Chapter 6 - Henderson’s Gate
Arthur raised the flare, illuminating my trembling form on the other side of the boundary line. His eyes were wide, cold, and entirely devoid of human empathy. He saw me not as his firstborn child, but as an audit, an error in his ledger that needed balancing.
"Come back across the fence, Emily," he said, reaching out with a gloved hand to grip the cedar rail. "Let’s settle this like family."
"Touch that gate, Artie, and I’ll blow your kneecap into the next township."
The voice came from the darkness above. A blinding 1,000-lumen tactical flashlight beam snapped on from the porch of the adjoining log cabin, hitting Arthur square in the retinas.
Old Man Henderson stood on his porch, eighty-two years old, wrapped in a caribou-skin coat, holding a 12-gauge Winchester pump-action shotgun leveled directly at Arthur’s chest.
Arthur shielded his eyes, barking with practiced authority. "Henderson! Back off! This is a family matter. My daughter fell and she's delusional—"
"I got four flat-screen monitors running inside, Artie," Henderson spat, his voice like gravel in a cement mixer. "My grandniece in Seattle called me three minutes ago in hysterical tears, telling me my psycho neighbor threw his kid out a second-story window on a live video feed with fifty thousand people watching. Back the hell away from my fence."
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The sound of the shotgun’s slide racking forward—*clack-clack*—echoed like a gunshot in the silent winter night.
Arthur froze. For the first time in his pampered, bureaucratic life, a flicker of genuine terror crossed his features. The flare sputtered in his hand, shedding sparks onto the snow.
