Ray stumbled down the wooden steps into the freezing darkness of the root cellar, Marcus right on his heels. Marcus grabbed the handle of the trapdoor above them.
Before the door slammed shut, Ray looked up.
He saw Thomas Mercer standing tall in the center of the cabin, bathed in the dim light of the setting sun, squaring his shoulders toward the door.
*CRACK.*
The sound of the trapdoor slamming shut was instantly drowned out by the deafening roar of a shotgun blast tearing the front door off its hinges.
Dust and dirt rained down from the floorboards above Ray’s head.
The cabin above them erupted into sheer, unadulterated chaos.
Ray heard the rapid, flat *pop-pop-pop* of Thomas’s 9mm answering the breach. He heard a man scream in the entryway. He heard the terrifying, frantic snarling of Ranger engaging someone, followed by a heavy crash as a table was overturned.
Marcus clamped a massive, calloused hand over Ray’s mouth in the pitch black.
“Quiet,” Marcus breathed directly into his ear.
Above them, heavy boots stomped across the floorboards. The shooting had stopped, replaced by the terrifying sounds of a violent, close-quarters struggle.
“Hold him down!” a voice shouted. It wasn't Sterling. It was younger, panicked.
“Get the dog off me! Shoot the damn dog!”
A suppressed gunshot—a sickening *thwip*—echoed through the floor.
Ranger’s snarling abruptly turned into a sharp yelp, and then, horrific silence.
Ray thrashed against Marcus’s grip in the dark, a primal roar building in his throat, but the older biker possessed terrifying strength, pinning Ray’s arms against his sides.
“Don't,” Marcus hissed. “You go up there with no gun, you die. And the evidence dies with you.”
Above them, the scuffling stopped. Someone was breathing heavily.
Then, Sterling’s voice rang out. Calm. Professional. Entirely devoid of empathy.
“Well. Look at you. Twenty years in the dirt, Thomas, and you still fight like a stray cat.”
Thomas coughed violently. It sounded wet. When he spoke, his voice was choked.
“Go to hell, John.”
“I’ve been, Tommy. The air conditioning was broken,” Sterling chuckled dryly. “Check the perimeter, boys. He might have reached out to someone. See if he burned the files.”
Footsteps pounded across the floor directly above Ray’s head. Dust sifted down into his eyes. He squeezed them shut, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
“Clear in the back,” a voice called out.
“Alright, Thomas,” Sterling said. His boots paced slowly across the wood. “Where are the drives? The original manifests from Kandahar. Where are they?”
“I burned them,” Thomas gasped.
“You’re a terrible liar, son. You always were. You kept them as an insurance policy. But your policy just expired. Where are they?”
A heavy thud, followed by a sickening crunch. Thomas groaned in agony.
Ray bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting his own blood. Every muscle in his body strained toward the trapdoor.
“I told you... they're gone.”
“Listen to me,” Sterling’s voice dropped, becoming a vicious whisper. “I have a team outside. I have a team waiting down at the highway. If you don't give me what I want, I will start hunting. Who did you call? I saw two sets of tracks by the creek. Who is with you?”
Silence.
“Did you call your old friend Dawson? Did you call Hammer?”
Thomas laughed. A wet, broken sound.
“Dawson hates my guts. He wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire.”