I pulled Sheila into my arms as soon as she came through the door. She broke down and sobbed into my shoulder as the shock wore off. I cradled her to me and held her face against as I stroked her hair. Behind us, Lacy had already gotten the screen off the rear window.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re safe now, Sheila. We’re going to get you out of here, take you into the woods with us.”

“B-b-b-but I made a mess of everything,” she sobbed, wrapping her arms tightly around me. “That guy’s sacrificing himself for me. They’re going to kill him, Jess! It’s all my fault!”

I shushed her. “He’s going to be fine,” I said. “He’s going to fight them, and that’ll be it.”

“No,” Sheila said as she pulled back and looked into my bleary eyes with her own bloodshot ones, “you don’t understand. They’re going to kill him no matter who wins.” She wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “And it’s all my fault!”

“Ladies,” Lacy said, ignoring Sheila’s tears, “we need to go. Richard said we needed to go as soon as she got in here.”

I looked back at Lacy. “She says they’re going to kill him no matter what! Don’t you care?”

Lacy got a weird look on her face, like she was trying to force herself to care.

That little bitch! “You don’t care?” I spat. “Do you? He’s your friend for fuck’s sake!”

She shook her head, saying, “No, it’s not like that. I told you, Richard’s going to be fine!”

“Well I’m not fucking going anywhere!” I yelled. “Not till I know Richard is safe!”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Fine!” she yelled back, clearly tired of the whole argument. “Can we just go out the back, at least? If we just suddenly come out the front, someone might start shooting. And, believe me, we won’t be fine if that happens.”

I nodded once. “Let’s go. Maybe we can come up with a way to…I don’t know!”

Lacy went out the window first, since she was the only one of us armed. She hit the ground and promptly plopped onto her butt in the short, yellowed grass, but scrambled back to her feet as she dusted her rump clean. She was back outside the window in no time, arms outstretched to catch Sheila, who was next. I came after, my arms flailing a little as I landed on the ground. Both women caught me securely.

“Still think we should listen to Richard,” Lacy mumbled as I went to grab from the stump the axe that Richard had been using earlier to chop wood.

“Well,” I snarled as I yanked the blade from the stump, surprising even myself, “I wish that had been your attitude earlier.” I turned back to her, axe in hand.

Lacy’s face was barely lit by the stars and the moon, but even in that poor light I could see the hurt I’d just caused her. Even Sheila looked horrified by what I’d said.

I immediately felt like I’d just drop-kicked a kitten down a mountain. “Lacy, I’m sorry,” I apologized, reaching out and grabbing her by the shoulder. “You didn’t know. You were just trying to help.”

Frowning in the moonlight, she touched my hand. “It’s okay. I know I fucked up. Big time. But if you’re really intent on saving Richard, we’d better get to it. Even though he doesn’t need our help.”

“He needs it,” I promised as we headed up the edge of the cabin’s rear wall and peered around the side. “Believe me.”

The dimly lit side of the cabin was clear of any bikers. Together, the three of us crept forward with me in the lead, Lacy behind me with her pistol drawn, and Sheila in the rear. We crept forward through the longer, knee-length yellowing grass, the pine trees with their long, needled branches reaching out to us from the forest like the bogeyman looking for his next victim.

Then, I heard the low howl of a wolf, closer than the calls I’d heard earlier. No, it had to have been a coyote. Wolves hadn’t been in the high country in decades. They’d wanted to reintroduce them, but hadn’t yet. I pushed the thought from my mind, though. There were more important things to worry about than whether or not packs had returned to Colorado.

Up ahead, the bikers began to cheer. I scrambled ahead, with Lacy grabbing and tugging at my shirt to hold me back, as sudden worry for Richard gripped me. I shrugged off the younger girl’s insistent hand, ran forward to the edge of the building, and poked my head around the corner.

Richard and Wyatt Axelrod, stripped to their bare chests, stood in a loose circle of bikers. Wyatt, with his big shoulders, flabby stomach, and prison tattoos, and Richard with his chiseled physique, rippling muscles, and defined abs and back, were ready to fight. Both men were unarmed.

“This how you want it to be, then?” Richard asked from the middle of the circle. “Bare-fisted, boxing it out like men?”

“Like men,” Wyatt sneered. “Just like in the good old days.”

“In my experience, even the old days were pretty shitty. I got your word the women go free, Wyatt? You leave here after?”

“My word, Murdoch,” Wyatt replied, turning his head and spitting into the grass without taking his eyes off of Richard.

“Good,” Richard said, bouncing up and down a little on the balls of his feet. “Let’s do this.”

I gasped as they began to circle each other. There was no way anything good could come out of this, and I knew it. How was I supposed to save Richard from a group of men like that? With just an axe in hand, and Lacy with her pistol? If what Sheila said was true, Richard would be dead no matter how this fight ended.

My shoulders slumped, and the axe suddenly felt very heavy and pointless in my hands. Lacy was right. There was nothing we could do.

We were powerless.

I was powerless.