CHAPTER 48

OLIVIA

Saturday, 3:25 p.m.

The thinning trail felt familiar, but in the dense smoke, everything looked different. She started left, then froze. That was wrong.

She scanned the trees for a landmark to guide her. To the right, the trail disappeared into a stand of pines.

This is near where Dominic was hurt.

Olivia started running, her eyes laser-focused on the path, searching for trip wires or tree roots that might make her stumble. When her breathing grew labored, she slowed and broke into a fit of phlegmy coughing.

The fire might cost her everything after all, and it would be her own damn fault.

She felt the pull of the cabin even thought the forest around her was shrouded in a thick haze. She began moving again but almost immediately froze mid-step, right foot on tiptoe, irrationally afraid that placing her foot flat on the ground would trigger another trap or shatter the illusion. Was it an illusion? In the hellscape of the approaching fire, the cabin that stood in this remote corner of the forest was closer than she’d thought. Thankfully not yet destroyed by fire.

She moved ahead slowly, eager to open the door but also aware that someone had once planted a trap a quarter mile back to protect this property. What deadly relics might be waiting this close to the cabin?

Olivia thought—hoped—she heard a scuffling sound from inside and she forgot to breathe for several seconds. The trees around her were awash in apocalyptic light. It formed a spotlight on the door, and dread unspooled inside her. The lock next to the handle was overkill for this old and rotting structure, and in her haste, she’d forgotten the key.

Olivia looked around for something to pound the door with but quickly gave up and started kicking. The rotting wood began to splinter. The planks fell away, chunk by chunk, until the inside of the cabin stood exposed. Olivia could hear the fire now, behind her. How close?

Some of the light sliced into the darkness of the living space, enough so that Olivia’s heart squeezed. She checked the bathroom with its chipped sink and water-stained toilet, and the bedroom, bare except for the wagon spotted with Ellie’s blood.

The cabin was empty.

Shocked, Olivia stumbled backward, away from the cabin. Her eyes darted around, searching for Ellie but also for a way out. The world surrounding her blazed.

The fire made the choice for her. There was only one path not overtaken by flames.

As Olivia ran, her nose clogged with woodsmoke and ash, her lungs too, and she prayed the cabin had been empty because Ellie escaped. She took comfort in that—Olivia might die, but maybe her granddaughter had made it out. She held to that hope as tightly as her mother once clung to her worry beads.