“Better dead than with your son.”
She snorted, shaking her head. He raised both hands out to his sides. “Go on. Shoot. Do it. But you know deep down if the boot was on the other foot you would have done the same. Stricklands and Rikers were never meant to…”
She squeezed the trigger and a round hit him in the chest.
His eyes bulged as he staggered back, butting up against the table. He could barely catch a breath. Agonizing pain flooded through him, blood bloomed behind his shirt.
“You talk too much. You think we’re the same. We’re not.”
She fired another round and this one hit him in the gut. He curled over, legs buckling, falling to his knees. “You forced my hand. You pitted my own son against me.”
“Oh, screw you.”
“I might not like your kin, but I would have never done what you did.”
“And yet you did,” he spat at her, gripping his stomach, feeling the life leaving his body. “Save your self-righteous bull crap for someone who cares.”
“I cared. Colby cared. Skye cared.”
“Go ahead, it doesn’t matter. You have started a war.”
Martha crouched in front of him, her head cocking to one side.
“No, Ryland. You did.”
She brought up the barrel to the front of his head. He didn’t fight her. In many ways she was right. He’d brought this upon himself, upon his family.
He never heard the final shot.
Chapter One
Trinity County, California
Over a month since the event
The machete-wielding lunatic had a crazed look in his eye.
Lincoln thrashed around on the ground screaming, his left forearm hacked off. Jessie turned abruptly and shot the monstrosity of a man twice in the chest with a Beretta APX just as he was about to inflict further damage. The attack was sudden and as startling as the hell they found themselves in. It had happened so fast. One minute they were sifting through disarray, the next in the thick of an attack.
They didn’t hear or see him.
There was no rhyme or reason to it either.
They hadn’t broken in. The door was left wide open and the shelves were almost bare. Either the man was psychotic to begin with, afraid or he’d mistaken Lincoln for someone else. Jessie and his three brothers had arrived in Trinity County with a single purpose that morning — to collect medicine, antibiotics, and peritoneal dialysis supplies from Weaverville for those dealing with kidney disease. The dialysis center in Eureka needed them and their mother figured what better way to show fake support for Dan Wilder than to show up with items that not even the militia had collected.
It should have been a simple run.
Now he wished they hadn’t agreed.
Blood spurted out of his arm, fast, pooling around his body. Panic was taking over. “What do we do? What do we do?” Zeke shouted as he frantically removed his shirt to create a tourniquet around the stump. It wouldn’t be enough. Lincoln couldn’t form words. His skin had gone pale. He looked as if he might pass out at any minute.
“I saw signs for a clinic, not far from here,” Dylan replied.
“There’s no time. We need to cauterize that wound now or he’ll bleed out before we get there,” Jessie said. His heart drummed in his chest. Sweat trickled down his back. They were inside Bayley’s Lumber and Hardware Store. It was one of the first stores they saw on their way into Hayfork, a small rural community. They hadn’t planned on stopping as the only other dialysis center near Humboldt was to be found in Weaverville, thirty miles away, but Dylan needed to use the washroom. Jessie had told him to hold it, Zeke had told him to go in the woods, but old habits die hard and the guy was a stickler for privacy. Besides, he said they might find something they could use while he was busy taking a dump.
Jessie had searched the store, his mind tried to recall what he was looking for but he couldn’t even say it. He stumbled over the words. All he could think about was what would happen if his brother died. “A propane torch,” he blurted out. He and Dylan went down the aisles, while Zeke ran into the storage area at the rear of the store to sift through boxes. Had this been a grocery store, he was sure that every item would have been gone as after a month, supplies were at an all-time low. They’d been bought, stolen, or confiscated by each town to distribute. “You found anything?” Jessie yelled.
Zeke burst out of the rear. “I’ve got one. I’ve got it.”
Jessie pulled out a lighter on his way around the aisle. He scooped up the machete. Zeke handed off the propane torch to him and he dropped and turned on the knob, ignited the lighter and a blue flame burst to life. There was no protesting by Lincoln. He was a tough one. He knew this needed to be done. “This will hurt like a mother — bite on this.” Dylan inserted his leather wallet into his teeth and through tears of agony he clamped down. Dylan took his hand and held it while Zeke removed the shirt from the bloody stump and placed both hands on the upper portion of the arm to hold it.
Jessie took the machete, wiped it down, and then began to heat it. Bringing the torch to his wound would have cooked his skin, he needed it to melt but under pressure. Once the machete was glowing red, Jessie gave one last glance at Lincoln. He looked terrified but gave a nod to
