Gunshots from behind on the right startled the hell out of her. She rolled, her weapon up, and damn near shot her own children.

“I told you to get back to the car!”

Caleb and Luke scrambled for cover behind stout tree trunks. Caleb’s right pant leg was wet with blood.

The trees returned fire.

“I know you did,” Caleb said. “So, what’s our plan?”

Victoria’s heart felt full that the boys showed the guts to come back, but she was furious that they’d disobeyed her. But Caleb had asked a good question. They couldn’t just stay here and blast away at each other. To move, though, would mean exposing themselves to people who were shooting from cover. Grubbs had every advantage.

“Luke, do you remember the flanking zigzag maneuver?”

“The paintball one?”

To practice their defensive strategies, the Emerson family played a lot of paintball. It was a great way to practice. Victoria had no idea if her flanking zigzag had a real name in a military context, but she did know that they always won when they used it.

“That’s the one,” she said. “You go around to the right and I’ll go around to the left. Caleb, you keep pressure on the middle. Don’t advance unless you can do it quickly. Questions?”

“Let’s just not shoot each other,” Caleb said.

“Luke?”

“Okay,” he said. He looked terrified.

“No hesitation,” Victoria said. “Anybody you see who’s not us gets shot. How many magazines does everyone have?”

“Two,” Caleb said.

“Two,” Luke said.

Victoria was down to one. Thirty rounds, plus whatever was left in the mag well.

“Okay, Caleb,” Victoria said. “Make some noise.”

As Caleb started slinging lead into the trees, Victoria found her feet and started running. Bent low at the waist, she kept her rifle pressed against her shoulder and advanced in an irregular left-right zigzag. A glance to her right showed Luke doing the same.

Once Luke and Victoria were out of sight, Caleb stopped shooting, just as he was supposed to.

And the Grubbs gang started returning fire, just as they were supposed to.

One of them rose from cover just ten feet away from Victoria. It was a young man, about Brandon-Lee’s age, and he looked as startled as she felt. He tried to bring his gun around, but he never had a chance. Victoria shot him in the face and he dropped.

Now that she was behind their lines, mingling among them, her gunshots would mingle with theirs and draw less attention. It was a ruse with a short life span, but it was their first break. With Luke in the mix with her, the option to shoot blindly at muzzle flashes was no longer viable. She needed to identify the target before killing it.