Elizabeth Heiter - Seized

Butler shrugged at his lieutenant, radiating power and rage and something else, something Evelyn couldn’t quite pinpoint. “So you said. And you could be right, considering what they’ve brought to our doorstep.”

His grip on his weapon suddenly tightened. “Deal with her. I’m going to talk to everyone.” He glared at Rolfe, almost as though he was daring him to disobey, then turned and moved deeper into the compound.

As he walked away, her panic began to subside and new sounds penetrated. Some kind of thumping, like metal against wood, and the low mumble of too many voices. So, there were more people in here. The rest of the cultists?

She struggled to hear, to gauge how many cultists were here, what she might be up against. But her ears were still ringing, and it was hard to tell. There might’ve been a dozen, might’ve been a hundred.

Evelyn watched Butler go, and the world started to sharpen. She couldn’t see anyone, but they had to be gathered in that large room she and Jen had walked into earlier.

She saw movement in her peripheral vision and turned to discover Rolfe holding out a hand to her.

She hesitantly put her hand in his, and he yanked her to her feet so fast that she fell into him. She automatically threw her free hand up to brace herself and landed flush against his chest. He was lean, so she hadn’t expected the taut muscles underneath her hand. Still, there was something else, something that didn’t belong.

He moved away from her, but not before she realized what he had on underneath his camouflage shirt. A shoulder holster.

“Come with me,” he said, not giving her a choice, because he hadn’t let go of her hand. He pulled her with him as he began walking in the opposite direction Butler had gone.

He passed the utility closet where she’d been stuck with Jen, and she felt new hope flare inside her—hope that he’d open that big steel door and just push her outside. After watching Butler shoot Jen, she’d prefer to take her chances in the inhospitable Montana mountains than stay here. Frostbite and death from exposure be damned.

But instead of opening the door, he suddenly whirled around, and pushed on the wall, which popped open into a new hallway. A door without a handle, practically invisible in the dim light.

Before she could move, he grabbed her around the waist, then lifted her up easily and set her down on the other side of the doorway. She didn’t have time to protest; he took her hand again and started pulling her along.

She glanced behind her in time to see the door slide quietly shut, in time to see something shimmer along the ground in that doorway. She squinted, trying to make it out. A trip wire? Inside the compound?

She stumbled and righted herself, eyes forward, though she couldn’t see anything.

It was even darker in this hallway, and quieter. Evelyn followed blindly, intensely aware of her hand crushed in Rolfe’s, the squish of her shoes every time she took a step, Jen’s blood between her toes.

Where was he taking her? What did he plan to do with her?

She opened her mouth to ask, but what came out was, “Where’s Jen?” She didn’t think Butler had been lying about her death, but what had they done with her body?

She sensed more than saw Rolfe glance back at her, before he stopped, opened a new door and dragged her inside.

“She’s gone. I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have brought you here. Now we’re going to have to figure out what to do with you.”

He finally released her and wiped the blood off his own hand on his pant legs. He did it distractedly, as if the blood didn’t bother him. Or worse, as if he was used to it.

Then a dim light came on, illuminating a small, sparse room. Wooden shelves along one wall were lined with stacks of neatly folded utilitarian clothing, bars of soap and threadbare towels. She turned, discovering buckets and shovels stacked against another wall.

“There are smaller sizes in the left corner,” Rolfe said as she heard the door close. “Those should fit you. Go ahead and change.”

She spun around to find him standing close to her in the tiny room, anger and annoyance etched on his face. But at Butler or her? She wasn’t sure.

She backed up, bumping the shelves hard enough to send a splinter through the sleeve of her suit and into her arm. “Can you wait outside?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Leave a cop alone in a room full of potential weapons? I can’t do that. Come on, change. You don’t want to wear that.”

She hesitated, and he took a step back, leaning against the door, his eyes steady on her. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

She felt an acute sense of discomfort, but the reality was, she had no idea how long she’d be here, or if they’d decide to toss her outside. In this weather, she’d be better off in warm sweats than her blood-soaked suit.

Evelyn shivered as she slid her suit jacket off, watching Rolfe carefully for any sign of sinister intent. She ripped the splinter out of her arm. The camisole she wore underneath her jacket had splotches of dried blood, too, and Evelyn yanked it over her head, replacing it with a sweatshirt that hung down to her hips. But it was warm. And dry.

Rolfe shifted his gaze to the wall as she changed out of her pants. The back of her underwear was sticky with blood, but she wasn’t changing out of those in front of Rolfe, no matter how indifferent he seemed. Quickly, she stepped into a pair of big gray sweatpants she had to cinch tight at the waist. They pooled at her ankles as she put on a pair of thick wool socks.

Her skin felt tight where Jen’s blood had soaked through her clothes and dried, but at least she wasn’t drenched in it anymore. When she reached down to pick up her suit, Rolfe grabbed her arm, stopping her.

“Leave it. You don’t want that.”

He was right. Covered in Jen’s blood, it would’ve gone straight in the trash if she was at home. She didn’t need it, anyway. Butler had already taken her weapon, handcuffs and cell phone. She had no way to protect herself, and no way to call for help.

The only way she was getting out of here alive was if she convinced someone to let her go. And Rolfe was her best bet, since he was the only reason she was still breathing.

Stuck this close to him in the small room, she could see the tiny lines under his hazel eyes, and she had a sudden, unexpected flashback to college. To another pair of hazel eyes, eerily similar.

Except for his blond hair, Rolfe looked a lot like Marty Carlyle. The older brother of one of her best friends, and her first serious boyfriend. Someone she’d thought she could trust, who’d broken her heart.

She took a step backward, bumping into the shelf again as Rolfe’s grip tightened on her wrist. She couldn’t trust Rolfe, either, but she needed him to trust her. She needed him to connect with her.

And yet...if he was a racist who hated the federal government, why had he convinced Butler to let her live at all?

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?” Talking made her jaw throb, and she probed a raw spot on the inside of her cheek with her tongue, tasting more blood. With her free hand she gingerly touched the side of her chin, but even that slight touch was painful.

A hint of a frown curled his lips, and now that she’d noticed the resemblance to Marty, it was all she could see. Marty was Jewish, though, and Rolfe would surely have hated him, too.

“What’s so funny?” Rolfe asked.

“Nothing’s funny,” she snapped before she’d thought it through. A federal agent was dead, a federal agent who’d been right about one thing. Something strange was happening at the Butler Compound.

But it was better not to remind him of Jen, so she said, “Butler’s followers aren’t going to want me among them. You can’t want me here, either, a black woman...”