Martha led us toward the house, her steps unsteady on the worn wooden porch. I gave Kira a quick nod. She immediately fell in a few paces behind me, her movements mirroring my own. It was a familiar dance, one we'd practiced in training and perfected over countless calls. I took the lead, pistol held in a low ready, hugging the wall as we followed Martha past the doorway.

  The cool, stale air of the house was a sudden change from the oppressive heat outside, a welcome relief that lasted exactly one second before my cop-brain kicked into overdrive. The scent of old wood and dust filled my lungs, underlaid with something else. Something copper and organic that made my stomach tighten.

  Blood.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the hallway, I saw it. Faint, but unmistakable on the dark wood floor—bloody footprints. They were small, the tread of a sneaker, leading from the back of the house and ending at the threshold of the living room.

  Track the evidence. Male or female? Adult or juvenile? How much blood loss?

  The pattern suggested someone walking, not running. Steady gait. Not arterial spray. That was good. Maybe.

  We rounded the corner into the living room, and the scene resolved into sharp, brutal clarity.

  A young man, early twenties, pale as milk, lay motionless on the floor, his chest rising and falling in shallow, sporadic gasps. Michael. Had to be. His father, Jonathan, sat hunched in an armchair beside him, a long rifle cradled in his trembling hands like a child holding a dangerous toy he didn't understand. The muzzle swayed lazily, covering his son, then us, then back again in a slow, unconscious arc.

  Weapon. Civilian. Stressed. Poor muzzle discipline.

  The air in the room was thick with the smell of fear-sweat and something medicinal. Tranquilizer. Right. My mind processed the sight before me in a split second, filtering the chaos of the scene through the cold grid of my training.

  The father: posture is rigid with terror, not aggression. Eyes are wide, unfocused. He's scared, not homicidal. The son: victim, non-responsive, in medical distress. The weapon: long gun, muzzle discipline is non-existent. He's not a trained shooter. He's a terrified man holding a tool he doesn't understand.

  "Sir," I said, my voice deliberately calm and low, a stark contrast to the frantic energy in the room. I took a slow, measured step forward, my own weapon still held at the ready but angled down—non-threatening but accessible. "My name is Officer Stormson. We're here to help. I need you to put the rifle on the ground and step away from it. Now."

  The man's head snapped toward me, his face a mask of profound shock and exhaustion. His lips trembled, trying to form words. "I... I didn't know what else to do," he stammered, his gaze darting between me and his son on the floor. "He was crazy—like an animal."

  Keep him talking. Keep him focused on you, not the weapon.

  "I understand," I said, keeping my tone soothing, authoritative. Keep your voice low and slow, Stormson. He's in shock. Don't spook him. "You were trying to protect your family. You did what you thought was right. But we're here now. Let us take over. Please, sir, put down the weapon so we can help your son."

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  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kira begin a slow, silent flanking maneuver toward Michael's prone form. She knew the playbook without a word being spoken. Create a new focus. Get to the victim. Be ready. A flicker of relief went through me. I wasn't alone in this mess.

  For a long moment, the father seemed frozen, trapped in his fear like an insect in amber. His eyes dropped to the rifle in his hands as if he was only just now seeing it, as if the weight of what he'd done was finally registering. The weapon seemed to grow heavy in his grasp.

  His fingers fumbled with it, clumsy with shock, as he carefully leaned it against a nearby wall and backed away, his hands raised in surrender. "It's just... it's just a tranq gun," he mumbled, his strength finally giving out as he collapsed back into the armchair. "I'm sorry."

  The immediate tactical threat was gone, replaced by a frantic medical emergency. I saw Kira holster her pistol, her focus shifting entirely from tactical to medical as she moved to kneel beside the young man. While she assessed, I kept my own weapon in the low ready position, my eyes on Jonathan, just in case things changed. Just in case shock turned to something worse.

  Once it was clear the father wasn't going to move, wasn't capable of moving, I holstered my pistol and approached the tranq gun. My hands moved with practiced efficiency, picking it up while keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

  Single-shot dart rifle. Break-action. Non lethal.

  I opened the chamber, visually and physically confirming it was empty before placing the now-safe weapon on the far side of the room, well out of reach. The ritual of making a weapon safe was familiar, grounding. Something normal in a situation that had gone completely sideways.

  "It's okay," Kira said softly to Jonathan, her voice carrying a professional calm as she pressed two fingers against Michael's neck, searching for a pulse. "Just sit tight. We're going to make sure he gets the help he needs."

  Her eyes scanned his body, moving with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this before. Then her breath hitched, a small sound that sent ice through my veins.

  "Elias," she said, her voice sharp with an edge I didn't like. "Look at this."

  I moved to kneel beside her, my boots squeaking on the hardwood floor. There, protruding from Michael's chest like a grotesque accusation, was a single, thick tranquilizer dart. The bright orange fletching was almost cheerful, a splash of color against the pale skin and the spreading bruise around the entry wound. His breathing hitched in shallow, sporadic spurts, each breath a wet, struggling sound.

  Okay, new problem. Foreign object in the chest cavity, unknown substance, compromised breathing. Go.

  The cop in me cataloged the evidence: dart embedded at a shallow angle, approximately three inches of penetration, entry point near the sternum. The human in me saw a kid who looked like he was drowning on dry land.

  "We need paramedics now!" Kira called over her shoulder to Martha, who hovered anxiously in the doorway, her hands wringing together in a constant, nervous motion.

  I raised my radio again, my voice clear and projecting the urgency we both felt. "Dispatch, advise the ambulance to move in immediately. Adult male, approximately twenty years old, unresponsive with irregular breathing. Be advised, he has been struck with some kind of tranquilizer dart embedded in his chest. We need ALS here now."

  The radio crackled back with a professional acknowledgment. Help was coming. The question was whether it would get here in time.

  I looked at Kira, saw the same thought playing across her face. Michael's skin was taking on a grayish tinge, his lips turning blue at the edges. Whatever was in that dart was shutting him down, and we were running out of time to stop it.

  Martha's quiet sobbing filled the room, a soundtrack to a scene that was spiraling from bad to worse. And somewhere in the back of my mind, that wet, tearing sound from the barn was still echoing, still waiting to be explained.

  One crisis at a time, Elias. Keep the kid breathing. Worry about the barn later.

  But the weight of the unknown pressed against the back of my neck like a cold hand, and I had the creeping sensation that whatever was in that barn wasn't going to wait politely while we dealt with the medical emergency.

  The clock was ticking. And I had a feeling we were running out of time on more fronts than one.