Chapter 11
EVELYN
“Appreciate the patch job,” Dutch said, flexing his fingers to test the bandage when Trent finished wrapping his arm. “Been cut worse shaving.”
Trent secured the gauze with medical tape. “Seven stitches isn’t nothing. You need to keep it clean.”
Dutch grunted and pulled his arm back. “Got more important things to worry about than a scratch.”
“It’s not a scratch,” I said. “Those scissors nearly hit your artery.”
The old man’s eyes met mine, hard as the rocks that surrounded his cabin. “Takes more than little kiddie scissors to put me down.”
He pushed himself to his feet, wincing slightly when his injured arm bumped the table.
He crossed to the gun cabinet in the corner and pulled out a smaller handgun than the rifle he’d carried earlier.
The metal caught the lamplight as he checked the chamber and slid it into a shoulder holster hidden beneath his worn flannel shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Heading back to town.” Dutch pulled a small pair of binoculars from a drawer. “Need to know what we’re up against.”
Trent straightened, his left arm still held carefully against his body. “That’s suicide. The entire town’s compromised.”
“Not everyone.” Dutch tucked the binoculars into his jacket pocket. “Some folks have wells. Others are suspicious of the town water. Been telling people for years it was full of chemicals.” A thin smile creased his weathered face. “For once, I was right.”
“Dutch,” I said, moving closer to him. “It’s too dangerous. You saw what happened to Carol, to Wade, to Beth. They’d kill you without blinking.”
He pulled a worn knit cap over his gray hair. “I know these people better than you do. Know where they live, know their habits. Some of ‘em have been telling me about their off-grid setups for years.”
Trent studied Dutch’s face, then crossed to his duffel.
He dug through it and pulled out a small black device the size of a pen.
“Take this. It’s a signal detector. If you get close to the cell tower or any other transmitter broadcasting the control signal, it’ll vibrate. Don’t go near those locations.”
Dutch took the device, examining it with narrowed eyes. “Military grade?”
“Better.” Trent showed him how to clip it inside his pocket. “And take this.” He handed over a small black disc. “Tracker. Activate it if you need extraction. We’ll come for you.”
Dutch tucked both items away without comment and checked his pockets for the keys to the truck he’d hidden half a mile down the mountain.
“Figure I’ll check the houses on the outskirts first. Jeb Harper’s got a spring on his property.
Never trusted the town supply.” He glanced at me.
“The Kline family filters everything. Lindsay’s a nurse, paranoid about water quality. ”
I watched him gather supplies: a flashlight, extra ammunition, beef jerky, a canteen filled with water from his own well. His movements were practiced, each item placed in a specific pocket. He’d done this before.
“How will you contact us?” I asked. “We don’t have phones.”
“Got a two-way radio in my truck,” Dutch said. “Range isn’t great, but it’ll reach the cabin. There’s a matching one in the drawer by the sink.” He pointed with his good hand. “Channel three, tone six.”
Trent retrieved the radio, checking the battery and settings. “Check in every hour. If we don’t hear from you by midnight, we assume you’re compromised.”
Dutch nodded. “Fair enough.”
I tried to imagine Dutch wandering through Garnett, a town now full of blank-eyed people who moved in unison and spoke in flat voices. People who would see him immediately as an outsider, someone not part of their hive. The thought made my stomach twist.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said quietly. “Trent’s team will be here in eight hours.”
Dutch adjusted his hat, eyes meeting mine. “Eight hours is a long time, and there might be others out there. Folks who need help.” He paused. “I’ve lived in Garnett damn near my whole life. These are my neighbors.”
I understood then. Dutch wasn’t just gathering intelligence. He was looking for survivors.
“Be careful,” I said. “Don’t take risks. If someone’s already affected, you can’t help them.”
“I know that.” His gruff voice softened slightly. “Not my first rodeo, girl.”
Trent handed Dutch a protein bar from his own supplies. “Your blood sugar will drop from the injury. Eat this before you start the truck.”
Dutch took it without argument, tucking it into his pocket.
We walked him to the door. The night air bit with cold when Dutch pulled it open, stars starting to sparkle in the darkening sky. He stepped onto the porch, then turned back to face us.
“Lock up after me. Don’t open for anyone but me or Trent’s guys.” He tapped his jacket where the tracker was hidden. “I’ll be back before dawn. If not...” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“We’ll find you,” Trent promised.
