Into the Fire

by Kyla Stone

  Park crumpled to the ground. Blood bloomed across his slackened face, soaking his dark hair. He didn’t move. He didn’t get up.

  He was dead.

  Dakota froze in horror, her sweaty finger still on the trigger. Just like that, Park was gone.

  He was dead because of her. She’d failed him.

  Ezra didn’t freeze. From the sniper’s nest, he rained bullets down upon the Shepherds.

  A cacophony of booms shattered the air as both sides let loose in a furious exchange of firepower.

  Reuben’s body jerked as several bullets thwacked into his vest. He dropped to his knees.

  The Shepherd beside him glanced down at Reuben. Another boom thundered from above Dakota. A hole appeared in the center of the Shepherd’s forehead. He slammed backward, the rifle flying from his fingers, dead before he hit the ground.

  Ezra didn’t take prisoners.

  The bearded Shepherd on the left side got off a quick volley. Rounds struck the cabin in a wide arc. Dust and shards of concrete sprayed everywhere.

  Dakota ducked. It took everything in her not to curl into a ball on the floor behind the sandbags, her hands over her ears, and collapse into tears.

  Her whole body was shaking, her ears ringing. She kept seeing the wide desperation in Park’s eyes, the spray of blood, his body lying there, unmoving.

  She sucked in a sharp breath and shot a quick glance at Eden. The girl was crouched, aiming and firing out the window with her shotgun even as tears streamed down her cheeks. She was crying, but she was defending the cabin just the same.

  Her heart swelled with pride—and fresh determination. Get it together, Dakota! If she didn’t get her crap together right now, someone else was going to die. Maybe they all would.

  She couldn’t afford to think about Park. She couldn’t afford to think about anything but keeping Eden and everyone else alive.

  Cautiously, she raised her head.

  More gunfire shattered the night air. The bearded Shepherd’s body jittered. His head snapped back, and he collapsed like his bones had turned to water.

  She didn’t know if the rounds came from Ezra or Logan, or Eden. It didn’t matter. Three Shepherds were down.

  She searched for Maddox again, scanning the bright white yard. He was running straight for the cabin, crossing the small space far too rapidly. She squeezed the trigger—missed.

  Aimed again quickly, fired, and struck him low on the right side, but still on the vest.

  He stumbled.

  Automatic rounds tore into the wood window frame two feet above her head. Thunk, thunk, thunk. She was forced to duck, eyes squeezed shut as slivers of wood sprayed around her.

  By the time she raised her head, Maddox was on his feet, Reuben staggering behind him. They both made it around the east corner of the cabin before she could re-aim and fire.

  Distant thunder rumbled. A few seconds later, lightning lit up the sky.

  “We’ve got company!” Julio shouted from the back bedroom. “At least a dozen hostiles, coming from the swamp!”

  60

  Dakota

  “You help Julio and Ezra at the back,” Logan said. “I’ll keep these two from breaching the front.”

  Dakota gave a terse nod and scurried from the living room, through the kitchen and hallway to the rear bedroom’s fortified window.

  She took up her position, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She quickly squeezed off a burst of three shots, taking out one Shepherd at the knees who’d dodged out from behind the henhouse wall to shoot at her, then swinging her aim back and forcing a second behind the treeline a hundred and fifty yards away. Spent shell casings spat out, bounced around.

  Above her in the attic, Ezra fired and took out two more. Then another dropped and didn’t get up. They were taking them out one by one, but it wasn’t easy.

  The Shepherds were approaching with skill, moving forward in spread-out groups of four, while four remained behind to offer covering fire. They stayed close to a straight line toward the cabin from the dock, trying not to stray into the parts of the property that hid the booby traps.

  Her heart sank. Park had told them about the traps. She didn’t blame him. It had nothing to do with bravery or cowardice. Under torture, most people would give up their grandmothers after the first couple of broken fingers.

  But Park hadn’t remembered the location of all the traps. Neither could the Shepherds in the dark, under the onslaught of stress, panic, and oncoming fire.

