and a part of her wondered if Missy would ever truly return to the land of the living.
The air was heavy with moisture, and the dead leaves held a slick sheen that reflected the artificial light streaming from the cabin’s entryway. Two medics emerged first, carefully navigating the narrow doorway as they carried one end of a backboard. Two firefighters followed with the other end, all four moving with practiced coordination despite the uneven terrain.
Missy Claymont lay strapped to the board, her thin frame barely creating a bump beneath the straps and blankets. Her disheveled brown hair spilled over one edge, unwashed and tangled. Hadley caught a glimpse of the girl's face, and once again, she seemed to stare off into a dark abyss.
The radio on Ramos' hip crackled with static before a dispatcher's voice cut through, confirming the arrival of additional personnel on the dirt road. They would have to hike in like everyone else. While there did seem to be an entrance through the trees on the other side of the cabin, no one couldlocate the entry point. Such discovery would need to wait until morning.
