I looked at the kitchen, the hole in the window, the splatter of blood where the third man’s nose had exploded across the linoleum. The lamp was still in my hand, useless, but I clung to it anyway.
I pressed my other hand to my stomach, not sure if the embryo could sense fear, but hoping it knew it was safe.
“Jojo,” Rawley said, his voice warm and broken open for just a moment. “Go upstairs and pack a bag. Anything you can’t live without.”
I nodded, this time without argument, and made my way back up, every step a bruise on my feet.
The war had come home, but for now, we were still standing.
The sirens came sooner than I thought. Maybe Rawley had already texted the sheriff, maybe small towns had their own time zone for disaster response. Either way, I heard the shriek bounce off the barn before I’d even found a duffel bag in the bedroom closet.
I was stuffing clothes and the bare minimum of our actual, legal, irreplaceable documents into a laundry bag when the fighting started downstairs again. Not just shouting—full-bodied, bone-on-wood violence. A chair toppled, followed by the low, raw grunt that only Rawley made when he put his full weight into a hit.
I forgot the bag and ran. The steps blurred past; my feet were numb from the cold but I didn’t feel it. All I could think was, Not again, not with him bleeding on my kitchen floor.
The kitchen was a slaughterhouse. The zip-ties had held, but only for the first round—one of the men, the stocky one, had managed to break free, and now he was on Rawley with something in his fist.
I saw the silver arc before my brain could name it: a knife, one of the cheap ones from the block by the stove. Rawley ducked, but not fast enough—the blade scraped down his upper arm, a quick, bright stripe of red blossoming instantly.
The other two were screaming, the taller one trying to scrabble away with his hands still cuffed. The third guy was out cold, facedown in a puddle of what I hoped was only blood from his nose.
Rawley didn’t hesitate. He closed the gap, grabbed the guy’s wrist, and did something with leverage and brute force that sent the knife spinning to the floor.
Then, with the same unhurried malice as a meat packer, he slammed the man’s face onto the countertop, once, twice, until the screaming stopped and the body slumped like a bag of offal.
For a second, there was only the hiss of the fridge and the sound of my heart battering my sternum. Then the tall man, the only one conscious, started to cry.
I found my voice before my brain was ready. “Rawley—your arm—”
He shook it once, blood running down to his elbow. “Superficial,” he said, voice even. “Get back.”
But I didn’t get back. I went forward, crossing the floor, ignoring the sticky feeling of someone else’s blood on my soles. I reached for a towel from the oven handle, pressed it to Rawley’s wound. My hands trembled so hard I could barely hold the fabric in place.
The sound of the siren grew louder, then died. Doors slammed outside.
“Stay here,” Rawley said, but he was already moving to the kitchen door, the gun at low ready. He didn’t trust the uniforms, not even the sheriff. Not with Hargrove’s reach.
The moment his back was turned, the tall man went for the knife. I saw it a half-second too late, but the fear-for-my-life adrenaline had spiked to a place where everything happened at once and in perfect, sharp focus.
I let go of the towel, lunged for the hall closet, and yanked out the shotgun. I’d never fired it. I had never even loaded it, but Rawley made me practice racking it “for the auditory effect,” which I’d always thought was some macho bullshit until I heard the sound echo through the kitchen like a death sentence.
Both men froze.
“Get out of our house,” I said, voice flat, cold as the river in January.
The tall man dropped the knife, hands raised over his head, wrists still cinched together.
The thud of boots on the porch, then the sheriff’s voice: “Steele! Inside! Hands!”
Rawley holstered the Sig and stepped into the doorframe, both hands up, blood painting his forearm in an unbroken line. The sheriff clocked the situation in a second—two men on the ground, one with a face like hamburger, the other moaning and crying, me with a twelve-gauge aimed at chest height.
“Jesus Christ,” the sheriff muttered. He scanned for bystanders, then called, “Put the gun down, son.”
I did, slowly, but kept my body between the men and Rawley, as if I could shield him with my nothing frame.
Sheriff Calloway came in, gun drawn, but pointed low. He took in the carnage, the blood, the zip-ties, and then locked eyes with Rawley.
“What happened?” he said.
