Page 117 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

“I can’t do this much longer. I’m glad my wife had sons from other relationships.

She got pregnant by brothers. No one knows that.

Everyone thinks they are biologically mine, but I can’t have children.

I’ve never been able to. So, William and Josh became the ones I would call my own.

They learned so our family can continue its duty to the reservation and Wendigo. If they don’t, it ends with me.”

When Wyler came to a halt again, the son with the gun in his back, shoved him.

The other had an ugly knife in his hand near Lance’s throat.

“How could you kill your other son?” Wyler asked. “How, Tom?”

He shrugged.

“On top of his drug usage, when I told him I would make him clean up, he threatened to go to the reservation police when he found out what we do. I never included him because he was weak. He didn’t like what we were doing.

What we were doing was saving the reservation.

He dared to say I defiled our heritage. Me! Can you imagine?”

Lance said something into the gag, and Tom stared at him.

“You are being chosen since you caused this mess. You shouldn’t have let your daughter go to the FBI,” Tom admitted.

“You’d both be living if everyone turned a blind eye to this.

The ground was fertile, and the hunting plentiful.

It worked. It was the meddling that caused this.

I had to handle it once before, and I did again. ”

Tom’s DNA, and his wife’s were clearly passing down mental illness along with a sense of twisted ideologies.

This was a cult.

Definitely.

They were freaking eating people. No one in their right mind did that.

As they finally stopped walking, Tom pointed.

“This is where you disappear,” he said, standing in front of the cave entrance closest to the camping and hunting spot.

“Bleed them both out here,” he said. “We’re not desecrating our personal space. That cave belongs to The Hollow, and the cunt who stole the skulls will have to find her half-eaten father-in-law inside.”

When the brother went to slice Lance’s throat, they all heard the bullet, and it hit Tom Redbear in the thigh.

He went down.

HARD.

“DAD!” both men screamed.

Before they could retaliate, another shot rang out, and it hit Willaim Redbear in the middle of the forehead.

And he dropped next.

Josh Redbear went to kill Wyler, but he shoved back, knocking the man over. When the crazed man went for the gun, a knife came out of nowhere, hitting him in the chest, and dropping him again.

Tom Redbear screamed as he bled out in the twigs and leaves all over the forest floor. He wailed into the forest as his sons were dead.

When they were incapacitated, everyone came out of their hiding places.

The one with the gun?

Elizabeth.

The second Wyler saw her, he knew who had saved his ass, and taken down the crazies. His precious daughter had saved the day.

“Dad, really?” she asked, heading his way to check on him. He had a bump on his head, and he looked pale. “You just can’t stop causing shit,” she said, as Michael cut through the material binding his hands.

He hugged her.

“My sweet daughter,” he said, kissing her. “He’s out of his goddamn mind. He told me everything.”

She reassured him.

“He’s loud. We tracked you guys. We heard everything. I know everything he said.”

MATE had really good microphones on their vest. They could pick up a sound a half a mile away. A boasting asshole? Oh, that was easy for MATE.

“Are you okay?” she asked, as Lance was being cut free by Uriel.

He nodded.

Know who wasn’t okay?

The asshole bleeding out from his thigh.

Elizabeth moved toward him, and stared down at his leg. He was gushing, and her intent was to let him live. See, he didn’t have any more bloodline.

This ended with him.

He’d be in jail for life.

“I mean, that’s kind of ironic and justified,” she said. “Look at you bleeding out. Crazy, huh?”

Tom stared up at her.

“Save me! You have to save me! You’re a Fed. You can’t let me die!”

She laughed.

“Oh, Tom. A femoral dissection bleeds out in two minutes. I blew a hole in your thigh. There’s no way to use a tourniquet on that.

That artery is like a dick in cold water.

It just tucked itself way up into your groin, and I’m not digging in you.

I don’t have any gloves, and you eat people.

Yucko. You’ve got about ninety more seconds. ”

He started chanting something, and the wind picked up. All around them, the forest came alive, and it was off settling.

“The Hollow lives forever! You are cursed.”

Oh, well, she had news for him.

“Timothy! What do you think about that?” she said, loudly over the wind.

Then, something happened.

The trees went silent, and there were windchimes all over the place, except there weren’t.

She stared down at him.

“Timothy is still here,” she whispered. “The Shaman never left, and he never will. Good luck,” she said.

Looking over, she got Ivan’s attention.

“Have an ambulance meet us, but he’s not going to make it. We’re over a mile and a half from the road. He’ll be dead before anyone gets to him. There’s no way we can carry him back in time.”

The man on the ground was angry.

“You have to save me! You need to know who all the victims were! I kept records.”

She stared down at him as his eyes were getting heavier, and his skin was going gray. The pressure she was putting on his leg wasn’t helping.

Like she’d told him it wouldn’t.

“Were they all Natives?” she asked, meaning the skulls.

He nodded.

“Well, then, you already buried them on Native land. They aren’t waiting to be dug up and buried again, Tom.

They are waiting for you. I’ll get a search warrant, and we’ll find the book that your sick ancestors passed down.

Bet on it. I finish what I start. The Hollow dies here and now!

” she shouted, making sure it traveled through the woods.

From somewhere in the trees, there was the most ungodly howl she’d ever heard before. It was loud, and it wailed as Tom took his last breath.

Immediately, all of the Marines pulled guns, and put their backs to each other, circling Wyler, Elizabeth, and Lance.

“It’s the Wendigo,” Lance said. “It does exist. You’ve angered it. You’ll be cursed.”

Yeah, she had bad news.

She already was. Thus, her career choice.

Elizabeth brushed it off despite that they all had goosebumps on their arms as the area seemed to get colder.

“Then, I suggest we pop a flare so that the Damascus ambulance can find him, and we get the hell out of the woods,” she stated. “Our job here is done.”

Ivan did as she asked as the other Marines placed silver thermal sheets over the dead men that they carried in their gear in case they got stranded.

And Elizabeth walked Wyler and Lance out.

Oh, it was time to get the hell out of there.

The reservation held things old and tied to the culture here. If there was a Wendigo, there was one thing for sure.

She wasn’t tangling with it.

“This place is creepy as fuck. Let’s get the hell back to the main road. I don’t want to play Solstice games. I save them for Halloween.”

Ivan laughed.

“Thank Freaking God we won’t be here for Halloween. That would be a nightmare.”

She snorted.

And no one argued that.

As they headed out, Lance put his arm over his old friend’s shoulder, and thanked him.

“All’s forgiven,” he said. “You and I are right as rain,” he stated. “Thank you for saving me,” he offered. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

Wyler patted him on the back.

“Just keep your promise,” he said. “That’s all the thanks I want.”

Oh, and Lance would.

His word was gold, and he would make sure when Wyler passed that his widow was safe on these lands.

They were back to being brothers.

For as long as they had.