Chapter 23 - The Bayou Safehouse
By midnight, the interstate had dissolved into a labyrinth of raised concrete overpasses, dripping cypress trees, and dark, stagnant waterways shrouded in thick southern fog.
Adrian turned the sedan down a narrow, unpaved logging road hidden behind a rusted billboard for a defunct catfish farm. The tires crunched loudly against gravel and wet pine needles as we crept forward without headlights, relying entirely on Adrian’s military-grade thermal-imaging tablet mounted to the dashboard.
“Are we safe here, Daddy?” Oliver’s sleepy voice broke the tense silence from the back seat. He rubbed his eyes, blinking against the green glow of the tablet screen.
“We’re just stopping to stretch our legs, buddy,” Adrian said, his tone instantly softening as he looked back through the rearview mirror. He pulled the car behind a dilapidated, sheet-metal shed covered in tangled kudzu vines. “Stay here with your mother. Lock the doors from the inside.”
“You’re going out there,” I stated, reaching across the console to grab his wrist. My fingers brushed against the warm skin of his forearm. “Adrian, look at me. Don’t play the hero alone. We do this together, or we don’t do it at all.”
Adrian looked down at my hand, a faint, bittersweet smile touching the corners of his mouth. He gently covered my fingers with his own, pressing his palm against mine. “If I don’t come back from that warehouse in twenty minutes, take the kids down the timber trail to Highway 90. Mateo has a extraction team waiting near the state line.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I hissed, my voice cracking with suppressed terror. “I spent six years wondering if you were dead. I am not doing it again.”
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Before Adrian could answer, a sharp, metallic clink echoed from the roof of the sedan.
Something heavy had just dropped onto the car.
