I follow Trenton down the short hallway. The bedroom is spartan, a double bed with a patchwork quilt, a nightstand with a small lamp, and a window overlooking the trees. Matthew has already pulled back the covers. Trenton lays Charlie down, easing her head onto the pillow and adjusting her unicorn beside her.
She stirs. Her eyes open just barely, just enough to see who's putting her down.
"Mr. Trent," she murmurs.
"Yeah, kiddo. Go back to sleep. You're safe."
"Ms. Morgan?"
"I'm right here." I step to the bedside and brush the hair from her forehead. Her skin is warm and slightly damp. "We're at the cabin. Mr. Matthew's family cabin, remember? We're going to stay here for a little while."
She blinks slowly, processing, her eyes moving from me to Trenton to Matthew standing in the doorway. Her hand reaches up to find mine.
"Will you stay until I'm asleep?"
"Of course."
Her eyes close again. Her breathing slows. Her grip on my hand loosens by degrees until her fingers go slack and her whole body goes heavy against the mattress.
I stay where I am. Trenton stays where he is. Matthew stays in the doorway. None of us moves until Charlie's breathing has gone deep and even and the last of the tension has drained from her small body.
Then Trenton straightens, and I feel the shift in the room, the transition from the thing we're doing now to the thing we're going to do next.
"I need to check the perimeter," he says, his voice pitched low. "Matthew, show me where the generator is."
Matthew nods and turns back toward the main room. I follow them out, pulling the bedroom door almost closed behind me and leaving it open just enough that the hallway light will reach Charlie if she wakes up.
In the main room, my mother is unpacking supplies from a bag she brought, including a thermos of coffee, some sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, and a container of cookies. My father is standing at the front window with the curtains pulled back just enough to watch the tree line. Kane and Sydney have taken positions at opposite ends of the porch. I can see the glow of a cigarette tip moving in the dark outside the east window. Carter, making his rounds.
"We'll be fine here," my mother says, catching my eye. She's using her calm voice, the one she used when I was a kid and something had gone wrong at school and she wanted me to know that the world was still turning. "Your father and I have the couch. Carter's outside. Kane and Sydney are watching the road."
I nod because I can't find the words. The cabin feels like it's breathing around me with the old wood settling, the wind in the eaves, and the faint tick of the lamp's filament.
Trenton and Matthew come back from checking the generator. They're already wearing a look I know well, the one that means the planning phase is over and the execution phase is starting.
"Morgan." Trenton stops in front of me. His hand finds the back of my neck, his thumb pressing into the muscle just below my hairline. "We're going now."
I look at Trenton and Matthew beside him. At the two of them standing together in this small mountain cabin with their shoulders set and their faces hard and their eyes full of things they can't say out loud.
"Find him," I tell them.
Matthew steps forward and presses his mouth to my forehead. His lips are warm. "We will."
Trenton's hand tightens on the back of my neck for one more second, one more second of this, of us, of the three of us standing in a room together, and then he lets go.
They move toward the door. Matthew grabs a bag from beside the sofa, the weapons bag, the one that's been in the truck since we left the house. My father turns from the window and crosses to them, and the three men speak in low voices by the door for a moment, a quick exchange I can't hear.
Then the door opens, and cold air rushes in, and Trenton and Matthew step out into the dark.
I move to the window. My father pulls the curtains back for me. I watch the headlights of Matthew's truck flare to life in the clearing, the engine catching with a low rumble. Trenton climbs into the passenger seat. For one moment, before the truck turns, the interior light catches his face, and he's looking back at the cabin.
At me.
Then the light goes out, and the truck pulls away, and the red of its taillights disappears into the trees.
My father's hand lands on my shoulder. Solid. Warm.
"They'll be back," he says.
