“Kids,” Grant says.
Elise shakes her head. “No.”
One of the men seizes her arm and forces her hands back. Elise fights once, hard and fast. The gun moves closer to her chest. Elise freezes, breathing through her nose, eyes bright with rage and fear. The zip ties snap shut around her wrists.
Ryan’s breath turns shallow. Naomi twists toward him as much as she can. “Ryan, stay with me.”
Ryan’s eyes stay locked on Grant as another man grabs his wrists. The zip ties tighten. Ryan doesn’t cry. His lower lip trembles anyway.
Grant nods toward the trees. “Walk,” he says.
Travis’s eyes flick to the shoulder and then to the dark beyond the road. “Where are you taking us?”
Grant steps closer, gun still up. “Deep enough that nobody hears you.”
The men move in tight around them, guns trained, forcing the group away from the shoulder and toward the tree line. Travis tries to angle his body toward the kids. One of the men shoves him forward.
“Keep moving!”
They step off the gravel and into the brush.
Leaves and twigs snap under their shoes. Cold air cuts through their clothes. The patrol lights stay behind them, flashing through branches until the trees swallow the road.
Naomi stumbles on uneven ground. One of the men grabs her arm and yanks her upright.
Elise tries to twist her bound hands behind her back, testing the zip ties. The plastic doesn’t give. She clenches her jaw, refusing to let anyone see her hands shake.
Ryan walks with his shoulders hunched, eyes wide, trying to keep his footing. Naomi presses her shoulder against him whenever she can, trying to keep him close without making the men suspicious.
Grant stays near the front, guiding them deeper. He doesn’t need a flashlight. He moves as if he already knows where the ground dips and where the branches hang low.
Travis keeps looking for a break in the trees, any opening where he could run. Every time his weight shifts, a gun moves with him. Every time he slows, a hand shoves him forward again.
They walk deeper. The trees thicken. The ground grows softer and slicker underfoot. Travis’s wrists ache where the zip ties cut into skin.
Grant stops after several minutes and lifts a hand. The men halt with him, guns still raised.
They stop in a small clearing where the trees thin just enough to show the sky. The ground dips there, soft with damp leaves and exposed roots. The road noise is gone. The flashing lights are gone. Everything that could’ve helped them disappears behind the trees.
Naomi and the kids stop too, bodies stiff, breath loud in the quiet. Grant takes a slow step closer. One of the men adjusts his aim to match the movement. The barrel follows Travis’s head as if it is attached.
“You know,” Grant says, “it took me a minute to figure out who they were working with to hack into The Collective’s database.”
Naomi swallows hard. The man behind her presses the gun closer to her head, and Naomi freezes again.
“But then it clicked,” Grant continues. “The timing. The way every problem kept turning into an advantage for them. The way you all knew to be in the right place at the right time.”
Travis’s lips part.
Grant tips his head, watching him. “You’re the one behind the screen. The one who made doors open. The one who made evidence vanish. The one who made my family easy to find.”
Naomi’s breath hitches. Her eyes squeeze shut for half a second, then open again.
Grant’s smile widens. “Now you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He leans in closer to Travis’s face. “You gave her the information to kill my family.”
Elise makes a sound through her teeth. The gun near her shifts immediately.
