Ronan stood slowly, breathing hard. “We’re leaving.”
Within minutes, the five men were outside with Ember bundled into Ronan’s truck while Mabel packed pie, sandwiches, and a blanket no one had asked for but everyone understood she needed to give.
Black Pine Road lay twenty minutes north, past the last gas station, beyond the place where cell service failed and pine trees crowded the sky. The road narrowed to gravel, then mud, then barely a road at all. Ronan drove. No one spoke much.
At last Ember pointed through the windshield. “There.”
The cabin looked half-swallowed by the woods.
Its porch sagged. One window was boarded over. Smoke no longer rose from the chimney.
The men got out slowly, boots crunching frost-hardened dirt. Ronan motioned for Ember to stay back with Dean, then climbed the porch steps and pushed the door open.
Inside, the air smelled of woodsmoke, sickness, and cold coffee.
There was a blanket on the sofa. Medicine bottles on a crate. A child’s drawing pinned to the wall with a hunting knife. In the corner stood an old duffel bag patched with the faded Iron Lanterns emblem.
And on a narrow bed near the fireplace lay Jonah Creed.
Still.
Thin as wire.
One hand resting over his chest.
Gone.
For a moment none of them moved.
Then Mack made a sound like a wounded animal and turned away.
Elias sank into a chair and sobbed openly.
Luis covered his mouth.
Dean leaned his head against the wall and stared at nothing.
Ronan stepped closer to the bed, each movement feeling unreal. Jonah’s face was older, harsher, cut by time and pain—but it was him. Absolutely him.