MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER HAD BEEN FEEDING SOMEONE THROUGH A HOLE IN HER BEDROOM WALL FOR WEEKS. WHEN I FINALLY PULLED THE PANEL OPEN, A LITTLE GIRL LOOKED STRAIGHT AT ME AND WHISPERED, “DADDY.”

The beam of the lead vehicle’s spotlight swept across the cabin’s front porch, illuminating the peeling timber and the mud-spattered Ford truck.

“How did they find us?” Emily cried, her voice rising in panic as she pulled both Lily and Maya behind her toward the rear bedroom. “We took the old logging roads! Arthur killed the lights!”

“The truck,” Leo growled, his jaw clenching. He spun toward Arthur. “Did you use your old Ford?”

Arthur’s eyes went wide with sudden, sickening realization. “The farm registration... it had a low-jack transponder installed by the bank three years ago when I took out the agricultural loan.”

“Turn off the lantern!” I shouted.

Leo lunged forward, cupping his hand over the glass chimney and blowing out the kerosene flame. The cabin plunged into darkness, save for the dancing white beams of the headlights cutting through the front windows.

*Thump.*

A heavy, metallic thud echoed against the side of the cabin.

Then another.

“Tear gas!” Leo yelled, grabbing my arm and yanking me down behind the stone hearth. “Get on the floor! Don't breathe it in!”

*Hssssssss.*

Thick, acrid gray smoke began hissing through the broken window panes. The sharp, chemical stench of CS gas hit my nostrils, burning my throat like swallowed acid. My eyes began to stream with tears, my lungs seizing in violent coughing fits.

From the back bedroom, I heard Lily let out a terrified, strangled scream, cut short by Emily frantically muffling her with a wet towel.

Outside, an amplified voice boomed through a megaphone, cutting through the drumming rain and the wind.

“Leo Caldwell! Ryan Caldwell! This property is surrounded by eight armed security personnel! You have sixty seconds to send the child out through the front door!”

I wiped tears from my burning eyes, coughing into the sleeve of my jacket. Beside me, Leo was pulling a heavy steel safe box from beneath a floorboard near the chimney. He spun the combination dial with rapid, practiced fingers.

The lid popped open.

Inside was a weathered 12-gauge Remington shotgun and two boxes of heavy buckshot.

“Leo, no,” I choked out, grabbing his wrist. “There are eight of them. They have automatic weapons and night-vision gear. If you start a firefight in this wooden box, a stray round will go right through those drywall partitions and hit the girls.”

“Then what do you propose, Ryan?” Leo spat, his face twisted in desperate rage. “We walk out there and let them execute us in the driveway? You think Sterling is going to let your daughter walk away after seeing their faces?”

“No,” I said, my mind racing through the architectural layout of the cabin and the surrounding topography. “We use the one thing they don't know we have.”

Leo stared at me through the smoke. “What?”

“They don't know there are two of us,” I said.

Leo froze.

“They think they’re hunting you, Leo,” I continued, the plan forming with desperate, crystal clarity. “They think you’re in here alone with the child, or maybe with an old man. They have no idea I’m in this cabin. Arthur told me Sterling’s men saw you in Lake George—they know what jacket you were wearing.”

Leo looked down at his salt-stained canvas coat.

“Take it off,” I commanded.

“Ryan, that’s suicide—”

“Take it off!” I snapped. “Arthur! Is there a root cellar beneath the kitchen pantry?”

“Yes,” Arthur wheezed from the floor, coughing violently into his cap. “An old potato hatch. It opens into a crawlspace that drains into the hemlock grove behind the cabin.”

“Take Emily and the girls through that hatch,” I ordered. “Get them into the deep woods. Head north toward the highway. Don't stop for anything.”

“And what are you going to do?” Emily cried from the hallway doorway, her face wrapped in a damp scarf, her eyes red and terrified.

“I’m going to buy you five minutes,” I said, stripping off my heavy winter coat and grabbing Leo’s tattered canvas jacket.

I pulled it on. It smelled of woodsmoke, pine oil, and sweat. It fit me perfectly.

Leo racked the slide of the 12-gauge, the sound metallic and deadly in the smoky room. He handed me the shotgun, then pulled a snub-nosed .38 revolver from the lockbox and tucked it into his own waistband.

“If you die because of this, Ryan,” Leo whispered, his voice trembling as he gripped my shoulder, “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“We’re twins, Leo,” I said, looking into my own face. “We share the load. Now get them out of here.”

Leo nodded once. He turned toward the kitchen, herding Emily, Arthur, and the girls toward the pantry. Maya paused at the edge of the doorframe. She looked back at me through the swirling gas, clutching Lily’s green plastic dinosaur against her chest.

“Be careful, Daddy-Two,” she whispered softly.

A fierce, protective fire ignited in my chest. “Go, sweetie. I’m right behind you.”

I waited until the faint sound of the pantry trapdoor clicking shut echoed through the cabin.

Outside, the megaphone crackled again.

“Thirty seconds! Send the child out, or we breach with live fire!”