Truly Theirs

Chapter 5

Nadyia’s POV

Maps covered the walls. Red yarn crisscrossed counties. Sticky notes and printed photos curled at the edges under the heat of the space heater.

Nadyia stood in front of the board, arms crossed, eyes burning. Ethan’s last known locations were pinned in sequence: Mama B’s house. The abandoned cabin. The motel off Route 19. Then silence.

“Someone tipped him,” Noah said, scrolling through surveillance footage from a gas station near the last sighting. “He pulled out twenty minutes before the local unit even showed up. Like he knew they were coming.”

Liam’s brow furrowed. “Sandoval said the team was delayed in a jurisdictional mix-up.”

Nadyia turned, arms crossed. “You believe that?”

“No,” Liam said flatly. He grabbed a tablet and pulled up a decades-old mugshot grainy, but unmistakable. “Meet Evelyn Carrington.”

Noah leaned in. “His mom? I thought she vanished years ago.”

“She did,” Liam said. “After a string of anti-government charges. Weapons hoarding. Survivalist forums. Ran a rogue militia blog before disappearing off-grid. CPS pulled Michael out of her custody at fifteen.”

Nadyia’s spine stiffened. “She showed up. At my house. While we were packing to come here.”

Both men froze.

“She just… appeared. Calm. Cold. Told me this wasn’t over. That he was hers. And then she walked away like she hadn’t just threatened me.”

Liam’s jaw clenched. “That confirms it. She’s not just helping him she’s running point.”

He tapped again. “Michael’s burner pinged a ghost line last week. Closest tower was out near Raven Creek. That line traces back to an old CB relay used by her former militia group. She's still active.”

Noah exhaled sharply. “So she's the one keeping them ahead of us.”

“She’s more than that,” Liam said. “She’s his safehouse, his strategist, his entire contingency plan. And she knows how to avoid detection. No tech. No digital footprints. If you don’t know how to listen for static, you’d miss her completely.”

“They’re not just hiding,” Nadyia muttered. “They’re digging in. Preparing to stay off the map for good.”

“Worse,” Liam said grimly. He flipped to a transcript, pointing to highlighted lines. “Sandoval got this off a passive tap near the last cabin. Standard police chatter then this: low-band encrypted burst just before the patrol deployed. Someone inside tipped them off.”

Noah stared at the screen. “You’re saying there’s a leak in the department?”

“Has to be. Evelyn’s got someone feeding her intel,” Liam said. “That’s how they keep staying one step ahead.”

Nadyia’s fists clenched as she picked up Ethan’s stuffed lion from the table, hugging it close. “Then we burn the playbook. We stop reacting and start hunting.”

Liam met her gaze. “Agreed. If we want Ethan back, if we want them stopped”

“We can’t play by the rules,” Noah finished.

Liam nodded. “We play her game. And we beat her at it.”

Liam’s POV

“We do this smart, or not at all.”

Liam stood over the makeshift table, maps and digital monitors casting a low glow across his face. His tone was calm, focused but there was steel beneath it.

“Michael and Evelyn only trust dead zones,” he continued. “Places without camera coverage. No cellular towers. Areas most law enforcement won’t even try to search.”

“Like Raven Creek,” Noah said, circling a spot on the digital map. “And this, Camp Fletcher.”

Liam nodded. “Old ranger station. Long abandoned. Still has water access and underground storage. And we intercepted low-band chatter about ‘supplies moving east.’”

“That could be code for Michael and Ethan,” Nadyia said, voice tight. “If they’re relocating, that’s our window.”

“Exactly. So we give Evelyn what she wants.” Liam reached for a burner phone and held it up. “We feed false intel through the same ghost channel. Something too good to ignore: a patrol sweep scheduled for the wrong location, with a timing gap between shifts.”

Noah grinned darkly. “And while they’re slipping through that ‘gap’”

“We’ll already be there,” Liam finished.

“Sandoval?” Nadyia asked.

Liam shook his head. “No official help. Not until we flush out the leak. We pull in Caleb instead, ex-military, tight with Mama B, off-books. He won’t talk.”

Nadyia’s expression was sharp now. Focused. “And what about Evelyn? What if she sees through it?”

“She might,” Liam admitted. “But Michael’s desperate. He’s sleep-deprived, unstable, paranoid. He’s a father on the edge. And if Evelyn senses she’s about to lose control of him…”

“She’ll push for the move,” Nadyia finished. “Which pushes him into our net.”

Noah leaned back, folding his arms. “So we fake the sweep, bait the route, intercept them at Camp Fletcher and take them both.”

“Hard and fast,” Liam confirmed. “We’ll prep in silence, move under radio blackout, no digital trails. Everything on paper or face-to-face.”

“How long do we have?”

Liam checked the time. “If they bite the signal we’re about to send?”

He looked up, eyes cold.

“Thirty-six hours. Maybe less.”

Michael’s POV

“They’re sweeping Ridgeview.”

Michael’s voice cracked through the silence as he lowered the battered receiver of the CB radio. His hand trembled, whether from exhaustion or nerves, even he couldn’t tell anymore.

“Two units. West side only. Just like last time,” he added, pacing.

Evelyn sat unmoved, sipping black coffee like they weren’t both fugitives. “And you believe that?”

“It fits,” Michael snapped. “Same timing gap as before. We can cut east and be two counties away before they even finish a perimeter check.”

“It fits too well.”

Evelyn didn’t raise her voice. She never did. But her words were cool, cutting through Michael’s adrenaline like ice water.

“You’re tired. I get it. The baby’s not sleeping. You’re not thinking clearly. But we don’t move just because they say it’s safe.”

Michael turned to the crib an old wooden box lined with wool blankets and wrapped in a faded American flag. Ethan stirred, tiny fists curled against his cheeks. His son. His boy.

“He’s not safe here anymore,” Michael said. “We need to keep moving.”

Evelyn’s gaze sharpened. “And what if this is a net? What if they’re feeding us bait and you bite it, like a dumb dog looking for scraps?”

Michael’s hands clenched. “They don’t know how we move. You taught me to vanish.”

“I taught you to survive,” she corrected. “Which means questioning everything. Especially when it seems easy.”

A long silence stretched. Evelyn stood slowly, crossing to the table where a hand-drawn map was laid out, full of coded markings and escape paths.

“We shift plans,” she said finally. “We pretend to fall for it. Prep the camp they expect us to go to set signs of movement, a false campfire, maybe even a decoy vehicle. But we go here instead.”

She tapped a red circle deep in the forest, far from any known road.

“Devil’s Hollow?” Michael asked. “There’s nothing out there.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And no signal. No heat signature. No chase. We vanish again.”

“But if they track the signal and don’t find us”

“They’ll think they missed us. That we got sloppy, panicked. It keeps them guessing.”

Evelyn leaned in close, voice low.

“Let them hunt shadows, Michael. That’s how we win.”

Michael looked back at Ethan, sleeping in the dim lantern light, then back at his mother.

“Fine,” he said. “We vanish. One more time.”

Evelyn nodded. “Then let’s pack. We move at first light.”