## PART 2 FULL – “Where…” Her voice broke. “Where am I?”
Caleb almost laughed
Caleb almost laughed.
Men who truly did not want trouble rarely announced it from behind rifles.
“Send the woman out!”
Eleanor’s face went pale.
Caleb looked at her.
“They know I’m alive.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He checked the rifle chamber.
“Someone searched the wreck after I left.”
The man outside shouted again.
“She belongs to us!”
Caleb’s expression changed.
Eleanor noticed.
That same dangerous shadow she had seen earlier.
She grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
He looked down.
“You said it yourself,” she whispered. “You make bad choices when you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“That makes it worse.”
Something hit the cabin wall.
A gunshot.
Eleanor screamed.
Caleb dragged her down as another bullet tore through the window.
Glass exploded across the floor.
“Back room!”
“There is no back room!”
“Then congratulations. You found the flaw in my architecture.”
Despite terror, she almost laughed.
More shots struck the logs.
Caleb fired through the broken window.
A horse screamed.
Men shouted.
Caleb moved toward the door.
Eleanor grabbed him.
“Where are you going?”
“To end this.”
“No.”
“They’ll burn us out.”
“You don’t know that.”
A flaming bottle smashed against the porch.
Fire crawled across the timber.
Caleb gave her a look.
Eleanor sighed.
“Fine. Poor timing.”
He kicked the door open and fired.
Chaos erupted.
Eleanor heard gunshots, shouting, horses, splintering wood.
Then silence.
Terrible silence.
“Caleb?”
No answer.
She crawled toward the doorway.
A shadow appeared.
Not Caleb.
A stranger stepped inside.
Tall.
Thin.
Gray coat.
Revolver in hand.
He smiled when he saw Eleanor.
“Well.”
She scrambled backward.
“The cursed girl survives.”
Eleanor’s blood turned cold.
She knew that voice.
He had stood outside the church in Alder Creek six months earlier when the whispers about her began.
A traveling preacher named Jonah Black.
He had pointed at Eleanor before half the town and declared that misfortune followed wherever she walked.
“You,” she whispered.
He smiled.
“Me.”
“You started the rumors.”
“I encouraged them.”
“Why?”
“Isolation makes people easier to move.”
She understood.
“You wanted me to leave town.”
“We wanted you frightened.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
Jonah raised the revolver.
Before he could answer, something massive hit him from behind.
Caleb.
The two men crashed across the cabin.
The revolver fired into the ceiling.
Jonah struck Caleb with the weapon.
Caleb staggered.
Eleanor grabbed the iron poker from beside the stove.
Jonah turned.
She swung.
The poker struck his wrist.
The revolver fell.
Caleb hit him once.
Jonah collapsed.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Caleb looked at Eleanor.
“You all right?”
She nodded.
“You?”
“Been better.”
Blood ran from his forehead.
Eleanor laughed shakily.
Caleb stared at her.
“What?”
“You asked if I was all right.”
“That funny?”
“No.”
Her laughter turned unexpectedly into tears.
“That’s why it’s funny.”
Caleb’s face softened.
He stepped toward her.
Then stopped.
Eleanor crossed the remaining distance herself.
She put her arms around him.
Caleb stood rigid.
Slowly, carefully, his arms closed around her.
No one had held Eleanor without hesitation in years.
Not because they wanted money.
Not because they pitied her.
Not because they wished to mock her afterward.
Caleb simply held her.
And somehow that hurt more than cruelty ever had.
She buried her face against his chest.
“You saved me again.”
“You hit him with the poker.”
“I helped.”
“You nearly broke his hand.”
“Good.”
Caleb laughed softly.
Then Jonah groaned.
They separated.
Caleb tied him to a chair.
When Jonah regained consciousness, his smile returned.
“You think you won?”
Caleb crouched in front of him.
“Where’s Crowe?”
Jonah laughed.
“You still believe Crowe is one man?”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
Jonah looked at Eleanor.
“Your father understood eventually.”
Eleanor stepped closer.
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing he didn’t invite.”
She slapped him.
His head snapped sideways.
Caleb said nothing.
Jonah smiled through blood.
“There she is.”
“What?”
“The real Eleanor Vale.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know more than Ward does.”
Caleb’s expression hardened.
Jonah continued.
“Ask her why her father locked the west wing of Vale Manor.”
Eleanor froze.
“How do you know about that?”
“Ask what was under the floor.”
Her breathing changed.
Caleb looked at her.
“Eleanor?”
She backed away.
Jonah laughed.
“Oh, she remembers.”
“I was twelve.”
“Old enough.”
“Shut up.”
“Old enough to hear them screaming.”
Caleb rose.
“What is he talking about?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Jonah leaned forward against the ropes.
“Liar.”
Caleb struck him.