  One of the Shepherds strayed a few feet to the right. He jerked and stumbled as his leg disappeared into a hole. Dakota couldn’t see his face, but she imagined it contorting in agony as the spikes punctured the man’s boot and lanced deep into the flesh of his foot.

  The Shepherd went down hard, struggling to pry his leg free. His companion bent over him. She zeroed in on the fallen man. Squeezed the trigger. His head snapped back.

  His companion sprang up, about to dart away, but it was too late. She shifted her sights a smidge up and to the left. Squeezed the trigger two times. The first one missed. The second grazed his shoulder.

  A third round punched through his throat. Not her bullet—Ezra’s. No matter how old he was, he was still a crack shot.

  Two less Shepherds to worry about.

  A dozen yards closer and to the right of the shed, another Shepherd went down as he activated a tripwire. Before she could aim, Ezra nailed him in the head with a single shot.

  Three down.

  She aimed at another hunched, loping figure and squeezed off a burst of shots. Her rifle clicked. She ducked back down behind the sandbags and reached into the duffle bag for another magazine.

  The ear-splitting rat-a-tat of automatic gunfire shattered the air. One of the motion lights on the eastern side of the cabin winked out. Then another.

  The Shepherds were intentionally shooting out the security lights. Now they could use their NV goggles to give them an advantage. They didn’t need the light. Dakota, Logan, and Ezra did.

  Ezra’s property plunged into darkness. Thunder rumbled. The wind shook the trees. The attackers were almost impossible to see in between the flickers of lightning.

  She squeezed the trigger again and again, shooting into the dark, hoping she was doing damage. A growl escaped between her gritted teeth. She emptied the magazine, removed it, and loaded another from her bag.

  This was stupid. She had to be smarter. She scanned the treeline, searching for muzzle flashes to expose their locations, her eyes dry and gritty from lack of blinking.

  Eternal minutes passed. She aimed and fired at the occasional muzzle flashes, but she had no way of knowing whether she’d hit her target. It was difficult to make out the ones stalking closer without firing.

  Over the barrage of gunfire, as a bullet found its mark or one of the booby traps crippled another victim, she caught the occasional scream of agony. From her count, they’d killed seven or eight Shepherds, but there were at least ten more.

  There were simply too many of them. Even with Ezra’s enormous stash of ammo, they would run out. They couldn’t compete with the automatic fire strafing the cabin again and again and again.

  Slowly, inexorably, the Shepherds inched closer and closer.

  61

  Dakota

  From behind Dakota came a groan, followed by a series of heavy thuds.

  She risked a quick glance back. Ezra had half-climbed, half-fallen down the attic ladder. He was crawling toward her on his hands and knees, more slowly than she’d ever seen him move. He’d aged another decade in the last thirty minutes.

  He raised himself to his knees and gingerly pressed his hand to his right shoulder. His fingers came away wet. A wide splotch of blood stained his plaid shirt, spreading from his collar to his shoulder and beneath his armpit.

  “You’re bleeding! You’ve been hit.”

  “I’m fine…I just…” He tried to raise his arm and grimaced, his face going white.

  “Sit down. Rest.�
�� She tried not to show her dismay. She was concerned for his welfare, but they were also horrifically outmanned. The loss of a shooter was nothing short of catastrophic.

  Julio was helping as much as he could. So was Eden. But the weight of this battle rested on Logan and Dakota’s shoulders now.

  Rounds struck the wall above the sandbags. She flinched and ducked. Flecks of dust drifted onto her head and shoulders as she ejected the AR-15’s empty magazine and slapped in another one.

  She checked on Eden with a quick glance to her left. The girl was crouched less than twenty feet away, below the kitchen window in front of the sink. She still held the shotgun, but her head was down, her knees drawn up to her chest, her whole body trembling.

  She’d gotten off several shots, but the constant barrage of bullets was too much for her.

  “I’m taking her to the shed bunker,” Ezra said.

