Page 40 of Calder Strong (The Calder Brand #5)

From somewhere outside, the dog was barking. Maybe he’d found Lucas. With a silent prayer, Annabeth turned and stumbled out of the cellar.

The air was a life-giving blast of freshness. Coughing, she gulped it into her lungs. As her eyes adjusted to the blinding sunlight, she saw the brown-and-white dog outside the barn. He was running back and forth as he barked, as if trying to get her attention.

She hurried toward him. When he saw her coming, the scruffy collie mix raced into the barn. She found him pawing and whining at the closed gate of an empty stall where hay and feed were stored.

“Lucas, are you there?” She paused, hushing the dog and straining to hear. At first there was only the creak of old wood and the chirp of sparrows nesting on a roof beam. Then she heard it through the stall gate—the muffled sound of sobbing.

She flung open the gate and strode inside. Lucas was huddled behind a stack of hay bales. His face, as he looked up at her, was streaked with crusted tears. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

Overcome, Annabeth knelt, caught him in her arms, and crushed him against her. “You could have died,” she muttered against his damp hair. “Don’t you ever, ever do anything like that again! Promise.”

“I promise. Please don’t be mad.” Lucas was still crying.

“Just tell me what happened,” Annabeth said. “Everything. The whole truth.”

The story spooled out between bouts of sobbing—the open cellar, the snake, the matches, and the fire. It sounded almost too far-fetched for Annabeth to believe. But her son’s tears told her it was true.

“So, tell me what you did wrong, Lucas,” she said. “I need to know you understand.”

Lucas wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I wasn’t supposed to go in the potato cellar, but I did.”

“And what else?”

“I stole the matches, and I started the fire. I really didn’t mean to, Mama. I only wanted to kill the snake so it wouldn’t bite you or Ellie or Dad.” He gasped. “Oh, no! Dad is going to be so mad at me!”

Standing, Annabeth took his hand. “Let’s go back to the house. We mustn’t leave Ellie alone too long. We’ll talk more about this later.”

Lucas fell into step beside her. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Annabeth said, “you certainly are. And you can expect to be punished. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

As they crossed the yard with the dog at their heels, Annabeth tried to imagine how her husband would react when he woke up.

Silas had abandoned all hope of this year’s potato crop, so the cellar shouldn’t be needed.

Maybe he would shrug off Lucas’s misadventure or even find it amusing.

But he was just as likely to be angry. And an angry Silas was as unpredictable as a wild boar.

Silas was Silas. And Annabeth was worried—more than worried. She was terrified for her son.

When Annabeth had returned to the house with Lucas, she had found Silas still asleep. He was bound to wake up soon and discover what had happened outside, but the slight delay had given her time to come up with a plan.

Now, as she stood at the kitchen counter, cutting up a hunk of beef for stew, she could hear him stirring in the bedroom. Willing herself to stay calm, she shooed the children to their room. “Don’t come out until you’re called, no matter what you hear,” she warned them.

After closing the door, she returned to the kitchen and continued her work as if nothing had happened. Glancing out the kitchen window, she could see that the fire was shooting flames through the roof of the pit. The far end had partially caved in.

From the bedroom she shared with Silas, she could hear something hard crashing against the wall, followed by the sounds of shattering glass and screamed curses. Annabeth took a deep breath and kept on preparing the stew she meant to simmer for supper.

Moments later, Silas came pounding down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.

He was hurriedly dressed, his shirt unbuttoned and his belt buckle hanging loose from the waist of his trousers.

His bootlaces trailed on the floor. His hair stood wildly on end.

His expression could only be described as murderous.

Annabeth put down the knife and turned toward him and spoke in a quiet voice.

“I can see you’re upset, Silas. But I swear, it was an accident.

I needed a few good potatoes for the stew, some that hadn’t sprouted.

Since the door was already open, I took a candle and went down into the pit to look for them.

There was a snake. It startled me. I dropped the candle on the stacks. They started to burn …”

She gestured toward the charred spots on her dress and arms. “I tried to put it out, but …” Annabeth could sense the fury building in him. She forced herself to smile. “At least with the potato crop gone, we won’t need the pit this year. There’ll be plenty of time to rebuild—”

A savage scream tore from his throat, cutting off her words. “You stupid bitch!” he bellowed, grabbing her arm and twisting it until she felt her shoulder pop out of its socket. “Our money was in that cellar, under the sacks—money for our family! For our future! Now it’s gone, damn you to hell!”

Still gripping her arm, he whipped her around and slammed his huge fist into her jaw. “You’ve ruined me!” he snarled. “I’ll kill you for this! Then I’ll take the brats to Mexico and sell them!”

Silas had raised his fist to strike her again when a small voice stopped him in midmotion.

“Stop, Daddy! Don’t hurt Mama!” Lucas stood at the entrance to the kitchen. “She didn’t start the fire. It was me. I did it.”

With a muttered oath, Silas flung Annabeth against the counter. As she fell back, struggling to right herself, he turned on her son.

“No, Lucas!” she shouted. “Run!”

But by then Silas had already grabbed the boy’s arm.

Hanging on tight while Lucas struggled, Silas whipped the leather belt from the waist of his trousers. Raising the strap high, he brought it down with a resounding whack on the boy’s back. Lucas screamed with pain.

With the second blow, the boy was sobbing. Annabeth could see the blood seeping through his thin shirt. Silas was furious enough to beat him to death.

The butcher knife lay behind her on the counter. Her left arm hung painfully from her shoulder, but her right arm was strong. Seizing the knife, she held it in a threatening pose. “Stop, Silas,” she shouted. “Let him go, or so help me, I’ll use this on you!”

He looked startled. Then his face went mean. He let go of Lucas, who slipped to the floor and lay still. “Try it, bitch,” he said.

She stepped back, still gripping the knife as he lumbered toward her. She didn’t have a chance against his strength, but maybe her stand would buy Lucas a little time.

“Get up, Lucas! Run!” she urged as Silas’s bulk filled her vision. She braced the knife as well as she could manage with both hands. If she was going to die, she would die defending her son.

Silas’s face was a mask of rage. Intent on grabbing her weapon, he took a step toward her, then another. Suddenly, he stumbled and seemed to lose his balance. He pitched forward, his weight falling against the knife.

The point entered his chest by the breadth of two fingers. He bellowed with pain, wounded but still dangerous. At that instant, Annabeth caught a glimpse of Lucas on the floor.

He was pulling with all his strength on Silas’s trailing bootlaces.

Seizing their only chance to live, Annabeth leaned into the blade and drove it to the hilt.