In the Willows

Chapter Fifty-One: The Road Ahead

Gabe's POV — South of Highway 86, Malta, Idaho

Highway 86 cuts through Idaho's winter basin like a fracture line—snow-choked, silent, and wide open. You ride point because Uncle Javier once said whoever takes the lead chooses where the bullets land, and his voice still paces your skull years after.........

Lena hums brittle tunes against the scarf bunched over her mouth. She rides half a length to your left on a paint gelding, eyes scanning coulees and tree wells the way a hunter reads entrails. Scott takes rear, AR-15 canted down, calculating distance crossed like the old math teacher he used to be. Three riders, three days overdue, one busted radio.

The sky above looks hammered flat—no sun, no moon, just cold iron. Wind slides across the frozen sage and cuts your face in tiny half-moon crescents that sting like hell.

At the rise before Malta the view spills wide: a scatter of caved roofs, the gas-station sign buckled down into a rusted question mark. The town's been dead for years, but you still slow your horse because silence feels heavier here—like the snow itself is listening.

"We cut north once we pass the rail spur," you whisper, drawing a finger along the map creased in your fist. "Up the ridge, drop through the shoulder gap. Two days out, locate our people, then backtrack."

"Sounds easy," Lena chuckles. Wind muffles her laugh. "You hear that?"

She dismounts, kneels beside the roadway, digs with gloved tips until frozen powder yields two deep ruts. "Tire tread," she murmurs. "Fresh. Layer's hard but not glazed."

Scott kneels opposite and runs knuckles along the furrow. "Military frame? Seems awfully large for a normal vehicle."

Your gut drops. Misery, how could they be so fast?

"Eyes up," you say. "Into the draw—"

The first report cracks like splitting bone. Not aimed at a target—just a warning shot. Rough bark of rifles answers from the treeline, and the forest disgorges silhouettes: navy dusters with silver rope braids. Shit, all of them in one sweep.

Scott lifts his carbine but a butt-stroke smashes his cheek dropping him instantly. Lena squeezes a slug that tears through a collar; he only grunts and keeps coming. A rider hooks her reins, drags her down, blade flicking to slice her thigh. She snarls but the snow drinks her blood.

You pull your Winchester—too slow. Two hands clamp your arms; a boot snaps your knee sideways. Sky tumbles. Snow is suddenly eye-level. Boots pin your shoulders and a burlap bag yanks over your head. Static crackles in someone's throat mic:

"Team Sable. Three assets secure. Malta junction locked."

Your last thought before darkness is simple and bright and terrified: you're fucked.

Kai's POV — Snake River Basin, Misery Convoy

Wind fangs your cheeks as the command APC grinds across the cantilever bridge above Snake River's iron ribbon. You stand waist-high in the roof hatch, laminated ceramic plates under a charcoal softshell poncho, Kevlar sleeves flexing when the rifle strap creaks across your chest. No dramatic trench-coat today—weight gets you killed. Under everything, moisture-wicking wool drinks the cold before it claws.

Behind, twenty vehicles roll in offset echelon: Vanguard gun-trucks loud with scarlet slash insignia; United Mafia couriers, neat in navy; Iron Phalanx siege rig—gun-metal and yellow visor plates—lumbering at rear. The rank-and-file can't smell their own fear over diesel and snow, but you can.

Emory cuts her bay stallion parallel to the APC. Her harness is a modern bite-proof weave—sleek black, violet shoulder sash folded tight, saber strapped across her back. She tips two fingers to the mic clipped at her chest.