38. Boone
BOONE
My eyes fly open in the dark, and I reach for my rifle before I even fully know where I am.
Cabin. Couch. Living room.
I’m on my feet before the alarm pulses again. North perimeter.
Rhett’s door opens down the hall as Cade’s voice comes through my earpiece. “Movement north. More than one.”
I pull on my plate carrier over my T-shirt and shove my feet into my boots. “West?”
“Checking,” comes Cade’s reply.
Wren’s bedroom door opens, and if any part of me wasn’t wide awake, it is now.
“Safe room,” Rhett and I both tell her at the same time.
Her hair is messy from sleep, but her eyes are wide awake, and she already has her pistol in her hand. There’s fear in her eyes, but not panic, because our girl doesn’t panic easily.
“How many?” Wren asks, looking between us.
The receiver pulses again, then again from a different sensor.
Fuck. “Don’t know,” I tell her. “More than one.”
“Wren.” Rhett says her name like a warning.
“Safe room, sweetheart. Please.”
My request does what Rhett’s order doesn’t. Wren nods once and heads to the reinforced storage room off the hall.
“Lock it,” Rhett barks, and when I hear the deadbolt slide home, I let out a breath.
“North, west, southwest,” Cade reports. “Four men, maybe more.”
Fuck and fuck. This is more than a probe. This is Turner done waiting.
“Mouth, west,” Rhett says. “Smoke, north. I have southeast.”
We move without answering.
The cabin is dark. All the windows are covered except for narrow firing gaps Cade cut and taped during yesterday’s repairs. He walked the property for hours after they came the first time. He thought he’d closed all the gaps, but apparently, Turner’s got men good enough to find something he missed.
I take the kitchen angle, shoulder against the wall, rifle raised toward the west treeline. The woodpile’s out there, between here and the pines. Beyond it, everything’s in shadow.
A shot punches through the window, snapping the glass inward. I drop low as the round buries itself in the cabinet behind me with a hard crack.
I aim where the muzzle flash bloomed and fire one round, then another. A shape jerks behind the woodpile and disappears.
Rhett fires three shots from the front window, and Cade fires from the north side a second later.
Rounds chew through the wall near the kitchen window, and wood splinters against my cheek. A pan hits the floor with a loud metallic crash.
I track movement between two pines and fire again. “West contact,” I report.
“North two,” Cade answers.
“Southeast active,” Rhett says. “Hold positions.”
Another shot hits the front porch.
These aren’t amateurs. They’re using angles and pressing from three directions, forcing us to divide our attention.
Turner’s likely spending serious money to solve his Wren problem, and the thought turns my blood to ice.
“One shifting toward rear wall,” Cade’s voice says.
Rear wall. Safe room side. I leave the kitchen before Rhett can tell me not to.
“Boone,” he snaps.
“Covering Wren.”
He doesn’t argue, and that’s worse than if he had.
I move fast and low down the back hall. The safe room door is shut with no sound from inside. Good girl.
A shadow crosses the narrow utility window at the end of the hall, and I fire before his weapon clears the frame.
The window explodes and the man outside fires back.
Pain sears across my left side, white hot. Shallow, but mean as hell.
I hit the wall with my shoulder, bite down on a curse, and keep the rifle up.
“Update?” Wren’s voice is shaky and near tears, but still clear through the radio.
“I’m good,” I answer as blood runs beneath my shirt.
It’s not enough to stop me. Not even close.
Cade appears inside and sees my hand pressed to my side.
“Graze,” I tell him.
He fires through the broken utility window without blinking, and outside, a man curses.
“They’re pulling back,” Rhett calls.
I push off the wall and head back to the kitchen, because if I’m breathing, I can still be useful.
The firefight lasts another thirty seconds, or maybe a few minutes. Time is hard to track when men are trying to kill your family.
Someone whistles out by the trees, and the attackers break contact.
Rhett fires once more, and Cade sends a controlled shot toward the north drainage. I keep my rifle trained on the west treeline until the shadows fade away.
Things go quiet, except for glass tinkling to the floor and wind coming through broken windows.
“Report,” Rhett demands.
“North clear,” Cade answers.
“West clear,” I say.
“Southeast clear,” Rhett says. “Wren?”
“I’m here.” Her voice is still clear, but sounds like it’s taking all her effort.
After Cade checks camera feeds and confirms no movement, Rhett knocks twice on the safe-room door. “Open.”
The bolt slides, and Wren steps out with the pistol still in both hands. Her eyes go to Rhett, then Cade, then me.
“Boone!” The color leaves her face as she quickly holsters her weapon and heads straight for me.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s like you think I don’t have eyes. Sit down.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No pursuit,” Cade reminds us on his way to the front door.
“I know,” Rhett says.
Cade gives him a look that says he knows Rhett knows, but somebody still needs to say it. We’re all tempted to retaliate, and it would be a good way to get ambushed.
Wren shoves my plate carrier open and lifts my shirt. When air hits the graze, I hiss despite myself. Her eyes flash. “This is fine?”
“Fine adjacent.”
“Boone.” She sounds on the verge of yelling.
“It’s a graze. I promise.”
“It’s bleeding.”
“That’s what grazes do.”
She presses gauze to my ribs with enough pressure to make me see stars, and I decide to take her seriously. She’s scared and furious, but she’s alive.
I catch her wrist before she goes for more supplies. “Hey, I’m okay.”
“You were shot.”
“And I’m okay. We’re all okay.”
The terror she must have been holding back behind the safe-room door flashes in her eyes for a split second, then she swallows it down and tapes the gauze across my ribs with barely-shaking hands.
Cade comes back inside carrying something black in one gloved hand.
A radio.
He sets it on the table, and we all move in.
“One of them dropped it near the north drainage,” he says. “There was a blood trail there, too, but not enough to matter.”
“This isn’t cheap equipment,” Rhett says.
As he’s leaning in for a closer look, static crackles from the radio. A distorted voice breaks through. “—Sparrow hit. Pulling to two. Negative reengage.”
Another voice answers, half buried under encryption noise. “Federal eyes confirmed. East corridor staging compromised.”
Cade’s eyes narrow in on the device as he adjusts the dial with maddening precision.
There’s only static until, “Boss says load moves early. No delays. Start convoy prep tonight.”
The transmission dies, and none of us speaks for several seconds.
“The shipment,” Wren says.
Cade looks at Rhett. “The first week of July just moved up.”
Rhett already has his phone out.