“All day?”
“Until dinner.”
“What about your father?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he would have hurt anyone. That’s not like him.”
Will stood. “Did you grow up with firearms around the house?”
“My dad and I go elk hunting in Montana every fall.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?”
Will walked to the door, pulled it open, cold air from the corridor sweeping in.
“Let’s go talk to your father. I’ve got some bad news.”
Lucy Dahl sat in a chair by a fireplace in one of the guest rooms, a book in her lap, her legs propped on a footstool, basking in the heat.
Kalyn closed the door and moved quietly across the room toward her sister, no sound but the shift of smoldering logs and the paper scrape as Lucy turned the pages of her book.
It had been three years since Kalyn had laid eyes on her sister, and their last words had been angry ones, a stupid fight that Kalyn had started—big sis telling little sis what was best for her life.
Two steps from the chair, Kalyn’s eyes welled up. She couldn’t see Lucy look up from her book through the lens of salt water shivering on the surface of her eyes.
“Kalyn? Oh my God.”
They sat on the floor by the fire, Lucy crying, Kalyn whispering, “I’m here, honey. I’m here.” Wanting to tell her she was safe now, that they had a plane waiting on the lake to take her home, back to her husband, away from this nightmare.
Lucy must have sensed her holding back, because she said, “What’s wrong, K? What is it?”
Kalyn shook her head, footsteps entering the boondocks of her perception, Will already coming back, the five minutes gone faster than it seemed possible.
“We’re together,” she said. “Just that we aren’t home yet.”
Will stood in front of the hearth in what had been Ethan’s room, facing twenty-two women (most of whom watched him with the desperate blankness of refugees) and Sean and Ken (still massively hungover from the previous night and looking more than a little uncertain about their demoted stations under the new management).
“As Rachael mentioned to you all, four men have landed on the inner lake. While Kalyn and I are the primary targets, you’re all in danger here, and we have to prepare. Kalyn and I can’t defend everyone on our own, and I know you’ve been through so much hell, and I’m sorry we have to deal with this, but we need your help. Sean and Ken have come on board, along with Kalyn’s sister, but we need one more volunteer.”
The women glanced at one another. A few began to cry.
It was thirty seconds before a hand went up—raised by a dark-haired woman who appeared to be in the first trimester of her pregnancy.
Will said, “Yeah? What’s your name?”
“Suzanne Tyrpak. I’ll fight. I’ve never even touched a gun before, but if you show me how, I’ll do it. I mean, if this is what we gotta do to get back to our families.”
There were no other volunteers, the rest too weak or pregnant or broken, some still whispering to themselves—incoherent, devastated babblings.
He looked at Kalyn. “That makes eight of us. Can we pull this off?”
. . .
“The beautiful thing about a twelve-gauge,” Kalyn said, “is you can be a terrible shot, and it doesn’t matter.” They all stood outside the supply room—the Innises, Kalyn, her sister, Suzanne Tyrpak, and the oilmen—shouldering pump-action Mossbergs.
Kalyn said, “I think these guys may come wearing bulletproof vests, which is why I want you to aim either below the waist or at the head. You have to pump it after every shot.” She pumped her shotgun. “The kick is strong, so remember to lean into it.”
“Is it loud?” Suzanne asked. “When you pull the trigger?”
“Loud as hell. All right, let me show you how to load.”
It took both Kalyn and Will to pull the grizzly traps off the wall, the monstrous contraptions weighing in at forty-eight pounds of rusted cast iron apiece, with jaw spreads of seventeen inches. Will stepped on the release, and they strained to force the jaws open.
Although barely legible, American Fur and Trade Company, HBC No. 6 had been engraved into the iron of the pan. When Kalyn popped it with one of the pitchforks, the snare jumped, the giant teeth chomping together, snapping the wooden handle in two.
The sun hung low in the sky, sitting just over the horizon at the end of the lake, turning clouds and snow pink, the water scarlet. Devlin watched from a window on the third floor, thought it was the most striking end of day she’d ever seen, the sky at war with itself.
Kalyn stood at the window in Rachael’s old room on the fourth floor, glassing what she could see of the surrounding grounds and forest behind the lodge.
“Light’s getting bad,” she said. “I thought maybe I’d see tracks or something.”
“You think they’re out in the woods somewhere?” Will asked.
“I would imagine, but the trees are too loaded with snow to see that far into them.”
“What if we went ahead and cut the power? Might give us an advantage, since we know the lodge better than they do.”
“Not if they have night-vision goggles. One of the things the Alphas are known for is using state-of-the-art equipment. I mean, we might as well have a Force Recon team coming after us.” She lowered the binoculars. “What’s my role from here on out? I’ve helped you prepare. Will you trust me? Let me fight when the time comes?”
“You mean am I going to give you a gun?”
“Will, no one here is as proficient as—”
“I understand that, but what you need to know is that part of me is more afraid of you than of what’s coming.”
“Will, you don’t under—”
“I understand plenty. Come on. Let’s go check the other side.”
Will found Rachael and Devlin eating leftovers with the others in the kitchen.
He asked them to walk with him, and they followed, going back up the passage, then out into the lobby, where he finally pulled them into the library and shut the door.
“Come here, guys.”
The Innises sat down in a corner by the French doors, protected from the view of anyone who might be watching from outside.
Above the skyline of firs, evening faded from pink into purple.
“It’s gonna be dark soon,” Will said, and already he could feel the sadness rising in his throat. He looked at his long-lost wife. His teenage daughter. “It’s gonna be a long, long night, and the truth is, we don’t know what’s going to happen. If we’re gonna be together in the morning. Or if this is the last . . .” He ground his molars together, fighting the surge of emotion. Be strong for them. He reached out, touched his daughter’s face. “I’m so proud of you, Devlin. The courage, the nerve you’ve shown.”