Jeremy was too big for the trunk of a car.

  After a good fifteen minutes of awkward twisting, he managed to kick out one of the tail-lights, but it didn't help much. On top of that, they'd removed the mechanism to open the trunk from the inside. He was trapped. Worst of all, his gun had been crushed by the golem. The barrel had been flattened. It would never fire another shot.

  Well… they're probably not gonna kill me. No reason not to off me back at the motel. Jeremy took some small comfort in that. After a good thirty minutes though, he stopped trying to count corners, as he realized they had long-since left Tacoma — heading west, if he'd counted right.

  Shit, what about Hudson and Stebbins? He could have gone after them after he took me out of the picture.

  Stebbins is smart, he'd get the kid out. I've got bigger problems right now.

  The truck bucked hard, before settling into a constant rumble. They were heading off-road, wherever they were. Jeremy tried to brace himself against the trunk walls as they bounced along, but a few nasty hits and his head started to spin. By the time the truck grinded to a halt, he was well and thoroughly lost.

  The trunk popped open without warning. Before Jeremy had a chance to react, a fresh golem lifted him up into the air. It held him tight, like he were trapped inside a loop of concrete moulded right up to his skin. He couldn't move an inch, but at least he could finally see.

  They were deep in a forest. What forest? Fuck if I know. I don't do nature. All he could tell was that there wasn't a sign of civilization in sight, and even the canopy was too thick to see anything above. They could be absolutely anywhere, him and the three men standing in front of him. Jeremy recognized one of the wingmen from the bar, though still no useful identity.

  Facing Jeremy was an intense man with a black spiked rod clutched tight between his fingers. His brown hair was grown out long, along with a full thick beard on his chin. His eyes were cold, dark blue, narrow and barely visible in the light from the lantern sitting on the hood of the truck. He was wearing thick, outdoor camping gear — but to Jeremy's surprise, he was actually quite clean. None of the dirt or smell he'd expect from a guy who'd been living alone off the radar for six months.

  "Brian Hendricks, right?" Jeremy started, trying to keep a light tone.

  The golem squeezed him tighter. A spike of pain shot up through his spine. Jesus Christ.

  "Quiet," Brian murmured. His hand was in his jacket pocket, balled into a fist.

  Jeremy sighed and waited. It wouldn't take too long, if he understood how those stones worked.

  "I didn't get anything," said the man on the right.

  "Same."

  "Wait," said Brian, still locked in a death glare with Jeremy. Not that Jeremy was returning the favor. Mostly, he just felt bored. I'm not what you're fuckin' lookin' for, so can we move on? Minutes later, Brian finally nodded, and his hand left his pocket.

  "Thank God," Jeremy muttered.

  Brian shook his head. "God left this place a long time ago."

  Left you, maybe. He rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna let me down?"

  "No." Brian took a few steps closer, eyeing Jeremy suspiciously. "I don't trust you."

  Only one of us is a fuckin' murderer here. "You got all the cards. I'm not even armed."

  "You helped them."

  Jeremy shrugged. "Just doin' my job."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Your job is to protect us. Your country."

  "Last I checked, that includes every single person in it, whether I like 'em or not."

  Brian shook his head. "They aren't people."

  Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "You got proof on that?"

  "Can a person fly? Can a person lift an entire town into the sky with their mind?" Brian's voice dropped lower. "Can a person rip an innocent little girl in half?"

  "Guess so."

  "No," Brian repeated, his voice harder. "They aren't people. They are a cancer. They fool you now, but they're dangerous. You haven't seen what I've seen."

  Jeremy frowned. "Last I checked, you're the guy with all the monsters."

  "I am not one of them," Brian spat. He walked right up into Jeremy's face, so close that Jeremy could feel every warm breath from his mouth. "I was chosen to save us from them."

  "What's the body count look like?" Jeremy shot back. "'Cause last I checked, they were mindin' their own fuckin' business before you and your god decided they had to bite it."

  "You don't know anything," Brian snapped.

  "Jackson Smith, right? Tall black guy with a deep voice, liked to call himself 'Omega'?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "...You read the book."

  Sure, why not. No reason to give him the real answer. Jeremy shrugged.

  "Its author is a true witch. She tried to murder a friend of mine with her magic, and it was only luck and the death of another that saved him. She lures people into her web with false promises and fairy lights, and corrupts them to the core."

  He sounds insane. "Look, are you gonna kill me anytime soon or are we just gonna chat all night?"

  "...What?"

  "It's really fuckin' uncomfortable up here, and you're not gonna convince me of shit like this." Jeremy glanced around. The trees sloped up and away in one direction, which likely meant that was north, if they were in the Olympic forest as he suspected.

  Well, I got one side of the story. Time for the other half.

  Brian's hand shifted slightly, and the grip on Jeremy loosened. He was still held fast, but he found himself sliding down the smooth surface of the golem to the forest floor. The hulking monster even shifted slightly, giving him a diagonal to lean against more comfortably.

  "Better?" he asked.

  "Yeah, thanks."

  "I don't want you as my enemy," he added quietly.

  "Stuffin' me in the trunk ain't a great first impression."

  "I'm sorry. But I wasn't sure if they'd exposed you. I had to be careful." Brian leaned against the nearest tree. One of his two companions vanished into the woods, out of Jeremy's sight, but the other had taken out a pad of paper and a pencil, scribbling away.

  "Who's your friend?" Jeremy asked, nodding at the other man.

  "Oh, I'm just here for the story," he replied, with a wide grin that was missing several teeth.

  Fuckin' reporters… "Keep me out of it, thanks."