The chair nearly toppled.
“Speak to her like that again and you’ll finish this conversation without teeth.”
Jonah spat blood onto the floor.
“Protect her, Ward.”
He laughed.
“Just like Abigail.”
Caleb went still.
Jonah smiled.
“You never wondered why Abigail was targeted?”
Caleb grabbed his collar.
“Tell me.”
“She wasn’t.”
Caleb’s face changed.
“What?”
“She wasn’t the target.”
“Then who was?”
Jonah looked directly at Caleb.
“You.”
The words seemed to empty the cabin of air.
Caleb released him slowly.
Jonah leaned back.
“Eight years hiding on this mountain, and you still don’t understand why they let you live.”
Caleb’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Who?”
Jonah smiled.
“The same people who wanted Eleanor alive.”
“Why?”
“Because neither of you knows what you are.”
Before Caleb could respond, Jonah convulsed.
His eyes widened.
Foam appeared at his mouth.
Eleanor stepped backward.
“What’s happening?”
Caleb grabbed Jonah’s jaw.
“Poison.”
Jonah laughed weakly.
“Too late.”
“What did you take?”
But Jonah’s eyes had already rolled upward.
His body sagged.
Dead.
Eleanor stared.
“He poisoned himself.”
“No.”
Caleb examined his mouth.
“Something was hidden inside a false tooth.”
“Why?”
“To stop him talking.”
Caleb searched the body.
Inside Jonah’s coat he found ammunition, money, a folding knife—
and a photograph.
The photograph was old.
Faded.
Caleb stared at it.
His hands began shaking.
Eleanor noticed.
“What is it?”
He did not answer.
She stepped closer.
The photograph showed four people standing outside a large house.
One was Eleanor’s father.
Much younger.
Beside him stood a woman Eleanor instantly recognized.
Her mother.
The third person was Silas Crowe.
Younger, but unmistakable.
And beside Crowe stood another woman.
Caleb dropped the photograph.
Eleanor picked it up.
“Who is she?”
Caleb could barely speak.
“My wife.”
Eleanor looked again.
Abigail Ward stood smiling beside Eleanor’s parents.
But something else was written across the bottom of the photograph.
Four words.
Caleb had apparently never seen them.
Eleanor read them aloud.
“Black Elk Research Company.”
Caleb stared at her.
“Research?”
A noise sounded outside.
Not horses this time.
A bell.
Caleb ran to the door.
Far below the mountain, cutting through the newly cleared valley, a train moved along tracks Eleanor had never seen marked on any map.
Black smoke rose from its engine.
Behind it were six enclosed cars.
And men.
Dozens of men.
Armed men.
The train stopped directly beneath the mountain.
Eleanor whispered, “They found us.”
Caleb picked up his rifle.
“No.”
His face had gone pale.
“What?”
“I know that train.”
“How?”
Caleb looked at the black engine.
“Because I rode it once.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“When?”
He did not answer.
Instead, he walked toward the wall beside the fireplace.
There, behind stacked wood, Caleb pulled away a loose plank.
Inside was a metal box.
Eleanor watched him open it.
There were letters.
Maps.
Photographs.
And a silver badge engraved with the same symbol stamped on Jonah Black’s revolver.
Eleanor stepped backward.
“You knew.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I forgot.”
“What does that mean?”
His breathing grew uneven.
“I don’t know.”
“You hid this.”
“I must have.”
“You said you had never heard of Black Elk Research Company.”
“I hadn’t.”
“That badge says otherwise.”
Caleb pressed both hands against his temples.
Images seemed to strike him from somewhere behind his eyes.
A laboratory.
White lamps.
Leather straps.
Men shouting numbers.
Abigail screaming his name.
Caleb stumbled.
Eleanor caught his arm.
“What is it?”
“I remember…”
“What?”
His eyes rose toward hers.
Pure horror filled them.
“Abigail didn’t die in this cabin.”
Eleanor stared.
“I buried her.”
“No.”
He shook his head harder.
“I remember burying her, but…”
His voice broke.
“That isn’t what happened.”
Below them, the train whistle screamed.
Caleb looked toward it.
A door on the final train car opened.
A solitary figure stepped down into the snow.
A woman.
Even from hundreds of yards away, Caleb recognized the way she stood.
Recognized the tilt of her head.
Recognized the red scarf wrapped around her throat.
His rifle slipped from his fingers.
“No.”
Eleanor looked between Caleb and the distant woman.
“What?”
Caleb’s face had become gray.
“That scarf…”
The woman below began walking toward the mountain.
Caleb whispered a name he had not spoken aloud in eight years.
“Abigail.”
Eleanor’s heart stopped.
The dead woman was climbing toward them.
And in one gloved hand, she carried a photograph of Eleanor as a child.
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