At 2 A.M., My Father Texted: “Grab Your Sister And Run — Don’t Trust Your Mother.” So I Did.

The iron poker struck Mom’s gun arm with a sickening CRACK.

She gasped in pain, the black pistol flying from her hand and skittering across the floorboards into the white fog.

"Zoe!" Mom shrieked, clutching her shattered wrist as she stumbled backward.

The armed man behind her raised his shotgun toward me.

"NO!" Mom screamed at him. "DON'T SHOOT HER!"

That split second of hesitation was all I needed. I didn't try to fight the armed man. I grabbed Dad’s pistol off the floor where it had fallen, shoved Becca toward the small window behind the wood stove, and pointed the gun straight at the large propane tank sitting against the far wall—the tank that supplied the cabin's wood stove.

"GET OUT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "GET OUT OR I BLOW US ALL TO HELL!"

The armed man froze, looking at the heavy iron propane tank, then at the gun in my hand. He knew what a high-caliber round would do to a pressurized tank in a closed room.

"Zoe, put the gun down," Mom pleaded, her face pale with shock, holding her broken wrist against her ribs. "You don't know how to use that—"

"MY FATHER TAUGHT ME HOW TO SHOOT WHEN I WAS TWELVE!" I lied, aiming the barrel directly at the brass valve on top of the tank. "LEAVE THE DRIVE! LEAVE THE MONEY! AND GET OUT!"

Mom stared at me. For the first time in my life, I saw genuine, unadulterated fear in my mother’s eyes. Not fear of the FBI. Not fear of the cartel. Fear of me.

She saw that I was no longer her little girl. I was something she had created—a survivor backed into a corner with nothing left to lose.

Slowly, painfully, Mom reached into her coat with her good hand. She pulled out the silver hard drive and dropped it onto the floor. Then she kicked the duffel bag of money toward me.

"You're making a mistake, Zoe," Mom whispered, her voice trembling. "They will find you."

"Let them try," I said, my thumb pulling back the hammer of the pistol with a sharp CLICK. "Now move."

Mom backed out of the broken doorway, her armed guard keeping his shotgun lowered as he retreated with her. Within seconds, the sound of their heavy boots faded down the porch steps.

"Becca, get through that window now!" I yelled.

Becca didn't ask questions. She scrambled up onto the hearth, squeezed her small frame through the broken glass frame of the side window, and tumbled out into the mud outside.

I leaned down, grabbing Dad by his good collar.

"Get up," I growled through my teeth. "Get up or I leave you here."

Dad groaned, his face slick with sweat and blood, but he managed to stumble to his feet, leaning heavily against my shoulder. I dragged him toward the rear maintenance door he had blocked earlier, shoving the chest out of the way with my foot.

I kicked the back door open, bursting into the freezing morning air behind the cabin.

A steep, rocky slope led down into the dense pine forest below.

"Zoe!" Becca called out from the brush. "Over here!"

"Keep moving down the ridge!" I shouted, supporting Dad’s weight as we stumbled down the treacherous, muddy incline.

Behind us, at the front of the cabin, I heard Mom’s voice yelling orders to her men. Then came the sharp, unmistakable sound of a road flare being struck.

They were setting the cabin on fire.

"Run!" I urged Dad, shoving him forward into the thick brush.

We plunged into the dense cover of the black pines just as a massive wall of orange fire erupted behind us, consuming the dry log cabin in a roar of heat and light. The thick black smoke rose into the foggy morning sky, signaling our end—and our escape.

We ran through the freezing mountain forest for nearly two miles, slipping over wet rocks and tearing through dense briars, until Dad finally collapsed against the base of a massive pine tree, gasping for air, his face pale as chalk.

"I can't... I can't go any further," he choked out, clutching his blood-soaked shoulder.

Becca fell to her knees beside him, sobbing quietly into her mud-stained hands.

I stood over them, panting heavily, the silver hard drive heavy in my sweatshirt pocket. I had grabbed it off the floor right before we ran.

"Zoe..." Dad whispered, looking up at me through his swelling eyes. "Give me... give me the drive. I can... I can get us to Canada..."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small silver box.

I looked at my father—a man who had lied to me my entire life, who had used my sister as a human shield, who was just as guilty as the monsters chasing us.

Then I looked at the hard drive.

"No," I said.