Chapter 57 Saint
Saint
The cabin was never meant to be permanent.
It was meant to be quiet.
A place off the map.
A place no one would look too closely.
But quiet isn’t safe anymore. They all know where we are.
I stand at the window and watch a truck I don’t recognize roll slowly past the end of the dirt road.
Too slowly.
The driver doesn’t even pretend to be looking somewhere else.
A minute later, the truck turns at the bend.
Then circles back.
“That’s the third time today,” Wolf says from behind me.
I nod.
“Yeah.”
My jaw tightens.
“We’re done hiding.”
Laney is at the kitchen table, packing the baby’s bag with careful, precise movements.
Diapers.
Blankets.
Bottles.
Everything organized like she’s preparing for something bigger than a short trip.
She looks up.
“You’re sure?”
I meet her eyes.
“No,” I say honestly.
Then I glance back toward the road.
“But I’m sure this is what she wants least.”
Marco leans against the doorway.
“Visibility,” he says quietly.
“And witnesses.”
Trigger steps in from the porch.
“And backup,” he adds. “A lot of it.”
I look back at Laney.
“This means the Last Stand,” I say. “It won’t be quiet. It won’t be normal.”
Laney looks down at our daughter sleeping in the carrier.
For a moment she brushes a finger over the baby’s cheek.
Then she lifts her head again.
“It hasn’t been normal for a long time,” she says softly.
“And I don’t want her growing up while we’re hiding.”
That’s the moment it settles.
Decision made.
We move that afternoon.
And for the first time since this started…
We’re not trying to disappear.
We’re planting a flag.