Chapter 18
The longer Sydney hid in the hay with the woman, the more she regretted her decision to hide out in the first place. The hay was hot and itchy, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to keep still and for the woman to remain quiet.
The woman was whimpering in her sleep, and Sydney placed a firm but gentle hand over her mouth to muffle the noise.
“How did she even get his gun?” The two men who had entered the barn after the gunshots were still pacing around the dead man, Frankie.
The two men who’d entered the barn were complete opposites. The short one was angry, but the taller one was calm.
“I don’t know,” the calmer man answered. “But that guy the others are chasing might know what happened. We catch him and we’ll get the answers we need.”
“I don’t care about answers!” the angry one shouted. “I want blood for the death of my brother.”
“We’ll make sure that his death doesn’t go unanswered,” the calm one replied. “Now, come on, we need to help with the search.”
“You go,” the angry man said. “I want to stay here for a minute longer.”
The calmer man didn’t object, and it looked like he was relieved he no longer had to be in the same barn as his comrade.
The woman next to Sydney started breathing heavier, and she pressed her palm harder over the woman’s mouth to keep her quiet. But when she moved, the hay rustled, and it caught the angry man’s attention.
Sydney froze as the angry man turned toward the noise. Through the strands of the hay, she saw the angry gunman staring right at them. But she wasn’t sure whether he could see them.
Sydney was convinced that the guy was going to find and kill them in an instant. But Sydney reminded herself she still had her gun, and if she needed to, she could shoot him before he killed them.
But if they were found out now, the gunfire would draw more attention to them, and Sydney wouldn’t be able to carry the unconscious woman to safety.
The man raised his gun and was aiming at Sydney, but she still couldn’t tell whether he truly saw her. It was as though he wasn’t sure himself.
Just when the gunman was about to step into the stall, the horse next to them whinnied. The man jumped and then grew embarrassed over the fact that he had let an animal frighten him. He angrily kicked the horse’s stall, and it jumped and whinnied even louder than before.
“Stupid horse,” he said, and then he finally walked away.
It wasn’t until Sydney couldn’t hear the man’s footsteps anymore that she finally allowed herself to breathe. But she was suddenly claustrophobic, hyperventilating as she escaped the hay.
All the adrenaline that she’d been holding suddenly came out all at once, and she couldn’t sit still, no matter how hard she tried. She was crawling out of her skin, and when she saw the man she had killed, all she could think about was the anger and fear that had brought her to do it.
It took all of Sydney’s control not to scream at the top of her lungs. But she had just evaded capture by all those gunmen, and she didn’t want to tempt fate.
Sydney turned to the woman in the hay and quickly removed her, too. She didn’t know how much time Teddy’s distraction was going to give her, but she didn’t want to waste it.
“Laura,” Sydney said, tapping the woman’s cheek once she removed most of the hay. “Laura, hey, you need to wake up.”
Sydney tapped the woman’s head and shoulders harder to wake her, and Laura eventually opened her eyes.
“There we go,” Sydney said. “I need you to get up, and we need to move quickly.”
Laura was clearly disoriented, but she managed to get to her feet.
“We need to move,” Sydney said.
“Move where?” Laura asked. “There’s nowhere for us to go!” Laura grew louder the more she started to wake up, but Sydney quieted her.
“There is the storm cellar outside the main house. It’s hidden, and I don’t think the criminals are going to bother to look down there. It’s the best place for everybody to hide until help arrives.”
Sydney glanced out the window from the barn to the house and saw only one person guarding the front door.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Sydney said, looking back at Laura, who was a mixture of fear and anger. “I’m going to take out the guard at the door. I need you to cause a distraction for me while I sneak up from behind.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Laura asked.
“Act like you’re hurt,” Sydney answered.
“I am hurt,” Laura replied angrily.
“Good, then it will be easy for you,” Sydney said. “Are you with me?”
“Yes,” Laura answered.
“Good. I want you to get as close as you can to him before he sees you,” Sydney said.
“And then from there, I’ll sneak up behind him and take him out.
But we need to make sure we are being as quiet as possible.
The last thing we want to do is draw intention to ourselves that would cause the others to come back before we’ve moved everybody out of the house. ”
Sydney wasn’t sure how Laura would respond under pressure. She had just been in a very brutal altercation, and it was clear she still hadn’t fully recovered. But the experience seemed to have hardened her against the fear of what they were facing.
“Okay,” Laura said definitively. “I can do that.”
“Good,” Sydney answered. “Then let’s get ourselves in position.”
But just as Sydney and Laura were about to help the others in the house, she heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire coming from the river.
“Hey,” Laura said. “Are we doing this?”
It was clear to Sydney that Teddy wasn’t going to make it on his own. But she also knew she wouldn’t be able to help Teddy and everybody inside the house simultaneously. She had to make a choice. Save Teddy or save the rest of the farm employees.
“Sydney!” Laura said.
“I know,” Sydney said, but before she was able to make a commitment either way, she heard the radio of the guard at the house.
“He’s here,” the man at the house said, speaking into the radio. “I repeat, he’s here.”
Sydney didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but then all she had to do was look to the entrance of the farm, where she saw a truck driving into the parking lot.
Laura walked up behind her as they remained in the barn, and Sydney suddenly realized they had lost their opportunity to escape as the other gunmen returned.
Sydney’s heart caught in her throat when she saw them coming over the ridge. She was livid with herself for allowing it to happen. She shouldn’t have put it in Teddy’s head to be so brave because now she feared it had gotten him killed.
But as the others returned, Sydney’s heart skipped a beat when she saw one of the men dragging Teddy by the collar.
He was alive.
When he moved closer, Sydney saw he had been beaten up a little bit, but he was still breathing. Sydney sighed with relief. There was always a chance to save someone so long as they were still breathing. And Sydney clung to that bit of hope.
But Sydney’s hope was short-lived as she saw the men gather around the truck that had just arrived. It was clearly someone who was important, and Sydney suspected it was the leader of this horrible group of men.
“What now?” Laura asked.
Sydney focused on the large group gathering around the truck.
The driver was greeted with open arms by the other criminals.
But when Sydney finally caught a good look at the person in the passenger seat, she felt her blood run cold.
Of all the people who could’ve been pulled out from the inside of the truck, seeing her mother didn’t even make the list.
“Who is that with them?” Laura asked. “Is that your mom?”
“It is,” Sydney answered, and now she had even more reason to save these people because they didn’t just have her friends. They had her family, too.