Page 66 of Not This Soon

"We got him... didn't we?" He managed to say between gasps of pain.

Rachel nodded grimly, her gaze sweeping across the desert landscape darkened by shadows and broken by moonlight. "Yes," She confirmed quietly.

She knelt at her partner’s side, hastily radioing for backup and paramedics. Both of them shot.

But her night wasn’t over. She quickly tended to Ethan’s wound, relieved to see the bullet had missed bone.

But her mind kept casting back to the notifications on her phone.

To her aunt.

To her parents’ murderer.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Sleep was for another soul.

Rachel was still on the move. Three hours north of her previous location, she’d returned to the place it had all started.

She wished she hadn’t dived into Atticus’ history. Hadn’t learned about the abuse under his parents’ harsh hands. He’d tried to become a priest but hadn’t made it far. According to one medical report, Atticus suffered from something called scrupulosity—a form of ethical OCD that had tormented him from a young age.

And according to some of the audio messages they’d found on his phone, he thought he was pleasing the divine by exactingmercykillings. Mercy on the wounded. Mercy on the sinful. All of it ending in death.

And then his self-righteous, morally absolute parents had been killed by a cartel. The fascination with that form of organized crime had driven him over the edge when Robert Morris had brought them in as business associates.

The scrupulosity had taken over, coupled with the trauma and a righteous vengeance… and now… So many dead.

And it had almost ended in Ethan’s death.

She bit her lip, forcing her mind to refocus.

Rachel pushed through the dense underbrush, her breaths coming in sharp, painful gasps. Each step sent a fresh jolt of agony through her battered body, but she gritted her teeth and pressed on. The dark woods closed in around her, the thick canopy blocking out the moonlight and casting eerie shadows across the forest floor.

She followed the faint trail left by her aunt's passage, her keen eyes picking out the subtle signs of disturbed foliage and snapped twigs. The coppery scent of blood mingled with theearthy aroma of the forest, a constant reminder of her own injuries and the violence that had brought her to this point.

Rachel's mind raced as she moved deeper into the woods, her thoughts consumed by the revelations that had shattered her world. Her aunt, the woman who had raised her, was somehow connected to her parents' deaths. The betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound, fueling her determination to uncover the truth.

The trail grew fresher as she advanced, the broken branches and scuffed earth indicating her aunt's increasing desperation. Rachel's heartbeat thundered in her ears, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she anticipated the confrontation to come.

Her hand tightened around the grip of her gun, the cold metal a reassuring presence against her palm. Years of training and experience had honed her instincts, preparing her for the dangers that lurked in the shadows.

As she pushed through a particularly dense thicket, Rachel caught a flicker of movement ahead. She froze, her muscles tensing as she scanned the area for any sign of her aunt. The forest seemed to hold its breath, the only sound the distant hooting of an owl and the soft rustle of leaves in the night breeze.

Rachel crept forward, her footsteps nearly silent on the forest floor. She could feel the anticipation building in her gut, a coiled spring ready to unleash at the slightest provocation. Her senses were heightened, attuned to the slightest change in her surroundings.

She emerged into a small clearing, the moonlight filtering through the branches overhead to cast a ghostly glow across the scene. And there, at the far edge of the clearing, stood a small, dilapidated shack, its weathered walls and sagging roof barely visible in the darkness.

Rachel's heart skipped a beat as she caught a flicker of movement from within the shack, a shadow passing across the grimy window.

Steeling herself for whatever lay ahead, Rachel advanced cautiously towards the shack, her gun at the ready. The truth, no matter how painful, was within her grasp.

Rachel approached the shack with measured steps, her boots barely making a sound against the damp earth. She kept her body low, using the shadows as cover, her eyes constantly scanning for any signs of danger.

The shack loomed before her, a decrepit structure that seemed to lean precariously to one side. The wooden walls were rotting, the roof missing shingles, and the window panes were cracked and coated with grime. It looked like a place where secrets went to die.

She paused at the corner of the shack, pressing her back against the rough wooden planks. The movement inside had ceased, replaced by an eerie stillness that set her nerves on edge.

Rachel's mind raced, trying to anticipate what awaited her inside. Her aunt, the woman who had raised her, who she thought she knew better than anyone. But now, doubt crept in like a poison, tainting every memory, every shared moment.

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