Avery watches me quietly for a second before sighing and giving me her phone. “That’s the address.”

I copy down what’s on her screen into my own phone’s GPS and hit start. “It’s only ten minutes from here,” I say, mystified. “And you’ve known about it?”

“I told you, I hired Slick,” she says. “He sent me everything.”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“Because I didn’t want you doing something stupid. You know, like this.”

I grin at her. “Well, too late, I guess. We’re going through with it.”

She sighs. “I know.”

I start the car and pull out. It’s been a week since she told me that she was the one who hired the PI that freed me. I haven’t seen much of her, since I’ve been busy at the garage and her parents have been down her throat, but fortunately they’re away for the day. We hired a babysitter for Max and got in the car as soon as we could.

Of course, I didn’t tell her what I really wanted to do. I’ve been badgering her all week about her investigations, and she let slip a few days ago that she knows where the barn is. I didn’t say anything at the time, I waited until the right moment, and now we’re heading out there ourselves.

I can tell she doesn’t want to be doing this, but I can’t just walk away. I have to see this place for myself.

“Slick already went through it all,” Avery says. “There’s nothing in there. We can just turn around and go home.”

“We can’t do that,” I say. “If you’re worried, stay in the car.”

“I’m not the one I’m worried about,” she says.

“You don’t have to stress. We’re just going to go take a look around. We won’t stay if it looks bad.”

“This coming from the guy that got chased off the Walker property last week.”

I grin at her. “That was necessary.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Anyway, this is important. You know I can’t just let it go.”

She sighs and puts her hand over mine. “I know you can’t. That’s why I’m coming with you. I figure you’ll do this eventually with or without me.”

“Glad you’re coming around.” I grin at her and squeeze her hand.

We head a little ways out of town, down some back roads. It takes a little while before I finally find the little dirt path that leads back toward the property. I pull the car over and we get out.

“This way,” I say, heading onto the path. Avery follows quickly behind me.

“How do you know this is right?”

“This is the address Slick gave you, so it has to be.”

The path is slightly overgrown. It doesn’t look like anyone’s used it in a while, which is good. The forest is slowly encroaching on the road back here, and I can’t imagine why someone would build a shed in these woods.

The path winds its way for a few minutes before coming into a small clearing. We stop at the tree line, keeping behind the bushes, crouched down.

The clearing has two structures. The first one looks like it was a cabin at some point, though it’s almost entirely burned down. The other building is an old shed, more like a barn. It’s almost as big as the house was. I can see some scorch marks from where the original fire tried to get at the shed, but other than that, it looks like it’s in remarkable shape.

“What was this?” Avery asks me.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s supposed to belong to the Walkers, right?”

“Someone must have lived here.”

“Not anymore. That place is completely toast.”

“Wonder when it happened?”

“Who knows? Slick didn’t mention a house.”

“No, he didn’t.”

We sit there in silence for ten minutes, just watching the property. There are no cars and nothing moves at all. I can tell that the grass hasn’t been cut for a couple months at least, but it has been cut or else this whole place would be overrun. That means someone does take care of this building, but I can’t see why.

Eventually, I get impatient. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go look.”

“Wait,” Avery says, but I stride out into the clearing. “Damnit,” I hear her say before she catches up with me.

We walk fast out to the shed. The front door is slightly open and loose, like it’s barely hanging on the hinges.

“Check out around back,” I say to her. “I’m going inside.”

“Fine, just don’t stay in there too long.”

“Yell if you see anything.”

I kiss her quickly before pulling the door open and stepping inside.

There are a few windows along the outside walls of the place, giving the shed a dim, eerie light. As soon as I step inside, I can see why Slick called it a “shed” and not a barn. There’s an old tractor, an old lawn mower, other gardening and lawn care equipment. It’s all cobwebbed and rusting, but clearly someone used to use this as storage for their tools. There’s a workbench along one wall covered in junk, and racks and boxes pressed up against the walls.

More junk is littered on the floor. I spot old paint cans, oil cans, spray paint, garden hoses, some rope, more old rusting tools. I step carefully, trying not to crush anything or make too much noise. I spot a stack of old newspapers, yellowed and mildewed. I nearly step on a rake as I make my way toward the back wall.

The place is packed as I move deeper in. More junk in piles: wooden clothes rack, a broken washing machine, a jar full of pennies. I don’t even know what some of this crap is, but I do spot something interesting on a rack nearby.

It’s an old laptop. I pull it down and open the lid. It looks like one of those old Thinkpad things most workplaces use. I try to power it on, but it doesn’t do anything. I put it back on the rack, along with old Ethernet cables and other random wires.

