Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)(61)

“Mom—” Lanny says. “What’s wrong? Why? We just got home!”

I shout, “What did I just say?” I never yell at my kids, never, and I see both of them flinch and it makes me heartsick, but they move.

Sam’s standing up now, too, and he says, “Gwen, what the hell?”

“They’re going to come for us,” I tell him. “They used me to get to Carol. Maybe they already have her. But they aimed Vee right at us. They want us to chase a lead right back to the Assembly of Saints, and we’re not doing that. We need to get out of here.”

“Hey. You’re not making a lot of sense here. Maybe we just need to sit down and think this—”

Now I’m shouting at him. “We are not safe!” I’m acting irrationally, in his eyes. And maybe he’s even right. Maybe I’ve gone a little crazy. But I remember how Remy slipped off into the night without a ripple to mark his disappearance. And those other young men. I remember the oppressive horrors I saw in Wolfhunter, and I don’t want to be here.

Sam steps into it. Into my chaos and rage and fear. He puts his hands on my face, and the touch stills me a little. Centers me. I catch a breath, and he stares into my eyes. “Gwen,” he says. “If you want to go, we’ll go. No more questions.”

I am so grateful for that I nearly choke on the swell of relief. I sag into his embrace for a warm, precious second, and I feel safe there. I know it’s an illusion, but it helps.

When I push back, I say, “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Always,” he replies, low in his throat. And I realize that it’s true. He does trust me. And I haven’t given him that same respect, not consistently. He’s not demanding for me to explain. He’s just trusting my instincts. “Come on. Let’s get packed and go.”

I stop to open up the gun safe under the couch, and take out the weapon I keep there. I grab extra ammo from the supply I keep behind books on the bookcase. All of it goes into a backpack. When it comes to clothes, I just grab a couple of changes and shove them in on top. Doesn’t matter if it looks good. Shirts, pants, underwear. Good enough. Sam’s shoving toiletries into a bag and tossing it to me to throw in as he heads for his side of the closet.

Five minutes.

Lanny and Connor are done ahead of us, which is flat-out amazing; I’m zipping the backpack when Sam freezes for a second and says, “Shit. I forgot to tell you. There’s a police cruiser out on the road, they want to take us to the station. Lanny needs to give a statement about what happened at Killing Rock.”

“We’re not going,” I tell him. “They’re not going to arrest her, Sam. Not tonight anyway. And we can make amends on that tomorrow.” I’m afraid right now. Deeply, viscerally afraid that everything, everything is going to go completely wrong. If the Assembly of Saints thinks I know where Carol is, they’ll come for us. Or they’ll just come for revenge. Or to find out what we know. Or . . . any of a thousand reasons, and I know, because ice-cold Carol is afraid of these people, that I cannot risk my family here. I want to hunt them. I don’t want them to hunt me. Stillhouse Lake no longer feels safe to me. It feels like a trap.

“Okay,” he says. Another gift of trust. He takes the backpack.

I hear the doorbell ring, and absolute terror bolts through me. I move the borrowed Browning in the holster until it’s snug against the small of my back. I draw the gun and ease ahead of Sam. “Lanny,” I say, as she turns toward me, eyes wide. “Open the safe room.”

She drops the backpack she’s holding and runs to push the chairs and dining room table another foot back. Our safe room—original to this house when we bought it—isn’t fancy, but it’s secure, and she clicks open the hidden door in the wall and starts keying in the code. I leave her to that and look out the peephole.

There’s a Norton police cruiser parked in our driveway with its red and blue lights flashing, and two uniformed officers standing there on the porch. I can’t see their faces; the brims of their caps throw dark shadows. But the uniforms look authentic.

“False alarm,” I say to Sam, and put my gun away. I hear Lanny still pressing buttons. She’s trying too hard; she’s erroring out the code. “Lanny, it’s okay. Never mind. Kezia sent a cruiser. I’m going to send them away, and then we’re out of here.”

“Kezia was pretty firm that she wanted her statement immediately,” Sam warns.

“And I’m going to tell them, very politely, to fuck off.”

I disarm the system and open the door.

That’s my mistake, but I don’t know it for a few long seconds. All I see is uniforms . . . and then I see the faces. One of them has a beard.

There are no Norton cops with beards. It’s a rule. And their uniforms don’t fit.

They’ve taken out the cops.

I go for my gun, but I’m already too late; the first man started moving the second the door opened, and now he stiff-arms it and forces me back, and his gun is in his hand while mine is still holstered. He puts the barrel to my forehead and drives me backward. Shock blows through me like an explosion, but it leaves something else: rage and fear, tearing along my nerves and pooling cold in my stomach.

I back away. He follows and keeps the gun to my head. One slight pressure on that trigger and I’m gone. I want to look for my kids, but I don’t dare. I can only pray they’re getting into that safe room.