Page 124 of Last Seen

“This is Gray,” Cat says. “My son.”

“So it was you who put the note in my bag. You disabled my Jeep.”

Cat smiles. “You always were so clever. We hoped you would be as stubborn as an adult as I remember you being as a child. And if not, bring someone who was.”

She smiles, and Halley smiles back, pushing away the anger. This could have gone so many other ways, and it might still. But they can hash it out later.

“I really do want to know the whole story, but we don’t have much time. I think I can get us out of this, but we have to move. The Farm is on fire.”

“I know. Summer set the fire.”

“Need to bury the ashes of the ones we’ve lost. Purify them.” Heather mumbles this, and Halley shoots her a sharp glance but holds her tongue. She might be saying crazy stuff, too, if she’d been stuck underground any longer.

“We need to move. Avalon is that way.” Halley points and looks up again to confirm her direction. Polaris is still visible through the smoke; she uses it to orient herself. She stretches out her right arm. “That way’s north. I’m facing west.” She moves her head forty-five degrees to the right, points. “That’s northwest. Avalon is there. The fire is coming from our south. Let’s move.”

It’s slow going, with a few switchbacks for wrong turns, but each time, Halley is able to align them again, and fifteen minutes later, they break free of the labyrinth and are faced with the woods. They march another hundred yards before Halley realizes where they are. The writers’ retreat cabin.

“I assume you know where to go from here?” she asks Cat.

“Yes. Straight through there to the road. We can stay in the woods. We have supplies waiting.”

“They’re going to come for us.”

“I know.”

“You can’t just live in the woods on the outskirts of this town.”

“We can until you bring help. I always knew you would save us, Halley. I believed it in my soul.”

Halley impulsively hugs her sister. “Let’s go.”

They move off, one by one, the women leading their children, Halley’s head spinning. She counts fifteen women, and twice as many kids.

“What was this, Cat? Some sort of breeding facility? A cult?”

“It’s complicated,” Cat says. “Not a cult. None of us are here willingly.”

“How do they get here?”

“Me. I bring them. Ian demands it.”

Halley is brought up short.

“What did you say?”

But before Cat can answer, a thin mechanical wail cuts through the night, followed by another, and another. Sirens. The volunteer fire department is certainly working the fire already, but these are coming from the northwest.

“The road! Hurry! Fire trucks are coming, they must have called for help. We can flag them down.”

“That is simply not going to happen,” a dark and brooding voice says.

And Ian Brockton steps from the darkness.

Halley is surprised enough that she freezes, and in that moment Ian lunges for her and captures her arm. He yanks her to his chest and slams a hand over her mouth. He is warm, hot, as if he has a fever. She struggles, but he is incredibly strong. He squeezes her, and she feels one of her ribs give way, cracking, causing so much pain she sees stars.

“Now, now. Don’t do that,” he says in that silky tone, but it’s hoarse now, as if he’s been inhaling smoke.

She realizes the women have also stopped fleeing.