I scanned my entire body. I only found one ‘blip’ in my right thigh around where the fat doctor kept jabbing me with sedatives. I marked the spot with a Sharpie I found in Amber’s glove box and got dressed. They returned with red smoothies—raspberry, most likely I joked with myself.

“You find it?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, only one in my right thigh.” I ran the wand over my jeans, and it beeped.

“Well, let me finish this, and we can get to work cutting it out,” she replied. That sounded like a terrible idea. Being operated on by a fae—probably fae—with Lauren in the room?

“Here,” Lauren pulled a sub from a plastic bag and handed it to me. I took it. It was the first thing she had said to me. I hadn’t expected them to get me a sandwich.

“Thank you,” I mumbled awkwardly. I started unwrapping the sandwich as Amber rummaged in her Jeep. She emerged with a set of medical tools and laid them out on the dash. She absent-mindedly sipped her questionable drink. It was probably raspberry, I kept telling myself. Faes don’t drink blood, but they could. The voice in my head wouldn’t shut up. “If I could take a scalpel to go, that would be appreciated.”

She looked at me. “You’re going to have a hard time getting it out yourself. We won’t hurt you... much.” She smiled in her sly way on the last word.

“I believe you about seventy-five percent, but I’m not done with the tracker.” I took a bite out of the sandwich. It was almost gone.

“What do you mean not done with it?” Lauren asked. The redhead was squinting at me suspiciously and sucking on her smoothie.

I swallowed the last bit of my sandwich. “Mr. Edgewood is very interested in something that I happen to know a bit about. I am very interested in him no longer existing. So, I’m going to kill him. It will take him longer to find me if I remove the tracker.”

Lauren shook her head at this, “You shot him in the head, and he came back from it. I don’t know if he can be killed.”

“You make a good point; he will have to be destroyed. He’s a high fae. Killing isn’t enough,” I walked over to the Jeep’s hood. “So, if you could spare a scalpel, I will be on my way.”

The redhead pulled a scalpel from her bag. “You’re free to go.” She said, handing the tools over. “We’re not interested in holding you captive.”

I nodded, ignoring her last comment. “I appreciate it.” I pulled the rolling door open.

“Is Rudy safe?” Lauren blurted suddenly. I looked back to her, my heart hollow.

“He was missing from his kennel when I was taken. They likely silenced him so he wouldn’t give them away when they jumped me.” I cut the feet right out from under her. Her bottom lip quivered, and she backed away slowly. I turned and walked out of the storage unit. I couldn’t join her in her grief for a dead dog. I had a monster to kill.

I walked down the road until I came across a hotel. I got the receptionist to let me make a call. I dialed up Hobbs. “Who do I have the delight of speaking with?”

“I need a woodchipper and to be picked up at the hotel in Madisonville.”

“I’m not a department store, but I suppose I could get you a chipper.”

“Oh, and a bunch of buckshot and slugs—three and a half inch.”

“You sound hoarse. Is everything alright, Anthony?”

“It will be.” I hung up and walked out of the hotel. The receptionist looked at me wide-eyed as I left. A half-hour later, a man pulled up in an old pick up.

“Are you Mister Anthony?” He asked with a cheek full of tobacco.

“Sure am.”

“Well, climb on in,” He patted the rust bucket.

I directed him to my unit and thought through how I was going to kill Mr. Edgewood. When I got out, he stopped me. “You need a chipper, too; I was told,” he said as he handed me a large box of shotgun shells.

“Sure do. Drop it off in front of this unit, will you?”

“Will do. How big? I got 12-to-38-inch chippers.”

“24 will be suitable,” I replied.

“When should I be back to pick it up?”

“You won’t.”

I slid open my unit’s door and dug under the cover on my dirt bike. I pulled out forty thousand in cash and handed him thirty thousand. He happily took my money and was on his way without a second word. I revved my bike up and took off to the gas station to top off and fill my spare gas cans. Then, I was off to find my shotgun.

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I sped through the Smoky Mountains. Almost hit an armadillo that scurried across the road. I found my shotgun right where I left it in the hollow log along with its drum mag and two ten-round straight mags still sitting on top. I hadn’t had a chance to get them while I was watching Lauren. I ran its action. It worked nicely. There was a touch of rust here and there, but I would clean that up easily enough. I had to get going; it likely wouldn’t be long before they caught up to me. It was getting late, and my body was fatigued. I popped a Slim Jim from the handful I bought at the gas station before making my way to the cave where Lauren had hidden from me.

Hours later, I found the cliff face and road along it until I reached the cave. I parked my bike and went about the rough task of cutting the tracker from my thigh. It was much deeper than I had thought, and the gushing wound made it hard to find. I gave up trying to get it out with my fingers. I pulled a Leatherman from my bike and was able to get a good hold on the tracer with the plyer’s teeth. I managed to pull the tracer out with a lot of grimacing and cursing. I squeezed out a tube of super glue, also taken from the seat of my bike, over the incision, then sprayed it with activator for a quick seal.

