Chapter Sixteen
Late afternoon, Amara rode the stallion north.
The reins slid easy through her fingers, leather warm and familiar, the way her daddy taught her—two fingers between, wrists soft, heels quiet.
The horse moved under her like memory, sure, proud, and restless.
They passed the creek slow, hooves clicking over stone.
Past the old barn with the tin roof that still whined in a wind.
She kept north, toward the rise where the soybean ended and the pasture cracked wide into highland.
And then—
There it was.
The ridge.
All flame and sprawl in the morning sun.
Sugar maple and hickory set fire to the hills, stitched with red sumac and the last of the goldenrod.
Patches of pine held their line on the higher slope, black-green and swaying like they didn’t owe autumn a damn thing.
Beyond that, the Appalachians rose like God’s own shoulder—weathered, watchful, blue at the edges like bruises half-healed.
Amara let the stallion pick his pace as they climbed. The wind met them high on the crest, carrying the crisp bite of turned earth, drying hay, chimney smoke from somewhere far. The east wind always found the pines first. Made them whisper.
She closed her eyes and listened.
She didn’t come up here often. Too far from the field. Too close to memory. But today, her body needed something her head couldn’t name.
Balance, maybe. Or peace.
Or just the simple grace of not being needed for five damn minutes.
The horse huffed and tossed his head. She leaned forward, stroking his neck, the leather creaking under her weight.
“Easy, Sunny,” she whispered. “Ain’t no rush.”
The fields rolled behind her, patchworked with harvest and hope, stitched in lines her father once planted by hand. She could see the tin roof from here. The barn. The path to the house he’d built with fists and plywood and too many late nights.
And she could see him—not the way he died, but the way he was.
Lincoln James. Sarge. Her daddy. Always smelled like tobacco and diesel and that one cologne Mama used to hate but bought anyway. He’d taught her to ride by the time she was seven, shoot by the time she was ten, and lie like a lawyer when the tax man came sniffing.
He did not—would not—go out with a shotgun in the cab and a bottle in his lap.
Not her father. Not the man who’d raised her to fight for her damn life.
Not the man who’d fought hard in the Marine Corps for years, who’d brought back some haggard, wayward solider one day to his dinner table, and called him son.
Ethan. What was he going to find out here in Calhoun? So much had changed since he’d been gone.
She clenched the reins and felt it burn down her throat. The kind of grief that didn’t make noise. Just hollowed you out.
“I know you didn’t do it,” she said aloud. The wind caught it and carried it downhill.
The stallion shifted. She steadied.
“Someone wanted you done,” she said. “And I’m not gonna let that go.”
The wind sighed through the pines again, like an answer.
She sat there a while longer, just breathing. Just being. The sun climbed a little higher. The ridge rolled on in every direction, solid and gold and unchanged by any one man’s death.
Amara turned the stallion west and let him run the high edge a while, his hooves cutting arcs through the grass.
There was still harvest to get in. Still mouths to feed. Still the goddamn south line to ride.
But not just yet.
Not until her lungs remembered how to fill.
Not until her father’s ghost stopped riding beside her.
Not until she could forgive herself for letting Ethan in—for one night, for one gasping moment—and waking up alone.
Blue shadows spread like spilled ink across the lowlands, and the wind smelled less like pine and more like iron. The air changed when east of the rise. Cooler. Quieter. And strange, in a way she didn’t like.
Still, she rode.
Past the split birch where the old moonshiners had buried their copper still. Past the rock shelf where she’d shot her first buck. Past the deer trail that twisted south—down toward the old fire road that used to run the length of the property and beyond.
The south line.
It wasn’t marked up here like it was down by the creek. But she knew where it ran. Knew it like she knew the scar on her hip or the sound of her father’s cough.
This road—this narrow, rutted trail—cut east through thick timber, then sloped downward toward a stretch of land that had no business being valuable unless someone wanted to hide something.
She pulled the stallion to a slow walk. His hooves thunked dully against packed dirt. Ferns lined the path, brushing at her boots. Blackberry vines curled dead and dry along the fence line. The trees here leaned closer, like they were listening.
Why the hell does Thetus want this?
It wasn’t ’til she said formed the thought that her spine prickled.
He didn’t want the farm. He didn’t want the house, the barn, the ridge.
He wanted this—this godforsaken cut-through, this backwoods artery that ran from her daddy’s south line straight through old mining country and, if she remembered right, came damn close to the ridge behind Hollis Whiskey.