There’s nothing here. It’s a fucking miracle Slick found that hard drive. I remember he mentioned a trunk of some sort, so I head closer to the back, eyes peeled.

I spot plenty of boxes full of crap, old baby toys, one of those battery-powered Barbie cars, but nothing useful. I don’t even see any names on anything, not even in any of the moldy books I pick up and leaf through.

Finally I reach the back. It’s the darkest here, and I can just barely make out what I’m doing. I take out my phone and turn on the flashlight, and instantly I spot a trunk shoved up against the back wall.

I head over and go to open it, but there’s a padlock on the front. I pause, surprised at that. Nothing else in here is locked up, and the padlock looks surprisingly new. Everything in this place is rusted, moldy, and rotting, except for this lock.

Someone put that there. I yank at the lock but it’s set in solid. I could probably break the trunk open, but that’s a bad idea. I don’t know what’s in it, and who knows if they’re watching this place or not.

As I go to turn away, I hear something. It’s just a low noise, but then I hear it again. I head over toward one of the window, and the noise comes in clearer.

It’s the muffled sound of voices.

“—leave,” she says, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s Avery.

“Too late for that now,” the response comes.

It’s a man’s voice. My heart starts racing as I move toward the entrance as fast as I can without making too much noise.

I don’t know if they realize I’m in here. As I get toward the door, I grab a baseball bat that’s lying on one of the benches. It’s old and wooden but feels solid as I slowly slide out of the slightly ajar door.

I don’t see anyone. I move around to the right of the shed and I hear the voices again, this time more clearly.

“—blame him?” Avery says. “We’re just trying to find out what happened.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” the man’s voice says. “This is private property.”

“Who used to live here?” she asks. “Was it you, Franklin?”

My heart starts racing even faster. That’s fucking Franklin Walker.

“Don’t worry about that,” Franklin says. “It’s not your business.”

“Fine, okay. I can just go.”

“I don’t think so.”

I peer around the corner, and Franklin’s coming toward her.

“No!” Avery shouts, as loud as she can, and I know that’s my cue.

I run around the corner at Franklin. He doesn’t know what hits him as I swing the bat, connecting with his right knee. It buckles and he screams out in pain as he topples over.

“Fuck!” he screams. “What the fuck!”

“Come on,” I say to Avery.

She runs over toward me. As we race back toward the car, something slams into me as we reach the end of shed.

“Shit,” I grunt as I hit the ground hard. The bat falls from my hands.

“Luke!” Avery screams.

I feel fists slam down into me and I react instinctively. I rage and roar, tossing the body off me, rolling over to the side. He keeps jabbing at me and I hit back, slamming my elbow into his nose. I feel the warm spurt of blood hit my clothes.

“Mother fucker,” he grunts and I get a look at his face: Julian Walker.

He headbutts me in the eye and I knee him in the gut, pushing him away. I scramble to my feet and he comes at me a second later, but I’m ready for him. I twist aside and punch him in the ribs and stomach before shoving him to the ground.

“Run!” I shout at Avery. I grab her hand and we’re off, sprinting into the trees and away from the shed.

I hear the Walker boys yelling, but they’re not gaining. We break through the trees as fast as we can, finally coming out toward the road. There’s another car parked behind ours as we jump inside.

I start the engine and slam backwards, crunching my car into theirs. I then pull forward and onto the road, speeding off.

“What the hell just happened?” Avery says, breathless.

“I think they fucking followed us.”

“How? Why?”

“They must know.”

She shakes her head, totally bewildered. “How could they?”

“Where’s your brother?”

She turns pale. “I thought he was out.”

“He must be keeping tabs on you somehow. They followed us and wanted to stop us from poking around.”

“Shit,” she says softly.

“What was Franklin saying to you?”

“Nothing.” she answers. “He was angry, said I shouldn’t be there, it was a mistake to be there. He looked pretty distraught, like he didn’t want to be doing it. When he started coming toward me, though…” She trails off, eyes wide.

“What?” I ask gently.

“I think he was going to hurt me.” She looks over at me, and I can tell she means it.

“Shit,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“I had no clue they’d get… violent.”

“Nobody could have known.”

I reach out and take her hand. “It’s over. I won’t let you be in danger again.”

“More like I’ll try and keep you safe.” She grins at me.

I laugh softly, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, but the fear and the anger is still there. That was too fucking close for comfort. I had no clue the second Walker brother was there, and I got lucky. He underestimated me, gave me a chance to get away. If Franklin or Julian had realized that I was in that shed, things might have gone much worse.

We got fucking lucky. But now I know they’re coming for me, and they’re paying attention. Which means I’m on the right track.

I’m going to nail those fuckers. And I’m going to keep Avery safe, no matter what.