I sit in the back seat and keep my knife in my hand. My mind keeps dragging up images I don't want.
Brooke’s voice goes tight. “There.”
Beau brakes hard enough that my shoulder hits the seat. Headlights sweep across a van on the shoulder, angled wrong, silent, dead. The driver door is cracked open, and that small gap looks staged. The hazard lights are off. The whole thing feels like bait.
Then we hear Krueger. His barking tears through the night from inside the van, furious and trapped. It hits my nerves like a wire pulled too tight.
Beau throws the car into park. We are out before the engine settles. Brooke has her gun up. Beau has his rifle up. I keep my knife ready.
We move to the van first.
I listen past Krueger’s growling, past the engine ticking as it cools.
A voice carries through the woods. Then another. Then Naomi makes a sound that is half protest and half fear.
Brooke moves first.
She steps off the shoulder into the brush, gun up, breath shallow. Beau follows immediately, rifle raised, eyes scanning the dark. I follow them with my knife in my hand, keeping my steps quiet.
The forest swallows the road light fast. Leaves crack under our boots. Branches slap our sleeves and faces. The voices get clearer, we hear some sort of struggle. Naomi’s voice tightens, and then it cracks. We slow at the edge of a clearing.
Then we see it.
Travis is on the ground near a tree, wrists zip tied behind his back. Blood spreads beneath him, soaking into the leaves and dirt. Too much blood. His face has gone gray under the moonlight, and I can’t tell if he’s even alive.
Brooke’s hand flies to her mouth, covering it before the sound can escape. I feel the way her body locks up, the way everything in her wants to run to him.
Beau shifts slightly, his voice cutting in under his breath. “No. Brooke, wait.”
Her shoulders tense harder.
Naomi is on her back a few feet into the clearing, her wrists zip tied behind her. Dirt and leaves cling to her skin where she must have fought. Her leggings are gone. Grant stands over her, one hand still at her hip, the other holding a revolver.
Elise and Ryan are farther back, zip tied and shaking. One of Grant’s men stands near them with his rifle raised to their heads, watching them like they are already dead. Another stands off to the side of Grant, scanning the trees, waiting for movement.
We stay low at the edge of the clearing, watching, waiting, trying to line it up so we can take every one of these fuckers out without giving them a chance to put a bullet in Naomi or the kids.
Grant tilts his head, looking down at Naomi.
“Here’s how we’re gonna play this.”
He spins the revolver in his hand.
“We’re gonna play Russian roulette.”
My grip on my knife tightens.
“I’m gonna stick this in your cunt,” he crouches slightly, lowering the gun, “and I’m gonna pull the trigger until your luck runs out.”
Naomi’s scream cuts through the clearing.
That’s our window.
Beau fires.
His rifle cracks once, and the man near the kids drops before he can turn. Beau fires again, and the second man goes down just as fast. Brooke fires once as well, hitting the third man and the sound overlaps the second shot. The clearing fills with echoes and the smell of burned powder.
Grant jerks upright, startled, head snapping toward the noise. His hand leaves Naomi for half a second, and that half second is all I need.
