The big Ram pickup truck had driven straight up the driveway to the barn followed closely by the other trucks. After a brief stop at the barn the black truck left the others behind and headed back down the driveway towards the pasture.

  After a painfully slow approach towards the parked SUV the big truck pulled off the drive and rolled to a stop about thirty feet away from the Denali. A final belch of black diesel smoke came out of the modified exhaust stacks of the pickup and the gentle sounds of a rural summer returned as the clatter of the engine faded away.

  Randy climbed out of the passenger seat and moments later the rear doors of the cab opened up and Amos and Alanah stepped out of the truck and closed the doors behind them.

  Fausto observed all of this with a calculated eye. The big truck was a workhorse for sure and this one had a massive black bull bar mounted to the front end. He could see that the truck was positioned to ram straight into the Denali and pin it into the tree behind them if they wanted to.

  “Anthony, if we gotta’ go you need to floor it, drive right around that truck and we will try to punch our way through the fence somewhere along the road.”

  “Just say the word Fausto and I’ll get us out of here.”

  “Maybe.” Fausto was holding his chin again and thinking about the rifles and the trucks parked up at the farmhouse. “Maybe but I doubt we would get very far. No, we need them to allow us to go, there won’t be any other way.”

  “Come on out then, nice and easy. Let’s get this done with, I’m sure you’re right sick of farm life and we’re tired of ya’ being here.”

  Randy was standing off to the side of the Denali with his hands on his hips. The girl and the boy were standing just behind him. The boy was wearing a pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses that were too big for him and the girl was glaring at the Denali with a fierce expression.

  Fausto had no doubts that this was the girl who had shot up Nonna Conti’s bedroom windows and she looked to him like she would happily shoot him if given a chance. He climbed out of the car and told Anthony and Alessia to do the same and to keep their hands at their sides at all times. “Remember, I will do the talking so just don’t do anything stupid.”

  The girl surprised him by addressing him straight away and by his first name. She looked at him directly and without flinching and almost spat her words at him. It caught him off guard and had him on the back foot before they had even begun to speak.

  “So you’re Fausto then. I hear you’re a smart guy so let me tell you something you need to remember.”

  She still had not lowered her gaze and she had not relaxed her glare either. She ignored Anthony and Alessia and kept staring at Fausto while she paused for a brief moment before speaking again.

  “If any of you dumb shit City gangsters try to come back here and sneak around then you are going to get picked up right away by every trail camera and tree stand camera you pass by. With meat so expensive deer season is all the time now and the woods are full of boys like him who would be happy to pick off anyone who doesn’t belong.”

  Alanah pointed at the driver sitting behind the wheel of the big pickup. “Anyone that shouldn’t be here is gonna’ get found out pretty damn fast and dealt with.”

  Fausto waited until the girl was done and then slowly held up his hands.

  “Trust me my dear, I don’t ever want to come back here or see you and the farm again, I just want to help your friend here and then we can all go our separate ways and try to forget about this mess.”

  Alanah lifted her stare from Fausto and turned to Amos. “Well, should I believe him?”

  Fausto looked at the boy, even mostly hidden behind the sunglasses he could see that the young face was expressionless and almost lifeless. When the boy spoke his voice was also flat and without emotion.

  “He is lying, he was not honest with what he just said.”

  Alanah whipped her head back towards Fausto who was still on the back foot, still trying to figure out how to negotiate with a teenage girl and a strange boy who did not hesitate to call him a liar.

  “You know that the boy is cursed don’t you?” Randy was speaking in a slow and easy fashion.

  Fausto couldn’t tell if he was enjoying this moment or if he was trying to help the process.

  For a moment his anger at these people and being held captive at this farm flared up inside of him and he immediately focused on suppressing his rage and not letting it show.

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  “He is very angry now, his head was just covered in hornets but he pushed most of them back inside.”

  Randy continued. “The boy can see your emotions, and he knows how you’re thinkin’ and if your lyin’. We could all save alotta’ time if you could just stop yer lyin’.”

  Still fighting to retain his composure and to not to show any emotion, Fausto glanced at Alessia. When she looked back at him he saw that her expression was alert but she could also see how confused he was.

  “Fausto, this curse is real. I saw it enter the boy and I don’t think my mama really knew what it would do but it is real, you gotta’ believe me.”

  Fausto saw his opening and turned towards the boy. “Well then Alessia, I believe you, but why don’t you tell me, is she telling the truth?”

  Amos spoke in the same flat voice. “She is, you are still lying and your hornets have slowly snuck out and are hiding behind your head while you are thinking.”

  Fausto was reeling, there was something off about this boy, he could feel it but he had to be sure. “Take off your sunglasses then, show me what you are hiding behind them.”

