Page 28 of Prospect’s Curvy Beekeeper

The rage flares. It’s a pure, clean burn. I don't loosen my hold. I don't go looking for a tool. I rely on the brute force of my own violent necessity. I lean back, engaging the muscles in my back and shoulders. I twist the wood violently to the left. A sharp crack echoes in the silent woods. I twist it to the right. The earth groans.

I rip the stake out of the ground.

The force sends me stumbling backward half a step. I stare down at the three-foot length of wood in my hands. A physical manifestation of their claim. I bring my knee up and snap the wooden stake in half over my thigh. The sharp, explosive crack of the wood breaking sounds like a gunshot. The vibration rings through my bones.

I toss the splintered halves into the dense underbrush, off the trail. They belong to the rot now.

I kick dirt over the hole. I stomp it flat. The trail is erased.

I push deeper into the corridor. The incline grows steeper. The air grows thinner. My breath plumes in white clouds in front of my face. The cold numbs the tips of my ears, but my core is a furnace. The physical labor demands everything. Sweat beads at my hairline. It drips down my neck, soaking the collar of my shirt. I ignore it.

I find a cluster of markers wrapped around the trunks of four closely spaced pines. A chokepoint. The Syndicate wanted their drivers to navigate this tight turn without slowing down. I draw the combat knife from my boot. The steel blade catches the faint moonlight. I slash through the plastic ribbons. I keep the edge off the bark. No gashes. No bleeding sap. Nothing left for their crew to read but bare trunks.

I strip the trees bare. I crush the plastic. I shove it into my pocket. My left pocket bulges with the garbage of their invasion.

Two hours pass.

The mountain silence stretches on, broken only by the crunch of my boots, the snap of breaking wood, and the harsh shred of plastic. I cross the invisible boundary of Susan's property line. I don't stop. The threat doesn't end at her property line. The threat ends when the trail is unusable. I push another mile down the ridge road, descending closer to Crimson Hollow.

My knuckles are scraped bloody. The rough bark of the pines and the sharp edges of the splintered stakes tear the skin. Warm blood trickles down the back of my hand. It mixes with the dirt and the sticky pine sap. My hands look like butcher's tools. I don't care. The pain is a grounding wire. It anchors me to the present moment. It reminds me why I’m out here in the dark.

For her. For the quiet, stubborn woman sleeping behind a deadlocked door.

I wrench another stake out of the ground. It shatters in my hand. A splinter drives itself deep into the meat of my palm. I don't flinch. I pull the jagged piece of wood out with my teeth, spit it into the dirt, and keep walking.

This is my devotion.

Other men buy flowers. Other men make promises over dinner tables. I don't know how to do that. I don't have the vocabulary for gentle things. My existence has been shaped by violence, survival, and blood. I’m a weapon. And right now, the only way I know how to show her that she’s the center of my fucking universe is to systematically dismantle the army marching on her borders.

Three hours.

The volume of the Syndicate's work pisses me off. They spent days mapping this. They walked this path. They stood in these woods, looking up toward her farm, calculating how to use her land for their dirty money. The unnamed lieutenant ordered this. He sent his men up here to touch what’s mine.

I find the laminated county easement notice.

It’s nailed securely to the trunk of an oak tree at the main crossing of the lower trail. A plastic sleeve protects the official white paper. The county seal is stamped in blue ink. The legal jargon claims the route for "agricultural commerce."

I stare at the paper. The audacity of it. They weaponized a clerk's stamp. They hid their war behind civil procedure.

My combat knife flashes in the dark. I drive the steel blade through the center of the county seal. The tip sinks three inches into the solid oak. I drag the blade downward with force. The plastic splits. The paper shreds. I rip the ruined notice off the tree. I shred the paper into tiny, unrecognizable confetti with my bloody, sap-covered fingers. I scatter the pieces into the mountain wind.

The wind carries the white fragments away into the blackness. The legal fiction is dead.

I yank the rusty nails out of the bark with the back of my knife. I toss them into the brush. The oak tree stands clean. Pre-claim status.

Four hours.

The muscles in my back scream in protest. My thighs burn from the constant crouching, pulling, and climbing. My canvas jacket is soaked through with sweat. The freezing air turns the damp fabric into a layer of ice against my skin. My left pocket is packed tight with a compressed ball of crushed neon plastic. My hands are a mess of blood, sap, and dirt.

I stop at the edge of a steep drop-off. The trees break slightly, offering a view of the valley below. The distant, scattered lights of Crimson Hollow glow in the deep basin. It looks like a pit. That’s where the Syndicate lives. That’s where they plan their moves.

"Come up here," I say to the empty air. The sound of my own voice is gravelly, feral. "Try to find your way in the dark. I’ll bury every single one of you under these pines."

I turn around. The descent is finished. The eradication is complete.

I start the grueling climb back up the mountain.

The hike back takes another hour. The physical toll of the destruction settles into my bones. The adrenaline begins to fade, replaced by a deep, hollow exhaustion. Every step up the steep, rutted incline requires a conscious command from my brain. The mud pulls at my boots. The roots try to trip me in the dark. I don't let the fatigue win. The thought of the white farmhouse waiting at the top of the ridge fuels my legs.