I thought I was driving up to my late wife’s cabin to finally say goodbye. Instead, I found two abandoned twin girls standing barefoot on the deck, clutching stale crackers like they were the last things keeping them alive. Minutes later, one of them whispered my wife’s name… and pointed me toward a concealed path only Sarah had ever known.

The gunfire paused as the deputy stopped to reload. It was the only window I was going to get.

I rolled out from behind the island, popping up on one knee, and fired my second shell. The buckshot caught the deputy in the leg. He screamed, dropping his rifle, and collapsed onto the hardwood floor, writhing in agony.

"Hold your fire!" Miller yelled from the driveway, realizing his men were being slaughtered by a man he assumed was just a soft corporate executive. "Vance! You are assaulting law enforcement officers! You're a dead man!"

I stood up, stepping over the groaning deputy on my living room floor, and moved quickly toward the back of the cabin. Defending a static position against automatic weapons was suicide. We couldn't stay here.

I ran down the hallway and banged on the bathroom door. "Elena! Open up!"

The door cracked open. Elena was sitting in the dry tub, her arms wrapped fiercely around Lily and Lucy, all three of them trembling violently.

"We have to go," I said, grabbing a heavy wool blanket from the linen closet and throwing it over her shoulders. "They're going to burn the cabin down to flush us out. We have to take Sarah's trail."

"In the dark?" Elena gasped. "With the mud? We'll break our necks."

"It's either that or we burn," I said bluntly. I reached down and picked up Lucy, tucking her against my chest. "I've got her. You take Lily. We go out the back window."

I smashed the glass of the bedroom window with the butt of the shotgun. The cold mountain rain instantly soaked us. I climbed out first, pulling Lucy with me, then reached back to help Elena and Lily down into the muddy backyard.

Just as Elena's feet hit the ground, the orange glow of a flare illuminated the front of the house. Miller had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the broken front door. Within seconds, the dry pine of the cabin's interior ignited, flames licking up the walls.

"Move!" I hissed, grabbing Elena's arm.

We sprinted across the backyard, diving into the thick, overgrown brambles just as Miller and his remaining men rounded the corner of the house.