“Best kind,” I said, surprising even myself.
He grunted. “See you tomorrow.”
I hung up, and for the first time in a long while, felt the smallest whisper of relief. The kind you only get when you know someone else is holding the other end of the rope.
Afterward, I stood in the kitchen, elbows braced on the sill, and watched the sunlight crawl up over the ridgeline, painting the pastures gold. The horses grazed, oblivious to the tension. The barn, the silo, the pond—all quiet, all mine to protect.
In another life, maybe I’d have learned how to do this gently. How to be something besides a weapon waiting for the next order. But there was no SEAL team here, no command structure. Just me, and the thin blue line of a sheriff who probably had more secrets than I did.
And Jojo. Fragile and stubborn and impossibly brave, carrying the only piece of future I gave a damn about.
I pressed my palm flat to the glass, mapped the lines of the horizon, memorized every tree and shadow.
Let them come.
I’d be ready.
Chapter Fourteen
~ Jojo ~
The first thing I heard was glass. A thin, high note, like a bottle thrown against the wall in slow motion. In the next instant, I felt Rawley’s side of the bed jerk and then vanish, mattress rebounding as if it had been evacuated by a detonator.
The house was dark, but my heart was a strobe, throwing off its own kind of light. I sat bolt upright, ears ringing, every cell in my body straining to resolve the difference between last night’s animal carnage and this morning’s threat.
A second clink, this one duller—maybe a boot scuffing over broken pieces, or a window latch losing a contest with a crowbar. The sound came from the kitchen.
My mouth had dried to parchment. The baby—no, the embryo, barely a figment—felt like a burning coal under my ribs. I clapped a hand over my stomach, as if I could shield it from whatever was coming.
Rawley was already a shadow by the closet, yanking on pants, Sig in hand. He moved without sound, like the entire world owed him quiet. He’d slept with the pistol beside him for as long as I’d known him, and now I was glad for every bit of paranoia I’d once mocked.
He thumbed the slide, chambered a round. I saw the glint of steel in the blue hour light, then the matte finish of his back as he pulled on a shirt.
He didn’t even look at me when he said, “Stay here.” The words were soft, but left no room for negotiation.
I nodded, but my body rebelled. Every instinct in me—weak, soft, city-dweller’s instincts—wanted to dive under the bed and pray the walls were thick enough to keep out whatever had made that sound. But there was another part, new and stupid and stubborn, that refused to let Rawley walk into the dark alone.
I counted his footsteps. Four across the floorboards, then a pause. I slid out of bed, felt the cold slap of wood against my bare soles, and tried to breathe through the way my lungs had shrunk down to the size of walnuts.
The baby, the baby, the baby. I repeated it in my head with each heartbeat, as if the word could change my chemistry, make me braver or at least more inert.
The only weapon in reach was a chunk of ceramic lamp, which I gripped like a cartoon club, the cord dangling and trailing behind me. I crept to the window, careful not to silhouette myself, and peered into the predawn.
Headlights, low and pointed at the mouth of our drive. The beams cut through the heavy fog that pooled over the pasture, turning every hillock into a suggestion of bodies.
The car was parked maybe fifty yards from the house, engine off, door left gaping. Nothing moved, but I could feel the gaze of it, the way you feel a snake’s eyes even if you can’t see the head.
Rawley was a silent streak down the hallway, barefoot, gun at his side. He stopped at the top of the stairs, then pressed his back to the wall and listened. I could just make out the faintest movement of his lips—counting, or maybe talking to the ghosts in his head.
Then, another sound: the kitchen door opening, the weathered hinges betraying us with their loud, metallic yawn. I could smell the cold river air even from here, the ozone bite of coming rain.
I inched to the edge of the landing, just far enough to see. Rawley was already descending, a panther on the prowl, every step calculated to avoid the boards that creaked. He melted into the dark at the bottom of the staircase.
A new set of sounds: the slow advance of two men, the shuffle of boots on tile, a muffled cough. They were talking, low and guttural, a language of grunts and code.
For a moment I saw everything in the moonlight streaming through the window: the blood-scrubbed floors, the ghost shapes left by the massacre, the jagged hole in the back door window. The two men who stood in the archway were not the kind who shopped at the general store on Saturdays.
They wore masks, but not ski masks or balaclavas—these were hunting masks, with camo and black mesh over the eyes, the kind you could buy at Miller’s Feed if you were too dumb to realize you’d stand out more that way. One was taller, shoulders hunched, a long flashlight duct-taped to a crowbar. The other was stocky, wielding a length of pipe wrapped in cloth.
