Chapter 233

• The Battle
• I steady my hands on my lap and screw my eyes shut, forcing myself to calm my racing heart and breathe as slowly as I can, nerves eating me inside out, and I am trying not to show it. Sat in the dark interior of one of our trucks in the rear, listening and waiting patiently as the sun goes down. Colton and the twins are out running the perimeter, where we wait to get as close to the mountain as possible.
• We have a convoy of a dozen trucks all nestled together in a deep dark forest on the far eastern side of the valley below the mountain. A place that took us half the day to get to because of our long detour to go all the way around in a wide berth to a part Juan can't see from his position. We needed to be close before sunset, yet we needed to be hidden in case Juan had any ideas about starting a battle before the real threat arrived.