Chapter 30 Lara
Lara
Guilt pierced my chest over the fact that it took a single, significant second after his phone buzzed for the need to find Rachel to surmount the brutal ache I had for the man in front of me.
The one who’d cut a precise path through the mountains, stitched our way through a forest of trees, and led us across a stream with the expertise of a surgeon.
All I wanted was to spend time with him, but now, like then, the need to protect my sister surpassed everything.
While Calder went to his phone, I quickly slipped my socks and Colby’s hiking boots back on, ignoring the protest of my aching feet.
“Is it the photos?” I asked and went to stand next to him, my front pressed to his side.
He tilted the Garmin sat phone so I could see the screen and what waited on the ridge above us.
“Here is their main entrance.” Calder pointed to two small squares and a thin line of gate connecting them.
Outside the gates were several parked vehicles.
Two trucks and two four-wheelers. Panning and zooming to a different spot, he added, “It looks like the whole thing is encircled by a wooden perimeter fence except for this side, where we’re coming from.
” Because they thought the access we’d taken would be too involved for anyone to attempt.
Anyone except Calder Stone.
“These are probably living quarters for higher-ranking members. The smallest buildings usually are.” Six square structures lined the un-fenced edge of the compound, one larger than the rest. The camera caught the glare off their solar panels.
“The biggest building is usually communal space for meetings, dining, and administrative.” He zoomed in on the building with the largest rectangular footprint, making it easier to see that it was a large A-frame.
“That looks like a greenhouse.” I pointed to the white-capped structure in the corner, and Calder nodded. “Where do you think they’re keeping Rachel?”
“Probably one of these buildings.” He panned over to the farthest side of the compound, where there were two more buildings of medium size. “Once the sun starts to set, he’ll send the drone for a closer sweep.”
I felt the urge to take the lead and insist we should go investigate now. I felt it and I swallowed it, asking instead, “What’s our plan?”
Calder shut off the phone and turned to me, his eyes glittering in the low-hanging sun. “I know you want to storm the gates, Tomb Raider, but I promised I’d find your sister. I promised you I’d get her out of this safely, and that’s what I’m going to do, but we have to do it my way.”
“I know,” I murmured, feeling his knuckles catch under my chin and something even stronger catch in my chest.
Even though my anxious heart wanted something different, I’d always been on Calder’s side of this argument.
Calm and careful when it came to my patients.
Now I stood on the other side of the proverbial hospital bed.
Now I was the loved one who wanted to rashly swoop in like loving my sister was enough to mitigate every risk of acting irrationally.
“The sun starts to set in a little over an hour. We have to be back here before then, so I can get a fire going before dark. Dusk will mask the smoke and not highlight the flame.” He picked up his weapon and clipped it at the small of his back.
“We’ll hike up to the edge of the compound and get a lay of the land.
What buildings are what. Who is where. Any kind of idea of what happens in the span of a day.
” He paused. “Surveillance. Knowing Rachel’s location is only half the battle—a losing half, if we can’t get to her and get her out of there safely. ”
Again, I felt the instinct to insist on a plan of my own—to search every building under the cover of night until we found my sister and got her out of there. And the urge softened. Settled. Soothed.
“Do you think they’re . . . armed?”
Calder frowned. “Even their wilderness retreat came with armed guards.”
My stomach rolled into a knot.
Even bandaged, my blisters protested for every step. But I’d long ago perfected the art of ignoring my own needs—food, sleep, a bathroom break—when it came to saving someone’s life. A determination that only deepened when that someone was Rachel.
Calder paused on the slope ahead of me, crouching and bringing his head closer to mine.
“Stay silent and stay behind me. If I tell you to stay put, you stay. If I tell you to run, you go back to the camp, you grab the sat phone, you find a hiding place beyond the boulder field, and you call Callum. His is the only number saved. Understand?”
Collected, commanding Calder was back.
“Yeah,” I murmured, something twisting tighter in my chest as he looked at me.
And then his arm snaked out and he hauled my mouth to his in a hard kiss. Lips and tongues combusted for a single second, the explosion of a supernova before he yanked away.
“Promise me,” he said, his tone ragged like it was the first time he’d trekked over those words. The first time he’d encountered a scenario where there was more that he cared about at risk.
“I promise.” The twist between my ribs loosened, and we started up the last few yards of the climb.
If I wasn’t convinced this place would end up on a Netflix cult documentary one day, I could’ve admired the way the Eden’s Children compound was built. The log cabin structures. The solar power. The cistern for water. An entire self-sufficient community left to its own devices.
When we reached the edge of the ridge, a thicket of trees allowed us to safely peer into the compound.
I followed Calder’s lead, staying flat to the ground as we observed a man in dark-green scrubs enter the larger cabin to our left.
From our vantage point between the two cabins, we watched a group of three women pass through the center of the compound.
My heart immediately rocketed into my throat, thinking one of them was Rachel. It wasn’t.
After a few minutes of little activity, Calder motioned and we moved around the perimeter. Keeping low, we were bathed mostly in shadow all the way to the end of the six larger cabins. Beyond them, we had a wide view into the center of the compound.
Two more men in green carried a large wooden podium and set it up in the middle of the grassy space.
Behind them, two women in the same blue-gray Wilderness Within uniforms began arranging cushions into orderly rows, and I immediately thought of Rachel putting on those clothes.
Going to the retreat to find herself, and instead being manipulated into someone else’s twisted fantasy.
A bell chimed from the large A-frame to our right—the same sound Dr. Julia played through our tent’s speakers. Calder and I looked at each other, having the same thought. Was Eden’s Children kept to the same schedule we’d been on at the retreat?
Moments later, the doors of the big building opened and two dozen women filed out, some smiling and laughing together. Others silent, looking to each other nervously. All in the same uniform. I squinted and looked for my sister. Even at a distance I’d see her. I’d know her. And she wasn’t there.
The group went to the lawn and filed into rows, taking a seat on their knees and resting their hands on the tops of their thighs. It was a little thing, but it made my stomach turn.
Breathe, Lara.
Men in green exited from the cabins and headed toward the gathering. Everyone on the compound appeared to be congregating in the center of it, and all I could think of was Dr. Julia’s evening meditations.
I jerked when Calder touched my elbow. He tilted his head toward the A-frame: Time to move.
We slipped behind the large building, pressed against its back. Behind the A-frame was a greenhouse, a row of composting toilets, and two large rainwater cisterns.
We crept from the A-frame to the next building. On our right, an eight-foot wooden fence, the ends sharpened and threatening. On our left, the windowless building, a boon now but a worry for later.
Calder slowed and peered around the corner. After a beat, he crooked his finger for me to look. From here, we could see almost everything: the metal entrance gate to our far right, the cabins encircling the center, the A-frame’s front with a massive sign above the door, Eden carved into it.
In the center of the lawn, all the women were seated, the six men in green forming a row behind them.
And then a man stepped onto the podium. He had longer, wavy hair, a classically handsome face with a straight nose, hard cheekbones, and a wide smile for his crowd.
He was one of those men who sat comfortably in the category of Aged Well.
Wearing all-white scrubs, he stood apart from everyone else, leaving no doubt to who he was. Adam Eden.
Tension rippled through Calder as the cult leader started to speak. “Good evening, my beautiful children. Another day, another courageous step toward your authentic nature. We bring the day to a close the way we always do, with a gentle reflection on why we are all here and our purpose.”
While I listened, Calder’s attention shaded in the details of the compound. The buildings. The people. The threats.