  Amos did not react, did not move. Alanah glanced at Randy and he gave her a slight nod.

  “Amos, take off your glasses. Show this old man what his people did to you.”

  “Ah…the old woman is most definitely not one of my people…. not anymore.”

  Fausto was staring intently at Amos, waiting to see what he would do.

  Amos reached up and removed his sunglasses and continued to stare at Fausto as he did so.

  For a brief moment Fausto couldn’t breathe, it was true, the old woman had really done something to this boy. The evidence was right there before him.

  The boy called Amos had a pallid white face and longish wavy brown hair that fell across his forehead. His mouth was closed and his lips were pursed together but it was his eyes that really stood out.

  There was no colour, no definition. Just a hideous almost opaque black cast over the entirety of both eyes. It was terrible and unnatural and very unsettling. Fausto now believed everything he had been told about the boy and he knew at once that any treachery, any further falsehood that he attempted would be known at once by the boy.

  Fausto shifted his tone and his tactics at once. “Alessia, you spoke to your mother just over an hour ago. Please tell them everything she told you. Don’t leave out anything.”

  Alessia gave Fausto a nervous glance and then looked at Amos. This was even worse than Fausto’s unrelenting stare. Much worse. Alessia pivoted while wringing her hands and looked at Alanah.

  “Listen, my mother is really scared. I mean really scared. She knows what she did is wrong and she is at the church. She says she doesn’t have much time left on this earth but she can lift the curse. She will lift the curse if you let her”.

  Alanah felt a weight lift from her shoulders. So it was possible to do this, she had hoped it would be. She had almost prayed that this would be possible but she had also been worried that there was no saving Amos. Even now, doubt flooded back into her heart.

  “Is she being honest Amos?”

  “Yes, and what the man said the last time was honest as well.”

  “Go on then, how does she take it off of him?”

  Alessia paused, trying to remember everything her mother had told her. It had been hard, Father Alfredo had been talking over her mother in the background and he had dominated the conversation.

  She had never heard her mother be so weak, so subservient to another person and Father Alfredo had interrupted her mother several times and changed her instructions to Alessia.

  “You need to see her, she needs to recant and take back the curse from you and put it back where it came from. She will have to spend the rest of her days holding the vessel and praying for salvation in the church. She will be kept alone and when she dies, the curse will die with her.”

  Alanah turned and looked at Amos. “Did she lie, is she trying to trick us?”

  “No, but she is happy at the mention of her mother dying.”

  Alessia felt ashamed and looked at the ground. It was silly she thought, everyone here wanted to see her mother dead and buried but she still felt shame that others knew her heart’s intent, in her community, to forsake your parents, it was still one of the worst sins you could ever commit.

  “When can we do this?” Alanah was struggling hard to keep the desperation out of her voice and she could sense that Fausto was watching her with interest.

  “It can be soon, it should be soon. We can meet you right away….”

  “That’s fine then.” Randy adjusted his shirt and then pulled it out from his belt slightly afterwards. Once he was happy with the fit, he looked up and continued. “Give us your number and we will contact you to set up the meeting. Be ready by tomorrow and don’t you dare try to fuck us on this one.”

  Randy was staring hard at Fausto as he said this. “We all want this to end. The sooner the better and with no more hardship for anyone. No one wants this mess to get any bigger now do they?”

  A short while later the Denali made its way through the gate and back onto the gravel sideroad. It was following the big black Ram pickup and the other trucks that had been sitting by the house had pulled in behind the Denali.

  As they made their way back towards the highway four more large pickups covered in dust and with cabs full of men intercepted their route and joined the little convoy that had formed. The last truck to join was a massive Ford pickup with huge tires and a snarling Rottweiler chained to the rusty rollbar in the pickup bed.

  The big Ford pushed in front of them moments after pulling onto the road causing Anthony to swear under his breath.

  The dog in back barked at them the entire time it took them to get to the highway and even with the windows closed and the roar of the truck ahead they could still hear the deep growling and the rattle of the chain as the dog lunged at them from the pickup bed.

  Alessia tightened her grip on the seatbelt buckle, closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and held it for as long as she could.

  “Don’t worry my dear, this is just a show of force. They don’t want us to come back here and this is how they are getting their message across. I will soon show them what vengeance and cunning can do.”

  Fausto lit a cigarette in the confines of Don Luca’s Denali. He had stopped caring about what Don Luca might say or do. He was too busy thinking about what he had just seen and how he could exploit it.

  The older man looked over at Alessia. Such a pretty woman, should he really sacrifice her for this? Maybe Anthony and his size and brawn would be a better choice but he didn’t think so. This was an opportunity, a unique, almost impossible opportunity that needed to be carefully exploited. He would have to think long and hard on it.