Page 111 of The Oath We Take

Gently, I make my way to the edge of the bed, shuffling my butt until my feet touch the floor. The wood is cool to the touch.

I try to think about the food I saw in Atom’s pantry, earlier. Maybe I’ll make a soup, something with lentils and bacon that will become hearty and thick. But maybe it’s too hot outside for soup and I’d be better grilling the bacon and chicken on the barbecue.

As I walk to the front door to turn on the light, I see a flickering neon-green line flash across the pasture.

It takes me a moment to process what I just saw.

It looks like one of those invisible lines in museums, like, if you break it, an alarm will go off somewhere.

But then, the line appears again, and this time, the end of it appears as a singular dot on the wall of the kitchen.

My heart sinks, and I gasp when I realize what it is. There’s a laser or weapon sight marker being aimed at the house.

I immediately drop to the ground, lower than the windows, and crawl to my boots before shoving my feet into them. I’m going nowhere barefoot.

Once I have them on, I grab my phone and shakily send a text to Atom.

Me:I just saw the flash of a laser sight pointing into the kitchen.

I copy paste it to Dad and Wraith.

I glance up to the hook I took the truck keys from earlier, but see they aren’t there. Shit. Where did I put them when I came back from the clubhouse?

I don’t even know where Atom is. For all I know, they’re in Denver right now, their backs against the wall, unable to check their phones.

Another dot appears on the wall. Two of them.

Overwhelm clouds my judgement for a moment, making it impossible to think of what to do next. I can’t have just got the life I always wanted, only for it to be ripped away from me.

“Get to the gun,” I whisper yell at myself.

My knees ache as I crawl to the bedroom, trying to stay beneath any windows. When I reach it, I pull it to my chest in shaking hands, grateful I have some form of defense.

“Think, Em,” I say. I don’t have time to waste. Trying to find the keys feels futile.

There’s a rear door next to the kitchen. It leads to a shelter up against the walls of the property, where stacks of wood are lined neatly up in organized rows of thick and fat logs that progressively get thinner. Next to it are two large tubs of kindling.

I could leave that way, but I have no idea if the house is surrounded. In the dark, I can barely see the edges of the property. It’s about half a mile to the main ranch properties. I could run. Get to Wheeler or Atom’s grandpa.

Or, I could get to Lemmy and ride down to the clubhouse.

I crawl to the door. One of the green dots is moving carefully over the wall, as if the person is looking for movement. It’s hovering right on the door I need to escape through.

How could they have found me?

Wait.

If the bug was Rocco, then what else did he do?

I think back to what happened that day.

The men came. There was a fight. We had a whiskey to get over the shock while I called the police. Radcliffe came and interviewed us briefly, but given he has no love lost with the club, he stayed no more than a perfunctory four minutes.

If Rocco placed a bug in the club, maybe he placed one in my living room.

But what did he hear?

Maybe mine and Atom’s conversation in the hallway. But would he really care all that much? Afterall, I know now he wasn’t actually interested in me.

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