Page 107 of Thunder's Reckoning

“I should burn you for this,” Tolen growled, his breath sour with wine. “I’ll take him, Miriam. He’ll learn obedience without you poisoning him.”

Zeke whimpered then—a broken, strangled sound. His arms shot around my waist, his face pressed into me, shaking.

Something inside me broke.

My fingers closed around the revolver hidden beneath my skirt. Cold steel. My last secret. The weight steadied me even as my hands trembled.

For one heartbeat, I shut my eyes.

Please.

Not to their God. Not to the Prophet. To anyone, anything, listening. To shadows. To silence. To fate.Don’t let him take my son.

Tolen’s hand lifted again, the belt tightening in his fist.

And I pulled the trigger.

The crack tore through the house like thunder.

Tolen’s eyes went wide, his face breaking into disbelief. He stumbled, blood blooming fast across his shirt. He hit the table, then the floor.

I didn’t look at him again. Couldn’t.

Zeke’s grip on me was crushing. His nails dug into my side. He turned his head despite my hand pushing gently against it, his wide eyes finding the blood, the body. His lips trembled, but still—no sound. Only silence.

“Come here, baby,” I whispered, pulling him tighter. “We’re leaving. Now.”

I pressed his face into me, shielding him, even as my own lungs burned. My eyes caught the lantern on the table. I grabbed it, hurled it against the floor. Glass shattered. Flames raced up the wood, climbing fast, curling toward Tolen’s still body. Smoke bit my throat, acrid and burning.

The fire would spread quick but not far. They’d contain it. They always did. But Tolen would be ash.

And we would be gone.

I pulled Zeke with me, his little legs stumbling to keep up, his grip bruising my hand. We slipped out the back, past the garden gone to weeds, past the cabins where the sheep slept.

By the time we reached the trees, shouts had already risen. Buckets. Boots pounding. They would put it out. They’d save the compound.

But Tolen was dead.

And we were free.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

I had no plan. No sanctuary. Only his hand in mine. Only his life bound to mine.

I would save him, or I would die trying.

The cold pressed back in, dragging me to the present. Stone walls. Silence. My nails still dug into my palms as though the revolver were there.

Zeke buried that night. He never spoke of it. Never whispered a word of the shot, the blood, the fire. Not to me. Not to anyone.

Children bury what they cannot carry. I told myself that over and over. That silence was his shield. That it kept him safe.

But sometimes, in the dark, I wonder.

I wonder if he buried it because he had already been taught how. Because even then, he knew the price of speaking. The Prophet taught us all that silence was obedience. That silence was survival.

And my son—my sweet, wide-eyed boy—learned too young how to keep his mouth closed, how to swallow pain until it burned holes inside him.