My son hadn’t sent me to this remote peak to disappear from the world; he had sent me here to find the weapons I needed to fight back. That realization didn’t offer me a gentle comfort, but it gave my grief a spine and my soul a reason to keep flickering.

I looked at Terrence’s photo on the altar and felt a grim smile touch my lips for the first time in months. I was no longer the broken, useless old woman Brigitte thought she had discarded on a muddy mountain road.

I was a mother who had been given a second chance to protect her son’s legacy, and I intended to use every bit of the power he left me. Brigitte thought she had finished me, but she had actually just given me the perfect place to plan her downfall.

THE END.