Estranged son of cult elder tracks missing mother whose children were abandoned in snowstorm, uncovering family's dark secrets.
The escape from the cabin was fraught with tension. Abigail was weak, but her resolve burned bright. We moved as quickly as her strength allowed, using the deepening twilight and the fresh snowfall to obscure our tracks. The path back through Raven’s Gorge was treacherous, but the thought of Jed’s imminent return, or Emmett’s wrath, spurred us onward.
We hadn’t gone far, perhaps a quarter of a mile, when a guttural shout echoed through the trees.
“Hold! Elder’s orders!”
Jed. He emerged from behind a stand of snow-covered pines, his hulking frame silhouetted against the deepening grey sky, a heavy hunting rifle clutched in his gloved hands. His face, usually blank and stoic, was contorted with a panicked fury.
“Turn back, Abigail!” he bellowed, his voice raw. “You’ll ruin everything!”
I pushed Abigail behind me, positioning myself between her and Jed. “She’s not going anywhere, Jed,” I said, my voice low and steady, trying to project a confidence I didn’t entirely feel. Jed was bigger, stronger, and armed.
“You don’t understand, Elijah!” Jed snarled, his eyes darting frantically between me and Abigail. “The Elder promised me! A new life! Gold!”
My mind reeled. Gold? A new life? This was more than blind loyalty. This was a deal.
“What promise, Jed?” I pressed, trying to buy time, to draw him out. “What did Emmett offer you to keep Abigail silent?”
Jed hesitated, his gaze shifting, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. He was clearly flustered, his usual simple-minded obedience giving way to frantic self-preservation. “He said… he said I would be rewarded for my faithful service! A share of the new treasury! Away from this cold place! A place where the sun always shines!”
Abigail gasped from behind me. “He promised you a cut of the liquidated assets, didn’t he, Jed? He promised you a share of the Flock’s money, the money he’s stealing.”
Jed flinched, his eyes widening. He raised the rifle, pointing it unsteadily at us. “Don’t you listen to her lies! She twists the Elder’s words!” But his voice lacked conviction. The desperation in his eyes was undeniable.
“He’s abandoning the Flock, Jed!” I pushed, seizing on his vulnerability. “He’s taking all their money and leaving them with nothing! He’s using you as a pawn, just like he used Abigail. He’s not sharing anything with you. He’s escaping, and you’ll be left here to take the fall.”
Jed’s jaw worked, his brow furrowed in a tortured expression. The conflicting truths, the broken promises, were visibly warring within him. He believed in Emmett, but he also believed in the promise of a better life, a physical, tangible reward.
“He… he said he would protect me,” Jed stammered, his grip on the rifle loosening slightly. “That I would be his loyal servant in the new land!”
“He’s a liar, Jed!” Abigail cried out, stepping out from behind me, her voice ringing with newfound strength. “He forced me to sign that renunciation, threatening my children! He abandoned them in the snow! Do you really think he cares about you, or anyone else, when he’s willing to do that?”
Jed’s gaze snapped to Abigail, the weight of her words, the clear accusation of his own role in the children’s abandonment, hitting him. His rifle wavered.
It was my chance. With a sudden surge of adrenaline, I lunged forward, sweeping the rifle upward. Jed, caught off guard, stumbled backward. The rifle discharged with a deafening crack, the bullet burying itself harmlessly in a pine tree above our heads.
I wrestled with him, his bulk immense, his movements fueled by a desperate fear. He grabbed my arm, his fingers like iron bands. I drove my knee into his side, hard, hearing a grunt of pain escape him. We grappled in the snow, grunting, struggling, the rifle a dangerous, heavy object between us.
“He promised me!” Jed roared, his face close to mine, spittle flying. “He promised me a share! A new beginning! Said if I kept her quiet, helped him, I’d be rich!”
The words, torn from him in his panic, were a confession. Not just of his actions, but of Emmett’s manipulative promise, confirming the extent of the betrayal. It wasn’t spiritual loyalty that bought Jed; it was greed. Emmett had bought him, just as he had bought Silas.
With a final, desperate heave, I twisted, leveraging my weight against his, and Jed lost his footing in the slippery snow. He went down hard, the rifle skittering away from his grasp. I scrambled to retrieve it, pointing it squarely at him.
Jed lay sprawled in the snow, groaning, his eyes wide with genuine fear. The anger in him had drained away, replaced by a dawning realization of Emmett’s ultimate betrayal. He had been used, his simple loyalty exploited, for a promise that was never truly meant to be kept.
“He was going to leave you, Jed,” I said, my voice cold and hard. “He was going to leave everyone. And you were going to be the patsy, the one left behind to face the music while he disappeared with the Flock’s money.”
Jed’s face crumpled, the truth finally sinking in. The brutal simplicity of Emmett’s betrayal was too much for his simple mind to process. He had risked everything, committed heinous acts, for a promise that was a lie.
I kept the rifle trained on him. “Stay here. Don’t move. If you try to follow us, I won’t hesitate.”
He didn’t respond, just lay there in the snow, defeated, the light of blind loyalty extinguished in his eyes. He was broken.
“Come on,” I said to Abigail, grabbing her hand. We couldn’t waste another second. Jed was out of the fight, for now, but Emmett’s empire wouldn’t crumble without a final, public reckoning. And we now had the proof, from the mouth of his own enforcer, of his full, monstrous plan.
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