MY GRANDMOTHER GAVE ME $500 FOR CHRISTMAS. THEN SHE LOOKED AT MY MOTHER AND SAID FIVE WORDS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING.

"There's four operators, plus Blackwood and Maeve," Julian whispered, kneeling low in the frozen brambles, his sidearm resting across his uninjured knee. "My left hand is shaking too much. I can take the generator operator, but the moment I fire, Blackwood’s going to rake this ditch with buckshot."

"Then don't shoot Blackwood," I whispered, my heart hammering in my ears.

Julian looked at me. "What?"

"The fuel tank on that generator," I pointed with my gloved finger. "It’s an open-frame contractor model. The plastic fuel reservoir is completely exposed to keep it from freezing. It’s sitting right next to the exhaust manifold."

Julian’s eyes narrowed, tracking my line of sight through the falling snow. "That’s a thirty-yard shot in high wind with my off hand, Nola."

"You made the shot on the lighthouse catwalk," Clara said, her voice steady now, the motherly fear completely replaced by a cold, protective rage. "You hit the man who took my father’s life. Now hit the machine that’s trying to take my daughter's."

Julian took a deep, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes for three seconds, centering himself against the biting Maine frost, then brought the pistol up, resting the heavy barrel across the crook of a dead spruce branch.

He didn't fire immediately. He waited for the wind to drop between gusts.

*Crack.*

The pistol bucked in his hand.

Across the clearing, the red plastic fuel tank of the generator shattered. A spray of unleaded gasoline ignited instantly against the cherry-red glow of the exhaust pipe. A brilliant, orange fireball erupted with a violent *whump*, hurling the nearest tactical operator backward into the snow, his jacket engulfed in flames.

"Contact!" Blackwood roared, dropping his cigarette and raising his shotgun in one fluid motion. "Tree line! West ditch!"

He pumped two heavy rounds of twelve-gauge buckshot into the brambles above our heads. The blast shredded the frozen branches, raining pine needles and pulverized wood down onto our jackets.

"Move! Now!" Clara shouted, grabbing Ruth by the collar and dragging her along the depression of the drainage ditch toward the rear of the train cars.

I didn't run with them.

As the black smoke from the burning generator billowed across the tracks, obscuring the yard in an oily, choking fog, I scrambled up out of the ditch, keeping low behind the rusted iron wheels of the first boxcar. The iron pry bar was heavy in my grip, my knuckles white with tension.

Through the gaps between the train wheels, I saw Maeve cursing, trying to shield her tablet from the smoke.

"Victor! Cover the door!" Maeve screamed. "The auxiliary power failed! I have to bypass the solenoid manually!"

"I’m going to skin them alive!" Blackwood bellowed, racking another shell into his shotgun as he stalked through the smoke toward the ditch where Clara and Ruth had fled.

He walked right past my hiding spot.

I didn't give myself time to think. I didn't allow the horror or the fear to paralyze my limbs. The moment his heavy combat boots crunched past the iron wheel assembly, I stepped out from the shadow of the train car.

With every ounce of strength in my arms, my back, and my legs, I swung the iron pry bar with a horizontal, vicious sweep.

The heavy iron struck Victor Blackwood directly across the back of his right knee with a sickening, wet crunch of tearing ligaments and splintering bone.

Blackwood shrieked—a high, guttural sound of pure agony—and his massive frame collapsed sideways into the frozen gravel. His shotgun flew from his hands, landing in a snowbank five feet away.

Before he could roll onto his back, I stepped forward and brought the heel of my boot down hard onto his wrist, pinning his arm against the steel rail, the pry bar raised above my head like an executioner’s axe.

Blackwood looked up at me through the swirling black smoke, his face twisted in a mask of absolute hatred and shock.

"You..." he spat, blood bubbling on his lips. "You little church-mouse bitch..."

"Grandmother said you were a wolf, Victor," I whispered, my voice cold, devoid of all pity. "She was wrong. You're just a dog on an old woman’s leash."

I brought the iron bar down onto the side of his skull.