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When I clicked on the photo since it was a live one, I fell back in my seat as I watched the pig shaking like an epileptic as he protested being held. And then I watched it again to watch Black’s arm muscles flex.

I set the photo as my phone wallpaper, then went to the text thread with the new town.

Milo had sent a single photo.

One that had my stomach bottoming out.

I immediately called Black.

“Jess,” he said. “You heard.”

I swallowed hard. “I did.”

“The entire ranch is gone,” he said. “Like, really fuckin’ gone. There’s not a single standing building left.”

“What about all those boys?” I breathed.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” he murmured. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, Black. Bye,” I whispered.

He hung up and I looked at the photo again.

There were acres and acres of buildings, equipment and the like just gone. The buildings had all been wood, and they were burned all the way to the ground. The equipment was completely fucked.

But it looked like all the boys had made it.

The caption on the photo was: Missed us all.

Shit.

Was it someone on the council in retaliation for what we’d done?

Or, was it one of the boys?

Leo, even?

The possibilities were endless.

Yet, knowing who it was wouldn’t bring any of the buildings back.

And the boys needed a place pronto.

They had to have at least thirty boys there, and maybe just as many men that worked on the property, as well as helped with the boys.

An idea formed, and I reached out to my friend.

She was a loner.

She lived about six hours west of where we were located, and she had a huge ass dude ranch that she did nothing with.

One with lots of buildings that would be there ready to use in an emergency.

One exactly like this…

I dialed Ophelia Prestwick’s—Opie to her online friends—number and hit go.

We’d met several years ago when we were both in an online course for cyber security. We’d talked on and off for a year until we’d both decided to go to a conference in Texas.