You’re too late.
The words keep replaying, warped and static, like an old cassette tape that won’t stop looping in a broken player.
Markus delivered those words with confidence, but his body betrayed him. The smile never reached his eyes. His laugh came out forced, brittle—the sound of someone trying too hard to sell a lie. I caught the subtle tells that years of interrogation had trained me to spot: the slight tension in his jaw, the way his breathing shifted just before he spoke, the microsecond delay that meant he was choosing his words carefully.
He wanted me to believe it was over. But desperation has its own tells, and Markus reeked of it. He doesn’t know if she is alive. And even if he does, he’s wrong.
She’s not dead.
She can’t be.
The steering wheel protests beneath my grip, leather creaking like old bones. I don’t realize how tight I’m holding it until my knuckles go white and start to ache. The highway unfolds in front of me like a dark ribbon leading straight to hell, nothing but damp gray asphalt and pine shadows pressing against the edges of my vision. The sun died hours ago, swallowed by cloud cover and the kind of distance that makes you feel like you’re driving off the edge of the world.
Headlights flare on passing cars—brief, anonymous intersections with lives that aren’t falling apart in real time. But the world feels emptied of everything except this drive, this desperate mathematics of speed versus time versus hope. The destination burns in my mind like a brand: twenty miles northwest, past Whitehill, look for the break in the trees by the ivy-covered water tower.
I wonder if Markus broke too easily, if desperation made me sloppy and he’s leading me on a wild chase to some empty field where I’ll find nothing but my own stupidity.
But I have to try, because the alternative is admitting that I let her walk into darkness while I sat behind a desk pretending protocol mattered more than the woman I love.
I’m armed for war. Two Glocks—mine and hers, the spare she kept in my care for backup. Kevlar vest that’s seen better days but still stops bullets. High-lumen tactical flashlight. Zip ties for restraints. Backup phone so Kelsi can track my last known location if this goes sideways and I don’t make it back to file a report.
My badge, clipped to my belt like always. Useless for jurisdiction this far out, but it still means something to me. Still reminds me who I’m supposed to be when the world goes insane.
I keep glancing at the passenger seat.
Dalia.
I think about her constantly now—an obsession that’s probably clinical by any reasonable standard. The way she whispered my name in that motel room, her fingers curling into my shirt like I was someone she could hold onto when everything else was slipping through her fingers like water.
She was safe then, wrapped in cheap motel sheets and my arms.
And now she’s twenty miles away in the hands of people who think human beings are building blocks for salvation.
I blink too hard, vision blurring at the edges with exhaustion and something that might be tears if I let myself acknowledge it. I can’t think like that. Not now.
A notification buzzes on my dashboard’s display screen, overlaying the GPS route that’s become my lifeline. Kelsi.
I hit the hands-free button without taking my eyes off the road. “Yeah.”
“Tell me you’re not doing this alone.” Her voice carries through the speakers with the particular edge she gets when she’s worried and trying not to show it.
I don’t answer immediately. Can’t, because the truth is too pathetic to say out loud: I’m one man with two guns and no backup, driving toward a cult compound because I can’t stand the thought of her dying while I follow proper channels.
“Elias,” she presses.
“I’m not waiting anymore,” I say, my voice coming out like gravel scraped over concrete. “We’ve been sitting on this too long. Playing politics while they do God knows what to her. You saw the surveillance footage. You saw the commune. She didn’t just vanish into thin air.”
“Where are you now?”
I check the GPS display, watching the blue dot that represents my location crawl toward the red pin that represents everything. “Ten minutes out. Maybe less.” One straight stretch of highway, then a fork that dissolves into gravel and good intentions. “Once I get eyes on the site, I’ll check in.”
“If you’re not back in contact within two hours, I’m calling in a welfare check,” Kelsi says, and I can hear the keyboard clicking in the background. “I don’t care if Locke throws me under the bus for insubordination. I’ll fake an anonymous tip about suspicious activity.”
The loyalty in her voice makes my throat tight. “You’re a good cop, Kelsi.”
“Don’t butter me up, Wexler. Just come back with her.”
The weight of those words settles in my chest like lead. I nod, knowing she can’t see it through the phone, and end the call before my voice can crack.
