Chapter 6 - The Cabin in the Pines
Jax checked the rearview mirror. Leo was pale as chalk, his lips faintly blue, curled tightly on his side. Whatever metal or coating was on that antique key, it wasn't meant to sit in an eight-year-old child's stomach for three days.
Knowing he couldn't stay on the highway, Jax cut his headlights, shifted down, and veered hard onto an overgrown logging trail hidden beneath hanging hemlock branches. Branches whipped the hood like lashes. The sedan dragged its chassis over boulders and roots until it rolled to a stop outside a dilapidated hunting cabin half-swallowed by blackberry thorns.
"We're safe for a minute, buddy," Jax murmured, killing the engine. The silence of the mountain woods rushed in, broken only by the steady drum of rain on the roof.
He lifted Leo from the backseat. The boy was burning with fever, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Jax carried him into the dark cabin, kicked the rotting door shut, and set him on an old wooden cot with a musty wool blanket.
Using his pocket lighter, Jax ignited an old kerosene lamp on the table. In the pale amber glow, he saw the dark purple bruising on Leo's forearms and the exhaustion etched deep into his young face. Leo looked so much like Sarah—the same arched brow, the same stubborn set of the chin.
"You're going to be alright," Jax said, wiping sweat from the boy's forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. "I'm here now."
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Leo weakly opened his eyes, staring at the skull-and-wings insignia on Jax’s leather vest. "Why didn't you come for us before?"
The question tore through Jax worse than any hollow-point bullet. Before he could answer, Leo’s eyes rolled back, and a violent seizure wracked his small frame.