It wasn’t about land.
It was about access.
She sat still in the saddle, boots braced in the stirrups, breath catching like thread through a needle. Somewhere deep in the woods, a hawk called once and went silent. Her hand slid to the saddle horn, grip tightening.
Then—
Tires.
Distant.
Crunching.
Slower than joyriders, heavier than hunters. A deliberate rhythm. Not coming from her side, but through the woods, down from where the road dipped and cut toward the hollow.
Her stallion’s ears twitched back.
“Shit,” Amara hissed under her breath, pulling the reins and nudging him toward the trees.
But hiding a thousand-pound animal wasn’t like ducking behind a barn door.
The horse huffed loud in protest, hooves stamping wet leaves, the bridle clinking like a damn dinner bell.
She hissed again, softer this time, dragging them deeper into cover, heart thudding in time with the crunch of approach.
She couldn’t see them yet.
But they were coming.
And whoever it was had no business driving this road after dark—unless they thought no one would notice.
Unless they thought it was theirs.
The horse shifted under her again, snorting once.
She clamped a hand down on the reins and whispered, “Shhh, please,” as if her voice could command stillness.
It couldn’t.
But she held tight anyway, crouched low in the saddle, heart thundering as the trees thickened and the headlights swept shadows ahead of sound.
She didn’t know what she’d just found, only that it wasn’t meant to be seen.
And she wasn’t supposed to be here.
A truck crawled around the bend like a predator on its belly—matte black, wide-wheeled, no plates. It rolled quiet over the gravel, tires slow, deliberate. A spotlight snapped on—too bright for the hour—and swept the woods.
Amara froze in the saddle, half-twisted behind a tree. The stallion jittered beneath her, flank twitching, one hoof pawing the dirt.
Please don’t move.
The beam passed. Paused. Came back.
The truck halted.
Driver’s door popped.
A man climbed out.
He was lean, average height, geared up like he belonged to no one. Jeans, dark jacket, black gloves. Something about the way he moved sent cold down her spine—not rushed, not surprised. Planned. And then she saw the shimmer of the goggles as he scanned the tree line.
Thermals.
“Shit,” she breathed, barely a whisper, panic rising like bile.
The stallion shifted again, grunted soft.
The man turned.
And just like that, the hunt began.
She spurred the horse hard.
“Go!” she snapped—and he did, launching through the underbrush, the initial jolt nearly unseating her.
Behind her was the rustle of limbs, the pound of boots.
And then—
Gunfire.
Cracks shattered the air, echoed off the trees.
A flash of pain struck near her thigh—something grazed, maybe. Or maybe it was the horse. She couldn’t tell.
They thundered through the forest—leaves slapping her face, branches clawing at her shirt.
The stallion leapt a downed log like it was born to run for its life.
More shots. Bark exploded near her shoulder.
She ducked low, arms clutching the neck, feet fighting for stirrups, no time to think, only to go.
She didn’t dare look back.
Couldn’t.
The world was a blur of green and gold and blood-orange dusk, trees flickering past, hooves pounding earth like drums of war.
A clearing opened, brief and bright—
Then the stallion bucked.
Hard.
Amara flew.
No time to scream. No time to brace.
Just sky.
Then ground.
Then nothing.
The impact slammed through her like a hammer. Shoulder first, then ribs, then her head cracked against something wet and moss-slick. Air punched out of her lungs. Her vision scattered like leaves in wind.
The world reeled.
Then righted.
Then reeled again.
Horse…
She blinked through the blur just in time to see the stallion vanish between trees, tail flagging, wild with terror.
Gone.
Fuck. No. Don’t leave me—
But he was gone.
All that was left was the rising hum of insects, the last echo of tires, and the distant click of someone reloading.
Her hands scrabbled at the ground. Dirt under her nails. Heart in her throat.
But her body—
Her body wouldn’t move right.
Her vision tunneled. Ears ringing.
She pressed one trembling hand to her temple and felt warmth. Slick. Copper.
“Shit,” she muttered. Or thought she did. No sound came.
And then the forest leaned in.
Dark.
Deep.
Watching.
She rolled to her side, tucked against a log, breath ragged, and went still.
Very still.
Because if she moved, she’d die.
If she breathed too loud, she’d die.
And as blackness crept up the edge of her sight, the last thing she saw was her father’s face.