I climbed down into the cave, sticking the tracker with a piece of gum right where the cave took a vertical plunge down. Hopefully, it would still send a signal through all the rock and dirt. I left the cave and climbed along the side of the cliff face to an elevated point where I could see the cave’s mouth and top of the cliff. I scavenged for branches and built a blind that I hoped would conceal me. The last thing I did before settling down was sprinkle gasoline around the top of the cliff and on my pants. I hoped it would somewhat mask my scent if they had dogs. I bunkered down and waited, praying Edgewood wouldn’t come after sleep overtook me. I popped another Slim Jim and lay prone, shotgun nestled against my shoulder.

They took twelve more hours to reach my trap. It was early morning. I had been awake for an hour—thank heavens. I could hear their engines as they pulled up along the side of the cliff. A door opened, and I could see men getting out and walking towards the cave. The voice of Mr. Edgewood cut across the mountain side. “Anthony, the time for running is over. We don’t need things to get messy.” He paused, waiting for a reply. When I didn’t reply, he looked at one of his men. “Where is it showing he is located?”

“Beneath us, right over here.” It took them a minute to find the mouth of the cave. I watched as a man leaned over the edge.

“He must be down there.” It took all my restraint to not begin firing. “A couple flash bangs should do the trick.” The man said.

“Perhaps,” Edgewood said softly. “Anthony, I suggest you get out or it is going to become very unpleasant for you,” He announced loudly. When there was no response, he nodded to one of his men. The man hung over the edge as he popped the pin on a flash bang before tossing it in the tunnel. He followed the flash bang and shone his rifle light down through the tunnel a moment after it went off.

“It’s look like it drops down at the very end. We will have to go in to get him or wait him out,” The man announced.

“We have time,” Edgewood said. “Get staged then push down and retrieve him.”

I watched and listened as they got ready for their entrance. There were five men including Edgewood. I watched as they secured a tow strap to a tree over the cave. Three of the men descended to the cave got stacked up on the right side of the cave; the lead man was holding a ballistic shield. One more flash bang, and they pushed into the cave. I took a long, deep breath and counted down slowly from twenty. The fourth man stood above the mouth of the cave, and Edgewood stood a ways back from him right along my line of sight to the action.

My first two shells literally blew Edgewood off his feet and took his shins out from under him. I emptied three rounds into the man standing over the entrance as he brought up his tommy gun. He tumbled off the side of the cliff. Edgewood was crawling toward the cars. I emptied the rest of my 25-round drum into his back. He stopped moving. I swapped out the drum for a ten-round mag as I scanned the rest of the ridge. No movement. I walked down to the clearing. I trained my shotgun on Edgewood as I approached him. He was chewed up pretty good. A big chunk of flesh was missing from his thigh. His chest should have been more damaged, but his suit, apparently Kevlar, appeared to have caught many of the rounds.

He looked up at me—not in fear but in amazement. He started to speak but I fired a round into his face. “Get back up from that,” I grumbled bitterly. I went back to the cave and easily slipped over the side using their strap. I shoved the shotgun barrel down and emptied the rest of the mag. I popped it out and replaced it with my last ten rounds before firing five more into the cave. I listened, but my ears were ringing from the 12-gauge blast. I couldn’t feel the dead either, which meant they were not dead, or I wasn’t close enough. Well, if someone was alive down there, they got the idea that it would be a bad idea to try coming out. I climbed back up over the edge and repacked my empty mags as I watched the cave’s mouth. I shot a couple more rounds of buckshot into the cave before going to the nearest SUV.

I found what appeared to be a large GPS tracking system. I was going to put a round in it but thought better of it. I figured he might have more monsters roaming around. If so, this might make it easier to find them. There were a few tommy guns in the back along with two more flash bangs. I took the flash bangs and a tommy gun back to the mouth of the cave. I couldn’t hear his men. They were probably in the bottom of the cave if they were alive. I popped in the flash bang and emptied the gun’s drum mag into the tunnel after it. I shone my flashlight down the cave. There was a body before the tunnel dove down. I thought I had felt something like an echo when I crossed over to the SUV.

I wished I had a stick or two of dynamite or any kind of explosive to seal off the tunnel. I would have to settle with the next best option, though it was not my preferred method. I grabbed the spare tires from the SUVs’ trunks, deflated them with the scalpel, and placed them in the mouth of the cave. I gave one a good douse of gasoline and lit it.

After a few minutes, the tire was burning pretty well, so I kicked it down the tunnel. It stopped on the man’s body in front of the drop off. Good enough. I kept my shotgun trained down the tunnel. About five minutes in, I saw movement at the bottom, so I squeezed off a couple rounds. I waited until the first tire was starting to burn down, then lit the second one and rolled it down after the first. Ten more minutes passed without any sign of life.

I climbed back up the cliff and walked over the top of the cave. There were definitely a couple dead, but I was having a hard time feeling exactly how many. I felt sick. Smoke inhalation was not a pleasant way to go, but I didn’t have a better option. I piled a bunch of brush at the entrance, plugging up the cave and watched for an hour, feeling sick at what I had done as black smoke seeped from the mouth of the cave.