Chapter 8 - The Ambush at Blackwood
The call disconnected with a hollow click.
Jax stood frozen in the cabin, the phone heavy in his hand. His breath came slow and controlled, the survival instincts honed through decades of violence taking over. Silas didn't know the exact cabin yet—there were three old Miller outposts scattered through these mountains—but Doc’s tracker dogs would lead them here before dawn.
He looked down at Leo. The boy’s skin was cold and slick. He wouldn't survive being bounced around on dirt trails any longer. Jax had to stand his ground.
Moving with quiet efficiency, Jax barricaded the cabin's two small windows with heavy oak planks from the floorboards. From behind the rotting hearth, he pulled out a sealed ammo crate he had buried ten years earlier as a contingency cache: a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, three boxes of buckshot, and a Colt .45 with three extra magazines.
"Mom said... you were the strongest man in the world," Leo whispered from the cot, his hazel eyes barely slit open.
Jax knelt beside him, checking the action on the shotgun with a clean, metallic clack. "Your mom told you stories?"
"Every night," the boy said softly. "She said you were a warrior on an iron horse. She said you only left because the monsters wouldn't stop following your shadow, and you wanted the shadow to stay away from us."
A tear slipped free from Jax’s eye, vanishing into his beard. All those wasted years of self-loathing, while Sarah had painted him as a hero to their son.
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"I'm done running, Leo," Jax whispered, checking the chamber of the pistol. "The monsters die tonight."
Through the cracked boards of the front door, sweeping flashlight beams cut through the pine trees. Footsteps crunched in the wet gravel outside.
