Chapter 3

I needed a new plan, a new smoker. One they couldn' t predict or control.

I remembered a story my mother used to tell me, a whisper from my childhood. It was about an old pitmaster, a true legend, who didn' t use ordinary wood. He used wood from a tree that had been struck by lightning. She said the lightning gave the wood a spirit, a power that couldn' t be tamed by normal means.

It was just a story. But now, it felt like a map.

There was a remote corner of the family ranch, a place no one ever went. A storm had passed through a few years back, and I had a faint memory of a huge oak tree being split down the middle.

I drove out there in my truck, far from the main house and the prying eyes of my father.

The tree was still there. A massive, ancient oak, its trunk blackened and scarred where the lightning had struck. It was perfect.

I spent the next week in secret. I found an old, forgotten barn on the property and started building my new smoker. I used salvaged steel and parts I bought in cash from a town two counties over.

This time, the ritual would be different. More intense.

My mother' s book spoke of the blood bond. But it also hinted at a deeper magic, a more dangerous one. It wasn' t just about seasoning the wood. It was about curing it with your own lifeblood, your own essence.

Every night, I worked on the lightning wood, using a more potent version of the ritual. I wasn' t just bonding with the smoker. I was pouring my life force, my pain, and my need for revenge into it.

One afternoon, I was in town buying some specialized bolts. I stopped at the local hardware store, and I overheard two of our ranch hands talking in the next aisle.

"You hear about the boss' s other daughter? Gabrielle?" one said.

The other one snorted. "Yeah. Andrew' s got her out on the north pasture, looking for some weird lightning-struck wood. Says she had a vision or something. Thinks she can build a smoker out of it."

The first one laughed. "That girl' s as crazy as her mother was. Lightning wood? What a joke."

I froze, the bolts clutched tight in my hand.

It wasn' t a coincidence.

Gabrielle was mirroring my every move. And there was only one person who could be feeding her my ideas.

My father.