Chapter 6

The next morning, Kaitlynn woke up before dawn. She pulled on a pair of work boots that were two sizes too big and grabbed the axe from the shed. The front door was still hanging off its hinges, and the broken window was letting in the cold.

She needed wood.

She headed up the slope behind the house, into the dense forest. Cason and Paige trailed behind her, Cason with his bandaged head and Paige with her thumb in her mouth.

"You two don't have to come," Kaitlynn said, swinging the axe experimentally. It was dull, but it would do.

"I want to," Cason said.

Paige just stuck closer to her brother.

Kaitlynn found a dead oak tree, its trunk dry and brittle. She raised the axe and brought it down with a powerful swing. The blade bit deep. She swung again, and again, finding a rhythm. The physical labor felt good. It burned off the restless energy that had been coiled inside her since she woke up in this body.

Cason watched her, his eyes narrowing slightly. He had never seen his mother chop wood. The old Kaitlynn could barely carry a laundry basket.

Within an hour, she had a stack of logs. She tied them together with a length of rope, hoisting the bundle onto her shoulder. It was heavy, but her muscles were warming up, remembering the strength that came from years of training.

"Let's head back," she said, starting down the familiar path.

"Wait." Cason's voice was sharp.

Kaitlynn stopped. "What is it?"

Cason pointed to the left, where a narrow, overgrown trail branched off into the underbrush. "We should go this way."

Kaitlynn frowned. That trail was barely visible, choked with weeds and fallen branches. It looked like it hadn't been used in years. "That's not the way home, Cason."

"I know. But we need to go this way." He lowered his hand, his expression unreadable. "I just... I feel like something's waiting for us."

There it was again. That eerie intuition. It was the same feeling he'd had about the metal box. Kaitlynn looked at the trail, then back at her son. She remembered the file, the future it predicted. If Cason was going to be a strategic genius, maybe that started now.

"Okay," she said. "Lead the way."

She shifted the logs on her shoulder and followed Cason onto the overgrown path. Paige clutched the back of Kaitlynn's shirt, her eyes darting nervously.

They walked for about ten minutes. The trees grew thicker, blocking out the sun. The air grew colder, damper. And then, Kaitlynn smelled it.

Gasoline. And underneath it, the coppery tang of blood.

Every instinct screamed to life. Kaitlynn dropped the logs, letting them crash to the forest floor. She pulled Paige behind her, shielding her with her body.

"Cason, stay back," she ordered.

She moved forward, slow and silent, her eyes scanning the underbrush. She rounded a bend and pushed through a thicket of bushes.

The scene that greeted her made her stomach drop.

A black sedan was crumpled against a large boulder at the bottom of a ravine. The front end was accordioned, steam hissing from the radiator. The driver's door was hanging open, the interior dark.

But the car wasn't the problem. It was the body lying in the grass a few feet away.

It was a boy. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. He was wearing clothes that looked expensive-a silk shirt, designer jeans-but they were torn and soaked in blood. One of his legs was bent at an angle that made Kaitlynn wince.

She approached cautiously, checking for threats. The woods were silent. No engine sounds, no voices. Just the wind in the trees.

She knelt beside the boy. He was alive, but barely. His breathing was shallow, his skin pale and clammy. She ran her hands over his body, checking for injuries. His leg was broken, definitely. But as she moved up his torso, her fingers found something else. Puncture wounds. Sharp, clean cuts that weren't caused by a car crash. The wounds were deep, but miraculously, they seemed to have missed any major organs or arteries. The car itself was wedged in a thicket of young, pliable trees that must have cushioned the final impact.

This boy had been stabbed. Multiple times.

This wasn't an accident. It was a hit. And the target was still alive.

"Mommy?" Paige's small voice came from the bushes. "Is everything okay?"

"Stay there!" Kaitlynn barked. She looked back at the boy's face. He was young. Too young. He looked like a kid who had been playing dress-up in his father's clothes and had stumbled into a nightmare.

She thought about leaving him. It was the smart play. Whoever wanted him dead would come looking for him. If she took him in, she would be painting a target on her own back, and on the backs of her children.

But then she thought about Cason. About the monster he was supposed to become. Could she save one child while letting another die? Could she preach about changing fate if she turned her back on someone who needed help right now?

She made her decision in three seconds.

"Cason," she called out, her voice steady. "Paige. Come here. I need your help."

They emerged from the bushes. Paige gasped when she saw the blood, hiding her face in Cason's shoulder. Cason just looked at the boy, his expression calm.

"Is he dead?" Cason asked.

"Not yet." Kaitlynn stood up. "We're taking him home."

Cason didn't argue. He just nodded, as if he had expected nothing less.

Kaitlynn gathered the fallen branches, lashing them together with rope to form a makeshift stretcher. She rolled the boy onto it as gently as she could, securing his broken leg with a splint made from a straight stick and strips of his own shirt.

It took every ounce of her strength to drag the stretcher up the ravine and through the woods. The boy was dead weight, and the terrain was rough. Sweat poured down her face, mixing with the dirt and blood on her hands.

But she didn't stop. She just gritted her teeth and pulled.