Dutch nodded once, then disappeared into the darkness beyond the cabin’s small circle of light. I watched until I couldn’t see him anymore, just the faint outline of his figure moving through the trees, heading down toward the road where he’d hidden his truck.
Trent closed the door, sliding the heavy wooden bar into place and checking the locks. “He’s tough. He’ll be okay.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself.
“Do you think there are others?” I asked, then thought back to Jett’s confusion at his friends’ behavior in the store today. I answered my own question: “Never mind. I know there are.”
Trent moved to the window, peering out at the darkness. “But that’s not the real reason he went back.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s buying us time.” Trent’s face was grim in the lamplight. “Distracting them, maybe drawing them away from the cabin. He knows they’re looking for us, not him.”
I stared at the closed door, the weight of Dutch’s sacrifice settling over me. I’d known the man for six months, yet he was risking his life for us. For Sophia.
“He’s a good man.” I moved to check on Sophia on the couch. Thankfully, she was still soundly asleep. She looked so vulnerable there, so impossibly small against everything trying to hurt her.
“We should move her to the bedroom,” Trent said, his eyes lingering on Sophia’s small form.
I nodded, though the thought of putting her in another room made my chest tighten. “I don’t want her to wake up alone.”
“She won’t,” he assured me. “We’re right here. We can leave the door open.”
Together we moved her, Trent lifting her gently while I carried the blankets.
She stirred but didn’t wake as he laid her on the narrow bed in the smaller of Dutch’s two rooms. I tucked the blankets around her, smoothing her hair back from her forehead.
Her breathing remained deep and even, exhaustion keeping her under despite everything.
I sank onto the edge of the bed beside her, suddenly overwhelmed by the day’s events.
My body ached with fatigue, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing.
Langston had found us. Once again, he’d found us, just when I thought we were finally free.
I’d spent so many hours looking over my shoulder, jumping at shadows, trying to convince myself I was being paranoid. But I hadn’t been paranoid enough.
“You should get some rest,” Trent said from the doorway.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
He crossed the small room, sinking down beside me on the bed, careful not to disturb Sophia.
In the dim light filtering through the doorway, I could see the lines of exhaustion etched into his face, the four parallel scratches Beth had left across his cheek, the way he favored his left shoulder.
I remembered the crack of sound when he dislocated it to fit out the window and winced, lightly touching his arm.
“Does your shoulder hurt?”
He rotated the shoulder and tried to hide his grimace. “Not the first time I’ve dislocated it. Won’t be the last. It’ll heal.”
I studied his profile, so familiar and yet somehow new. Six months had changed us both. “You need to rest, too.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. None of us are fine.” I kept my voice low to avoid waking Sophia, but I couldn’t keep the edge from it. “Langston is using mind control technology on an entire town to get to us. That’s not fine by any definition.”
Trent’s mouth tightened. “We’ll stop him.”
“How? He has resources, connections. He’s working with a tech company that can literally control people’s minds.” I felt the familiar panic rising, that helpless feeling that had dogged me ever since I’d first tried to leave Langston. “We can’t fight that.”
His hand found mine in the darkness, warm and solid. “We can. My team has been tracking Innovixus for years. They know what they’re doing.”
I wanted to believe him, but I’d learned the hard way that good intentions weren’t always enough. “And in the meantime, what happens to everyone in town? To Beth? To Wade and Carol?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’re working on it.”
Sophia shifted in her sleep, her small face scrunching briefly before smoothing out again. I watched her breathe, this miracle of a child who’d survived so much already. She’d been born into Langston’s world of control and manipulation. I’d sworn she wouldn’t grow up in it.
“Why can’t he just let us go?”
“Because men like Langston don’t see people,” Trent said. “They see possessions, and they’d rather destroy what they can’t have than let it go.”
I knew he was right. I’d seen that side of Langston—the cold fury when he couldn’t control a situation, the calculated cruelty when someone defied him. I’d experienced it firsthand, carried the scars both visible and invisible.
He held out a hand to me. “Come on. Let Sophia sleep.”
I stared down at my daughter. She looked so peaceful now, her face relaxed in sleep, no trace of the terror that had consumed her hours before. I couldn’t bring myself to leave her, not yet.
“I’ll just stay a little longer.”