  “No. It’s unsafe—”

  “It’s unsafe here. Their firepower is…unexpected. I didn’t know, I didn’t…” He stared her bleakly, his voice threaded with exhaustion. “She’ll be utterly safe there. Not even these rounds can penetrate the walls. There’s a lock on the inside with a keycode. They won’t be able to get in. You know that.”

  “Ezra—”

  He crawled closer, moving stiff and gingerly, his breathing labored. Blood dripped on the floor beneath him. “I’m useless to you,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation.

  It cost him to speak those words, to admit it. Pain, self-disgust, and defeat shadowed his gnarled features. With his wounded shoulder, he couldn’t hold the weight of a rifle or properly aim a pistol. He hated it, but he knew it.

  “I can get her there. You can’t focus when your attention is divided. Without me in the sniper nest, you need to be able to move between stations, to adjust on the fly. Let me take her.”

  Dakota raised up, peered through her sights, and scanned the dark yard. No movement.

  “A stray bullet could kill her. You can’t protect her and take out these fools. I’ve got her.” He gripped Dakota’s arm with his good hand. “Trust me.”

  She tasted drywall dust in her mouth and the metallic tang of blood. She’d bitten her own tongue. The stench of gunpowder filled her nostrils. Another round thudded into a kitchen cabinet two feet to the right of Eden.

  She did trust him. With her life, and with Eden’s. Wounded or not, she trusted him more than anyone, knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would protect her sister with his own life.

  “What about you?”

  “The bleeding isn’t bad.” He grimaced. “It just hurts like a mother, and I can’t hardly move it. But I’ll be fine. Eden can put some QuikClot gauze on it. You worry about defending this place. Come and get us when it’s over.”

  She nodded tightly. Quickly, she twisted and glanced up over the sandbags into the yard. “Looks like they’re all in the back. I don’t see anyone out front.”

  “Then we need to go now.” Ezra raised the radio with his splinted left hand. “Logan, can you clear a way to the shed?”

  The handheld crackled. “We’ll keep ‘em pinned in place. Give me sixty seconds, then go.”

  Ezra crawled for the doorway, his head down, huffing from the effort, and the pain. “Come on, girl!”

  Eden glanced at Dakota for confirmation. Her heart in her throat, Dakota nodded. There was no time to say anything or hug goodbye. I’ll never leave you. Never, ever.

  Ducking low, Logan ran into the room and headed for the kitchen window so he could cover their escape. “Go! Go! Go!”

  Just like that, Eden was gone.

  Dakota turned back to the task at hand. The Shepherds were too near the house. They were almost inside. She had to keep them distracted and pinned down so they didn’t notice Eden and Ezra fleeing the cabin.

  Dakota couldn’t afford to close her eyes, but she sent up a quick prayer to Julio’s God anyway. Keep them safe. I’ll do anything. Anything.

  62

  Logan

  Logan focused on providing covering fire from the kitchen window as Ezra and Eden escaped through the crawlspace Ezra had fashioned, shoving aside the rug and the fake tile in the bathroom and squeezing down below the floor.

  The remaining Shepherds were focused on infiltrating the rear of the cabin. Behind Logan, Julio clambered up the ladder to replace Ezra in the sniper’s nest. “Pin them down at the back door,” Logan called.

  “Got it,” Julio said tightly.

  A few eternal moments after they disappeared into the bathroom, they reappeared. Dark, shadowy forms moved behind the saw palmetto as Ezra punched through the flimsy, grassed-over hatch and slithered out, followed by Eden.

  “Logan,” Dakota said, her voice urgent, desperate. Dakota didn’t say another word, but she didn’t need to. He heard every ounce of her fear in the way she said his name.

  Logan scanned the dark yard, eyes straining for any movement, for a muzzle flash. Ezra and Eden dashed across the fifty yards of open ground to the shed, two dark shapes in a sea of black. Behind the shed, the trees waved and bent in the wind.

  Logan aimed and took out the motion sensor security lights before they could switch on. That strategy went both ways. It took several shots and who-knew-how-much roof damage, but he hit the general vicinity enough times that the lights were good and shattered.

