Chapter 8
We spent the next hour on the phone.
Ethan called the prosecutor.
Explained everything.
She said she’d send a team.
Swat.
US Marshals.
The whole thing.
They’d be at the cabin in four hours.
Four hours.
An eternity.
We sat around the fire.
Waiting.
No one spoke.
There was nothing left to say.
At one in the morning, I heard it.
A car.
Coming up the dirt road.
Slow.
Too slow.
Ethan stood up.
Extinguished the fire.
The cabin went dark.
“Not the marshals,” he whispered. “They’d use helicopters. Have sirens. This is quiet.”
He went to the window.
Peered through the curtains.
“Marcus,” he said. “And three others. Armed.”
Emily grabbed my hand.
Squeezed so tight her nails dug into my skin.
Ethan moved silently through the dark cabin.
Opened a closet.
Pulled out a shotgun.
Old.
But well maintained.
“Where did you get that?” I breathed.
“Grandpa’s,” he said. “He always said ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst.’ Smart man.”
He checked the shells.
Slid two into the chamber.
“Back bedroom,” he said. “Under the bed. There’s a trapdoor. Leads to an old root cellar. You two get in there. Lock it from the inside. Whatever you hear… whatever happens… don’t come out. Not until I come for you. Or until you hear federal agents announcing themselves. Understand?”
“Ethan, no,” Emily said. “You can’t face him alone. He’ll kill you.”
“I have to,” he said. “If I go down there with you, he’ll burn the cabin to the ground. He doesn’t care if we live or die. He just wants those documents. And Lucas. But if he thinks I’m alone… he’ll come in. He’ll want to gloat. That gives me the advantage.”
He looked at me.
“Sarah,” he said. “The documents are in the box under the table. Take them with you. If anything happens to me… you make sure the prosecutor gets them. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said.
He kissed me then.
Hard.
Desperate.
A goodbye kiss.
“I love you,” he said.
Then he pushed us toward the bedroom.
“Go,” he said. “Now.”
We ran.
Found the trapdoor.
Climbed down the ladder into the dark, earthen cellar.
Pulled the door shut above us.
Locked it.
Silence.
Then, above us, the front door crashed open.
“Ethan!” Marcus’s voice. Loud. Mocking. “Come out, come out, little brother. I know you’re in here. And I know you brought friends.”
A gunshot.
Close.
Wood splintering above our heads.
Emily whimpered.
I held her.
“I know you have the documents, Ethan!” Marcus shouted. “And I know the boy is hidden somewhere. Give them both to me… and I might let you and your little wife live. Maybe. Depends on my mood.”
Another shot.
Then Ethan’s voice.
Calm.
Steady.
“You always did talk too much, Marcus.”
BAM.
The shotgun.
A scream.
Not Ethan.
One of the men.
“Son of a bitch!” Marcus roared.
More gunshots.
Rapid fire.
Pistols.
The walls of the root cellar shook.
Dirt fell from the ceiling.
Then silence.
Long.
Terrible.
“Ethan?” Marcus called. His voice was closer now. Inside the cabin. “That was a lucky shot. But you only got one of them. I still have two more. And you’re out of shells. I know that old gun. Only two rounds. You’re empty, little brother.”
Footsteps.
Moving through the cabin.
Getting closer to the bedroom.
“Come on out,” Marcus said. “Let’s end this like men. Just you and me. No guns. No tricks. Just the two Carter boys. Settling this once and for all.”
The bedroom door creaked open.
Right above us.
“I know they’re down there, Ethan,” Marcus said. “I saw the trapdoor. You always were a sentimental fool. Keeping Grandpa’s little secrets. Give me the documents. Tell me where the boy is. And I’ll make their deaths quick. Painless even. Refuse… and I’ll bring them up here. And you’ll watch. Every. Slow. Second.”
The floorboards creaked.
He was standing right over us.
Then Ethan spoke.
From the other side of the room.
“You want me, Marcus?” he said. “Come get me.”
Running footsteps.
A grunt.
Fighting.
Furniture breaking.
Shouting.
Then a single gunshot.
Silence.
“Ethan?” Marcus’s voice. Scared now. “Ethan, you bastard… what did you do?”
Another shot.
And then nothing.
Emily and I held each other in the dark.
Waiting.
For what felt like hours.
Then the trapdoor above us rattled.
“Sarah?” Ethan’s voice. Weak. But alive. “Emily? Are you down there?”
We scrambled up the ladder.
I unlocked the door.
Threw it open.
Ethan stood there.
Blood on his face.
His shirt torn.
A pistol in his hand.
Behind him, on the bedroom floor, lay Marcus.
Not moving.
May you like
A dark pool spreading beneath him.
“He’s dead,” Ethan said. “It’s over.”
