Chapter 134
Evelyn cleaned the wound with care, her hands steady where Rose’s trembled.
The bullet had passed through the upper arm, missing bone but tearing enough tissue that fresh blood surfaced when the bandage was changed.
Rose sat at the table with her jaw set and her good hand flat on the map.
Charlotte watched from a chair pulled close enough that her knee touched Rose’s beneath the table.
“Start from the beginning,” Charlotte said. “The attack. Everything you saw.”
Rose nodded. “We were two days out from Georgetown on the return leg. Around noon, we crossed the ridge east of the settlement and dropped into the valley where the trail meets the old service road.”
She traced the route on the map. The line ran southeast from Georgetown, then cut east across open country before turning north toward the cabin.
“We heard vehicles before we saw them. Engine noise from the north. Two, maybe three. Military pattern, not random. They were moving with purpose.” Rose’s finger stopped on the map.
“Here. The meadow where the service road widens. They came from the trees. Humvees, mounted guns, at least eight soldiers dismounting before the vehicles stopped.”
Charlotte listened. Each detail found its place in the mental map she’d been building since the collapse.
“Sophia was ahead of me on the trail. She turned at the sound. I called for her to get down, but they were already firing. Suppressive fire, not aimed. They wanted us pinned, not dead. I returned fire. Got one, I think. Then something hit my arm, and the rifle dropped.”
Rose paused while Evelyn wrapped the cleaned wound with a strip of cloth. The cabin was silent except for Rose’s voice and the soft hiss of the lantern.
“I went to ground behind a fallen log. Sophia was twenty yards ahead, behind a rock outcrop. I saw her stand up. She had her hands raised deliberately. She was making herself visible. Giving them a target that wasn’t shooting back.”
Charlotte closed her eyes briefly. Her daughter had made the same calculation she had made on the road, that surrender might keep them both alive.
“They took her fast. Two soldiers moved in from the flanks while the others kept firing. She didn’t fight. She went with them. They put her in the second vehicle. I saw that much before the shooting started again, and I had to move.”
Rose’s good hand moved across the map, tracing her escape east, then north, using terrain for cover. She had followed the convoy as far as she could, memorizing every landmark that might matter later.
“They took the service road east to the junction with State Highway 40 and north from there. I climbed the ridge above the highway and watched from the tree cover. Three vehicles total. The lead Humvee, a transport truck, and another Humvee trailing. They moved in formation. Like they were on schedule.” She marked the highway with her fingertip.
“I followed parallel to the road until the blood got bad. There’s a burned gas station at the junction with County Road 74 and a water tower north of it with faded lettering.
After that, the highway curves east toward Denver.
I lost visual there and had to find cover. ”
“How many soldiers in total?” Charlotte asked.
“With the vehicles? Twelve, maybe fourteen. The transport truck had canvas covering the bed. Could have been more inside.”
“Did you see any other prisoners?”
Rose shook her head. “Just Sophia. They handled her professionally, not rough. Like she was valuable.”
The implication was clear. Valuable captives were kept alive for interrogation.
Charlotte understood what professional handling entailed.
She stood up and leaned over the map, her shadow falling across the paper where Rose’s route ended at the eastern curve of Highway 40, the road that bent toward a city she had been trying to avoid. Denver.
The name had haunted her since the checkpoint weeks ago, when the soldier with gray temples spoke of consolidation with casual certainty.
She knew exactly where they would take prisoners in a city undergoing such consolidation.
They would use a secure infrastructure that provided both space and access to transportation.
The same soldier had mentioned that the old airport east of the city was being transformed into a processing center for detainees and military supplies.
Charlotte traced the location on the map. “She’s there,” Charlotte said. “The airport. East of the city. That’s where they process prisoners.”
“How do you know?” Rose asked.
“Because a man at a checkpoint told me, and I believed him. Some intelligence you trust because the alternative is having nothing at all.”
The cabin was quiet. Liam had been listening from the doorway.
Evelyn finished with Rose’s bandage and stepped back, resting her hands on the younger woman’s shoulders for a moment.
Charlotte was already moving toward the pack she had set by the hearth.
She would need water, food, medical supplies, the folding knife, and the altered identification papers.
Mason watched her from across the room. His face carried the stillness of a child who had learned to read adult decisions before they were spoken, and what he saw in Charlotte’s movement made his hand find Jack’s head with automatic tenderness.
She knew where to start, but the realization wasn’t a relief.