I gingerly held out my hands. "Shawn, why are you doing this?" I searched the faces of the other so-called rangers. I didn't recognize any of them. "Where's Ian?"

Shawn wouldn't answer.

"I'm your wife," I pleaded. "What is this?" 

My husband just cinched the handcuffs tightly around my wrists. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. There were two other backhoes parked on the loose soil, the military vehicle, and otherwise just a low, gray sky. We were someplace far outside of town.

"What is this place?" I tried to look Shawn in the eye.

No response. Shawn and one of the other men grabbed my shoulders and put me in back of the military vehicle, next to Bryce.

"Tell me what's going on!"

"That's classified information for my rank," Shawn said. "You'll have to ask the sergeant." He nodded toward Jason, who was climbing into the driver's seat.

"The sergeant?" 

"Mass grave!" Jason shouted out into the rear-view mirror. "You two were lucky as hell!"

Outside of Muldoon is a truck stop with a U-Haul center and a massive, warehouse-sized engine shop.

This was the first recognizable landmark I saw when Jason approached the highway. I expected him to pass it by, but he turned into the truck stop and pulled right into the warehouse.

Inside were countless U-Haul trucks, row after row of them. They'd all been stripped of their engines and were in various states of disassembly. Jason came to a stop beside one van without wheels, its axles resting on the concrete floor. Two of the men pulled Bryce from his seat, shoved him into the back of the U-Haul, slammed its door down, and locked it shut.

"Shawn." I tried to sound calm and reasonable, but I had no idea why we were here or what was happening. "Please tell me what's going on." I steadied my breath. "Just tell me what you're doing."

Shawn kept quiet. No one else said a word.

Now Jason maneuvered the military vehicle around scattered hydraulic jacks and made his way toward the opposite end of the warehouse. He stopped beside another U-Haul truck, this one with its entire front end missing.

Jason himself jerked me from my seat. He shoved me into the back of the U-Haul.

"Shawn!" I screamed out. "What's going on? Tell me!"