The trees begin to thin as I approach the coordinates Markus gave me, revealing glimpses of open sky that looks more like a void than heaven. No signs marking this place. No markers indicating human habitation. Just the kind of road you take when you’re trying to disappear completely, when you want to bury things so deep they’ll never claw their way back to the surface.
I pull onto the gravel turnoff, tires crunching against scattered stone that sounds like broken bones under the weight of the car. The vehicle dips slightly as the suspension adjusts to terrain that’s been deliberately neglected—earth that’s soft and uneven, perfect for hiding things that shouldn’t be found.
Perfect for graves.
I flick off my headlights and slow to a crawl, relying on ambient starlight and the muscle memory of too many night operations. The darkness ahead feels solid, impenetrable, like driving into the mouth of something vast and hungry.
I’ll park half a mile out and cover the rest on foot. Standard tactical approach for unknown hostiles in fortified positions. Except there’s nothing standard about this situation, nothing in my training that prepared me for this.
My mind’s already shifting into operational mode—entry angles, cover and concealment, possible extraction routes. I map the terrain in my head.
I have to be enough. Have to be better than I’ve ever been, because failure isn’t just professional embarrassment here. Failure means losing the only thing that makes any of this worthwhile.
I strain my ears for any sound that doesn’t belong. Voices. Engines. The distant bark of guard dogs. Nothing but wind through the emptiness and my own pulse hammering against my eardrums.
I reach into the glove compartment and pull out Dalia’s spare Glock. The metal is warm from the heater, familiar weight settling into my palm like a handshake from an old friend.
I check the magazine. Full. Fifteen rounds of nine-millimeter hope. I tuck it into my backup holster, opposite my service weapon. Forty-six rounds total, plus whatever I’ve got in my tactical bag.
I step out of the car into air that tastes like pine needles and distant smoke. The kind of smoke that comes from fires that burn things other than wood. Somewhere ahead, in a building I can’t see yet, Dalia is waiting.
I adjust my vest, check my gear one last time, and start walking toward whatever hell they’ve built.
The gravel gives way to dirt, then to something that might charitably be called a trail. My boots find purchase on ground that’s been walked before—not frequently, but regularly enough to wear a path through the undergrowth. The trees close in overhead, branches interlocking like fingers trying to keep secrets buried.
Every step takes me further from backup, from procedure, from the safe boundaries of legal law enforcement. Every step brings me closer to the moment when I’ll have to choose between the badge and the woman who makes wearing it worthwhile.
I’ve already made that choice.
The trees ahead begin to thin again, and that’s when I see it. A church. Sitting alone in the middle of an open field like something that fell from a nightmare and took root.
I drop to my belly behind a fallen log, pulling out my phone and switching to camera mode. The zoom brings the building into sharp focus.
It’s old—maybe nineteenth century—but wrong in ways that have nothing to do with age. The white clapboard siding glows with an inner light that spills through windows. The steeple reaches toward heaven. The front doors stand open, welcoming. Golden light pours from every window and the front door. Candlelight, probably.
The light from inside the church pulses occasionally, like a heartbeat made visible.
I lie there for what feels like hours, cataloging every detail, every pattern, every possible weakness. My elbows dig into the soft earth. Dew soaks through my clothes. My neck cramps from holding the same position, but I don’t move. This is reconnaissance, and rushing it would get us killed.
Sometimes shadows move across the windows—tall, elongated shapes that don’t look quite human. Sometimes I hear something that might be singing or chanting. The distance and wind make it impossible to tell which.
Whatever they’re preparing for in there, it’s happening soon. Tonight, maybe.
I pull back behind the log and type a message to Kelsi with thumbs that shake slightly from adrenaline and cold:
Found them. Old church in field. Heavy activity inside. Going in now. If you don’t hear from me in 2 hours, send everything you’ve got.
I hesitate for a moment, finger hovering over the send button. Once I send this, there’s no going back. No plausible deniability, no way to pretend this was anything other than a lone wolf operation that violated every protocol in the book.
I hit send and switch the phone to silent.
The church waits ahead, glowing like a malevolent star in the darkness. Somewhere inside those walls, past the candlelight and whatever unholy ceremony they’re conducting, Dalia is waiting.
I check my weapons one last time and start crawling toward the edge of the field, toward whatever hell they’ve built in the name of salvation.
ns216.73.216.96da2
