CHAPTER 52
Kori,Wyatt, and Thunder moved between the trees in silence. Wyatt had given Thunder some kind of command also, and the dog moved like a ghost. He trekked beside Wyatt without a sound, his nose steadily working.
Kori kept her eyes on Wyatt and matched her footsteps to his as best she could—avoiding the same branches, stepping where he stepped.
After a few minutes she noticed Wyatt slowing. His gaze had dropped to the ground ahead of them.
“What are you looking for?” she whispered.
“Boobytraps.” He didn’t look up. “A group like this protects their perimeter. Trip wires, pressure plates—who knows what else. They’d want warning if someone was coming in from the woods.”
“Would they have had time to set those up?”
“We can’t assume anything.”
Her muscles tightened. She looked at the snow in front of her feet. Suddenly every step felt deliberate in a way it hadn’t before.
Wyatt moved carefully, and she stayed close.
The trees began to thin.
Then she spotted a flat, gray-white light of open land. The shape of a farmhouse emerged through the branches. A barn beyond it. Some other type of outbuilding. A fence ran along a pasture, the posts dark against the snow.
Herb and Billie’s place.
They stopped at the tree line and crouched low.
As Kori looked out across the property, her stomach dropped.
Various trucks were parked near the house.
Trucks . . . that was right. These people must have been able to drive close to the compound. Then they’d hiked the rest of the way in.
But in those videos from the trail cams, she’d seen people carrying in supplies.
Perhaps that had been a rite of passage or something.
They’d have to figure that out later.
Two men stood outside the barn door. Another moved along the fence with his head down and his hands in his jacket pockets.
The Remnant was here. She and Wyatt were too late.
She thought of Herb and Billie—people she’d never met—and her stomach tightened. Had they been hurt?
Please, Lord . . . let them be okay.Please let everyone be okay.
Movement near the far side of the barn caught her eye.
A man rounded the corner, hauling a woman whose hands were bound beside him.
Kori’s breath stopped as recognition hit her.
That was . . . Mackenzie.
Wyatt felt Kori shift beside him, and he knew exactly what she was thinking.
He grabbed her arm. “You have to stay here.”