  Through his scope, the taller shadow of Ezra stumbled, then righted himself and kept going, Eden a fluttering shape at his side. His gait was uneven, favoring his right leg. He limped across the yard, one hand on Eden, keeping her close.

  Logan swung the rifle and peered through the scope, searching for potential enemies. Every muscle in his body was stretched taut. Sweat dripped down his temples. They couldn’t run fast enough. Come on, come on.

  Movement. A dark shape crouched between two of the huge cisterns. A Shepherd.

  Logan fired three quick shots. Click.

  The figure disappeared behind the closest barrel as Logan ejected the spent mag and fumbled one-handed in his bag for a new one. Only one loaded magazine left.

  He swore under his breath and slapped it in.

  Lightning flickered in the clouds, illuminating the entire property. Ezra and Eden were frozen in the sudden strobe of light as Ezra wrestled to unlock the door.

  The figure behind the water barrel reappeared, the long barrel of a submachine aimed at Ezra’s back. No way the attacker could miss.

  Logan didn’t have time to aim. He squeezed off two shots, then two more. He held his breath, rigid and frozen, finger on the trigger, forced to wait desperately for the next lightning strike to determine Ezra and Eden’s fate.

  Had he hit his mark and saved them?

  Or had he failed? Were the two people Dakota loved most dead?

  Gunfire shattered the air. The stench of gunpowder scorched his nostrils. Thunder rolled and boomed.

  Lightning emblazoned the sky, highlighting the sharp outline of Ezra standing before the opened shed door, stooped over a large form on the ground at his feet, Eden shoved protectively behind him.

  The pistol wavered in the old man’s hand as he fired a single shot into the Shepherd’s skull. Logan had missed. Ezra hadn’t.

  But it had cost him. The old man dropped the gun and slumped against the door, his shoulders quaking. Everything went dark again. In the next shuttering flash, Eden was holding him up and pulling him inside. In the next, the doors were closed.

  They’d made it.

  Logan didn’t have time to feel relieved.

  A nearby shriek of pain rent the air. One of the intruders was trying to climb inside the bathroom window; the razor wire must’ve torn into his hands.

  The Shepherds had reached the cabin’s back door.

  63

  Logan

  They fought for what felt like days. Logan’s muscles ached. His eyes burned. He had no clue how much time was passing, minutes or hours.

  It was still dark. Outside, the thunderstorm boomed and crashed ab
ove them. Scattered gunfire punctured the air.

  The slide of his Glock locked back. His AR-15 was already empty. He had no more loaded magazines. He was completely out of ammo.

  “They’re at the back, about to break in!” Dakota said, moving fast and low from the back bedroom to the living room. Her ponytail sagged against her back, damp strands clinging against her smudged cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were wide, her pupils huge. “Any more ammo?”

  “No.” Logan pressed himself against the fridge in the kitchen, hoping it’d provide the cover the flimsy interior walls couldn’t, and peered around the corner into the empty hallway. His mouth was gritty with dust. His pulse roared in his ears.

  “There’s more in the shed. But we can’t get there—” Her tense expression brightened. She ducked low, scurried over to the couch, reached beneath it, and pulled out a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun and a box of shells. She tossed them both to Logan. “Ezra’s secret stash. There’s another Glock 19 taped underneath the cabinet next to the fridge. Ammo, too.”

  “We can’t keep them out,” he said, breathing hard.

  “I know. But if we’re going out, we go out fighting.”

  Logan gave her a tight nod, longing to say so much more, but there was no time. He cared nothing for himself; his only concern was Dakota.

  Already, the rear door was splintering off its hinges. The door was intentionally made the weakest entry point for a reason. The Shepherds would be forced into the narrow hallway, vulnerable and exposed. A twelve-foot funnel of death, Ezra had called it.

  Ezra had planned to lift the trapdoor in the ceiling and take them out one by one from his elevated position. But Ezra had gotten himself shot.

  Julio was up there, but he wasn’t nearly the sharpshooter Ezra was. He’d probably end up getting killed. Logan wasn’t willing to put Julio’s life on the line any more than it already was.