Getting calls from network news. Sheriff's story falling apart. Keep sending. The fire spread in a cruel arc, consuming months of work. The corn he'd planted, tended, and watched grow was vanishing in waves of orange flame.
Smoke rolled thick and black against the night sky. His irrigation system activated automatically, but it couldn't match the fire's appetite. Local news helicopters appeared overhead, their cameras capturing the inferno. Sheriff Kerns was already spinning his narrative, claiming Elijah had set the fires himself to destroy evidence. But national media outlets were picking up inconsistencies.
Headlines appeared on Elijah's news feeds. Questions arise in Georgia farm siege. Viral videos show contradictions in sheriff's story. Civil rights groups demand federal investigation. Through his thermal cameras, Elijah tracked deputies moving through the smoke.
They were getting bolder, coming closer to his buildings now. Their body language showed confidence that fire would flush him out. They didn't understand that his barn's metal construction and underground command center were designed to withstand far worse. Ruth Ann's livestream had caught everything. Even after her arrest, viewers were downloading and sharing the footage faster than it could be taken down.
Her phone, still transmitting from her driveway, captured deputies laughing as flames consumed Elijah's fields. A message notification popped up from Deputy Kyle Mercer. They arrested Ms. Carter. Sheriff says she assaulted officers.
It's a lie. I can't be part of this anymore. Elijah replied, document everything. Save every text. Record every conversation.
The fire reached his irrigation ditches and slowed, unable to jump the water-filled channels. But, the damage was done. Acres of crops destroyed. Livestock scattered across three counties. Ruth Ann in jail for telling the truth.
The deputies' actions had crossed a critical line. By destroying crops under federal subsidy protection and tampering with USDA-monitored livestock operations, they'd elevated this beyond local jurisdiction. Every burned stalk of corn, every cut fence, every second of Ruth Ann's arrest was now evidence of federal crimes. Naomi Price's latest message confirmed it. FBI Civil Rights Division requesting files.
DOJ watching closely. Keep recording. On his main screen, Elijah pulled up thermal imagery of Sheriff Kerns watching from his command vehicle, safely distant from the fires his men had set. The flames reflected in Elijah's eyes as understanding hardened into certainty. He'd expected corruption, planned for intimidation, but this level of destruction revealed their desperation.
His voice was barely a whisper in the underground room. You just made this federal. Dawn crept over the scorched fields, revealing the full extent of last night's destruction. Smoke still curled from charred corn stalks and broken fence posts jutted like broken teeth across Elijah's land. But, something else was spreading faster than the flames had.