Her lips trembled for a moment before she gave a nod.
“You’ll be good for Uncle Bleu?”
She nodded.
“Good.” My arm circled her and brought her into me. Her head dipped onto my shoulder as her arms wrapped around my neck. I held her there as I resisted the tears in the backs of my eyes. I’d never cried in my life—until I had my daughter. Now the tears were easy to provoke. All she had to do was say she loved me, that she missed me, that she didn’t want me to go…and I was a puddle on the floor. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Twenty-Three
Benton
I stood on the sidewalk and watched the taillights glow in the dark. Bleu pulled away from the curb and drove off, moving farther and farther from where I stood. My eyes stayed on the truck until it turned to the right—and then it was gone.
Claire was gone.
Bartholomew came to my side, and the second my daughter was gone, he lit up a cigar and let the smoke rise to the cold sky. “I’ll give you some time.”
“I don’t need time.” I turned back to the apartment. “Let’s get to work.”
Bartholomew followed me back inside the silent apartment, the sounds of Claire’s absence as loud as a trumpet, and the depression sank a bit deeper. It reminded me of those terrible months when she was gone, when I feared that it would only be me from now on.
I grabbed the scotch and fell into a chair at the dining table.
He joined me.
I gave a loud sigh. “How are we going to do this?”
“We only have two options.” He held the cigar between his fingertips as his elbow rested on the table. “We hit them with everything that we’ve got. Or we sneak in—just a couple of us.”
“If we hit them hard, they’ll see us a mile away.”
Bartholomew nodded. “I know they have scouts in cabins farther away from the camp, so they’ll report us before we get there. I know they’ve got a stockpile of weapons at their disposal, some serious shit.”
“How do you know this?”
“I talked to their arms dealer. Got the inventory.”
“RPGs?”
He sucked on his cigar as he gave a nod. “Could shoot down our choppers before we even land. If we take the Hummers, it’ll be more of the same. We can let the men go first and we pull up in the rear, so they’ll die instead of us.”
“And if we sneak in?”
“Horses.”
Neither plan was great. A couple men weren’t enough to overthrow that camp, but if we came with guns blazing, they’d shoot us out of the sky like clay pigeons. “What should we choose?”
“Do we know where they keep their weapons?”
I shook my head. Even if I could ask Constance, I doubt she’d know.
“Do you know where her cabin is?”
I shook my head again.
“We could do surveillance for a while. Live in the woods.”
“I suppose.”
“Neither is a good decision. Because if we get caught on our own, we stand no chance to get away.”
True. “We could start a fire along the edges of the camp.”
“We have no idea which way that fire will go. Might go the wrong direction.”
Fuck. “I remember Constance saying something about a church…”
He took a drag of his cigar as he stared at me.
“It’s the only place where the women go that they can’t be followed. The windows are covered.”
“What are you thinking?”
“We get in there and give them weapons. There’ve got to be at least twelve. They can hide the guns under their gowns.”
“And then what?”
“They can kill their demons. Those are the guys we need to worry about—not the Malevolent.”
He considered the idea before he gave a slight nod. “I’m sure they won’t miss—because they’ve got to be pissed.”
“I’ll handle Forneus myself.”
“I think your girl deserves that honor.”
“If he knows it’s over, he’ll kill her. And I know that’s a battle she can’t possibly win.”
He gave a slight nod. “No dibs in my book. I’m going to kill every motherfucker that I see.”
We drove the trailer down vacant country roads until the roads ended. It was just an endless tree line with the mountains in the distance. Snow covered the trees. A thin line of mist rose into the sky, the cold air almost visible to the naked eye.
Bartholomew gazed at it. “Would be a lot more beautiful if it wasn’t cold as shit.” He hopped out and moved to the trailer.
I joined him, my bulletproof vest strapped underneath my long-sleeved shirt, and opened the door in the back to get the horses.
Bartholomew already had a cigar in his mouth. “The men are ready. I just have to call it in, and they’ll arrive in ten minutes.”
“Alright.” I guided my horse by the reins and tied her up against the trailer. She was a mare I’d had for years, a horse Claire had affectionately named Princess. I rubbed her behind the ear then gave her a pat on the flank.