Chapter 5 - The Shadows Creep In
Winter settled hard over Oakhaven. Snow drifted six feet deep against the cabin walls, trapping Evelyn inside for days at a time.
Her babies were active now. She could feel the distinct, fluttering kicks against her palms—one on the left, one on the right. She named them in her head, quiet names she whispered only to the empty room: Leo and Clara.
On a freezing Tuesday evening in January, as she walked home from the diner along the dark country road, she noticed tire tracks in the fresh snow.
They led past her cabin driveway and disappeared into the trees down the road.
Evelyn stopped, her hand instinctively resting over her stomach. The woods were dead quiet save for the creaking of snow-laden pine branches.
She walked slowly to the edge of the road, looking down into the ravine. Parked beneath a grove of hemlock trees was a black SUV with no license plates. Its engine was idling softly, a faint plume of exhaust rising into the night air.
Marcus’s men had found Oakhaven.
She didn't panic. She had spent five months preparing for this moment.
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Instead of turning toward her cabin, she walked straight past it, keeping her pace steady, and melted into the dense forest along a deer trail she had mapped out during her autumn walks.
Ten minutes later, from the high ridge behind her cabin, she watched through the trees as two men in heavy black coats kicked open her front door, their handguns raised and ready.