  The rat-faced man smiled wider. "The infamous disgraced agent who botched the most important case of the century? You're the centerpiece!"

  "Enough, Felix," said Brian.

  "Just let me ask one question," Felix replied, his words running together with his enthusiasm. "Agent Ashe, when you collected all the remains from Rallsburg, how many of them were the so-called 'pulverized', compared to the rest?"

  Jeremy shrugged. "Can't say." It was a minority… What's his point, anyway?

  Felix nodded rapidly with satisfaction. "Uh huh. Pretty much that on the dot, am I right?"

  Brian turned back to Jeremy. "His point," he said, as if he'd read Jeremy's mind, "is that whatever you may think, Jackson and I weren't responsible for most of the deaths in our town."

  "But you were planning on killin' everyone." Jeremy adjusted his position slightly, trying to find a more comfortable angle with his arms still pinned to his sides. "Doesn't exactly make you the good guys."

  "Their fate only proves why we needed to act!" Brian's voice deepened in intensity. "An insane cult leader wields power so terrible that it destroyed a whole town and killed dozens in an instant. And she still lives. She's responsible for the death of hundreds of innocents!"

  Okay, this part is new… "You're talkin' about Cinza, right?"

  "Exactly. Yes. The witch." Brian swallowed, clearing his throat. "That murderous witch killed, more than once. She killed the farmer Wilson and the Reverend Smith. If you'd seen what happened to those poor people—"

  "I did," Jeremy interrupted. And neither of them exactly fit the usual golem killings… Wilson was drained of blood, and Smith was snapped in half and burned alive. Rachel, you left some important fuckin' details out of your story… "Wilson was self-defense though. We got that on video. The man had a gun on her and pulled the trigger. Killed her friend, too."

  "Video, huh?" Brian shook his head. "Does your video include the part where Paul Wilson's daughter Jenny was decapitated and mutilated by these monsters? Where Paul and Ingrid had to endure the humiliation of them desecrating their daughter's funeral? Or where Cinza was the first to strike?"

  "How's that then?"

  "Smith was the best man in the whole town, and she murdered him in cold blood," Brian spat. "In the forest, alone. And when Robert lead the town to arrest her, she met them with evil, cruel magic and a blade made of hellfire." Brian shuddered, and Jeremy didn't think for a second he was acting. "People were beaten, cut, electrocuted and burned. Paul was drained of his blood. A twelve year old girl was dismembered. Tell me these are the acts of human beings, not animals and savages."

  Buddy, if you'd seen the shit I've seen… "Humans pushed to the limit, sure. But I'm not buyin' it yet."

  Brian nodded. "You haven't witnessed it yet. You've only seen the ashes. But imagine a single, horrible moment, where every building around you explodes. Where your home, and the homes of everyone you know, are torn asunder. And the screams."

  He shuddered, and to Jeremy it seemed totally genuine. Brian was terrified of what he'd witnessed.

  "People were crushed and impaled in their living rooms, if they were lucky, or caught in a shower of glass and knives, bleeding out on the kitchen floor. The poor souls hiding from the chaos on Main street were burned alive by the explosion, caused by another of their reckless experiments. All thanks to her."

  "Not what I heard," said Jeremy — though truth be told, Rachel had been relatively quiet on the details of the last day of Rallsburg.

  She mentioned that they'd tried and failed to stop Omega as a group, though refused to name who was involved or what it entailed. She only explained that in the end, she'd killed him on her own with just a handgun. Jeremy believed her, but her unwillingness to give any details had been frustrating to say the least. Since they were already racing the clock with the announcement of the Rallsburg book, he'd let it go.

  "The evidence is right in front of you!" Brian cried. "You said it yourself, you saw the video."

  "Yeah, but so what?"

  "The girl! Cinza! She alone has the power to cause such devastation. They tried to lure Jackson into a trap, kill him where he stood, but it didn't work. In their desperation, in their arrogance, they took away everything we had, trying to kill a man who was trying to save the world. They're responsible for all this death and chaos, and it's only going to get worse."

  Brian was ranting by now, but Jeremy couldn't exactly call him out for being wrong. It sure as hell wasn't right, but he didn't know enough to refute the facts.

  Plus, they're still holding me fuckin' hostage…

  "You know what she wants, right?" Brian snapped, suddenly turning back to Jeremy.

  "World peace?" he said sardonically.

  "She wants the world to be like her. Awakened," he snarled, with all the rancor he could instill into that single word. "They are like children playing with fire, and we're all going to burn if we don't stop them!"

  "But it's too late," Jeremy pointed out. "It's out there. Can't un-learn something once it's learned, right?"

  "You're mistaken," Brian said, suddenly quite calm. The emotional switchbacks were giving Jeremy whiplash. "This is not as you think. Magic can be destroyed forever. It was never meant to escape into the world as it has. The only people responsible enough to handle such a force already had it, but one of them was too weak-minded. He decided it should be shared. His greatest error."

  Brian paused — for breath or for dramatic effect. He brushed a bead of sweat from his brow before he continued. "Jackson wanted to correct that error. If we destroy every piece, magic will be gone forever. The world will return to normal. It will be safe. We'll be safe. Our children, their children, everyone will be able to go back to the way things were.

  "Do you understand?" he went on, turning back to Jeremy. "We have to stop it. I'm not saying the world was perfect, but this is too far. I have seen what havoc one person can wreak. I am afraid, Mr. Ashe. I'm afraid what's going to happen the moment Cinza and her cabal decide we humans aren't worth their time. That us inferiors are the root of their problems, and decide to clean house."

  Brian stepped back, and he seemed so very tired. "I'm trying to save us all. Can't you understand that?"