Chapter 175

Kade

We left at five, in the dark, in four trucks.

Ryan had planned it down to the seat. The first truck was his, with four of his men and the oilskin bag on the floor between his boots, where he could feel it every time we went over a rut. Then Abby and me, with Garrick in the front beside the driver and his cane across his knees. Then Liam and Imogen and the rest of the warriors. And last, a little way behind the others, the one with the canvas back, where Owen sat with the girl wrapped in a blanket and two of Ryan’s steadiest men across from them, and nobody would see her get in or out.

The packhouse was dark when we pulled away. Only one light, at the back, in the clinic. I looked at it through the rear window until the trees took it.

Abby didn’t look back. She sat beside me with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the road, and when we turned out onto the valley road, she reached across without a word and took my hand, and held it on the seat bet