Page 53 of The Cabin-A Reverse Harem Romance
I didn’t want to go storming in, only to find some little old mom and pop sitting down with their tea and knitting or some shit like that. We had to do something though. It was the only lead we had, so we had to follow it. There was no other choice if we were going to find and save Elise.
“Okay, listen up,” I said.
The guys crowded around me waiting for their orders. It really was starting to feel like old times all over again. The only thing missing were people shooting at us and bombs going off.
“First things first. We need to confirm whether or not it’s Brad and Elise in there,” I said. “Nolan, I need you to recon the house. Get up there and find a way to see inside. I don’t care if you have to drill a peephole into the side of the house, we need to know who’s in there. I don’t want us busting in on a couple of old folks sitting down to dinner.”
“Roger that,” Nolan said.
“If you have confirmation that they’re in there, give us a signal. If it’s not them, just hustle your ass back here,” I said. “In the case Elise is in there, Nolan, you and Sean need to take up a position at the back door of the structure. Trevor and I are going through the front. Since we don’t have comms, you two need to wait until you hear that we’re inside, then get in there yourselves. Our plan is to move fast, hard, and subdue the target quickly. While Trevor and I are engaged with Brad, you two need to get Elise somewhere safe and out of harm’s way. We clear on everything boys?”
“Oorah,” they all grunted in unison.
“Okay, Nolan, you’re on,” I said.
“On it,” he said.
I chose Nolan because he was the smallest among us and the stealthiest. He was the least likely to get caught sneaking around somebody’s house. He was also the least likely of us to do something rash and stupid if he got confirmation that Elise was inside that cabin. Nolan was more rational and less emotional than the rest of us and was probably the only one who could be trusted to make the logical, sound decisions.
The three of us squatted behind the bush, watching Nolan pick his way through the snowy landscape, taking a circuitous route to the house. I held my breath as I watched the darkened windows, waiting for any sign that Nolan had been spotted. So far, so good. Our luck was holding for the moment. But, he hadn’t yet reached the critical point – the fifty-yard stretch of open ground from the tree line to the house.
“Here he goes,” Trevor muttered, obviously having the same thoughts I was.
We watched Nolan moving through the snow. The gusting wind brought more snow with it, which gave him some small bit of cover, thankfully. However, if somebody was at the window, staring out into the storm, it wouldn’t be all that hard to spot the dark figure moving among the pure white of the landscape.
All three of us, our breath coming out in thick plumes of vapor, watched, our attention rapt, as Nolan neared the house. In unison, we all let out a long breath when he reached the side of the house without incident. There were no shouts, or gunfire or anything to indicate that he’d been seen.
“Luck’s holding steady,” Sean said.
“For now,” I replied. “Still got a long way to go.”
Out of nowhere, the wind suddenly lightened up, and throttled back. The gusts weren’t nearly as strong and felt like they were tapering off. It was almost as if the storm had used up all of its energy and had blown itself out all of a sudden. The three of us exchanged a look.
“That was weird as hell,” Trevor said.
“No joke,” Sean added.
The world around us was suddenly silent. After listening to the wind howling for so long, the absence of the noise was both disconcerting, and a little ominous. Fat, white fluffy flakes of snow continued to drift lazily from the sky, and the temperature was still freezing, but it was so quiet, it actually made me nervous. From deeper in the forest, I heard the sound of branches snapping, their crackle like gunshots in the silence, as the limbs gave way to the heavy burden of ice and snow piled upon them.
Nolan quickly moved around the house, looking for any vantage point inside. He finally stopped at one window and seemed to be lingering there longer than he had at the others. He must have been able to see in side. A moment later, he turned to us, hunched down below the window line, and waved. That was our cue; confirmation that Elise was inside.
