Chapter 8 - The Red Crosshairs
"Down!" Marcus shouted, tackling Julian and Clara into the recessed hollow beneath an iron workbench.
A deafening barrage of suppressed gunfire shattered the frosted glass. Concrete dust exploded from the walls in choking grey plumes, raining shards of brick across the blankets. The overhead bulb shattered instantly, plunging the room into chaotic, strobe-lit darkness.
"They used the cellular signal on your phone!" Marcus yelled over the thudding impacts of high-caliber rounds chewing through the masonry. "They pinged the tower!"
Julian covered Clara completely with his own body, his hands shielding the back of her head. Clara didn't scream; she clamped her eyes shut, digging her fingers into Julian’s ribs with frantic, silent terror.
Marcus unholstered his Glock, leaning around the steel workbench leg, and fired three controlled shots toward the shattered window. A muffled cry and the heavy thud of a falling body answered from the alley.
"The loading chute!" Marcus pointed toward a narrow, rusted metal hatch at the back of the boiler room, once used to slide coal into the furnaces. "It opens into the storm canal beneath the pier! Crawl through, Julian! Go!"
"I'm not leaving you, Marcus!"
"You have the evidence! If they kill you, this dies with you, and they take Clara!" Marcus shoved the laptop into his backpack, zipped it, and slung it across Julian’s shoulders. "Run! I’ll draw them down the service corridor!"
Marcus didn't wait for an argument. He kicked open the corridor door, firing two rounds down the hall to create noise, and bolted in the opposite direction. The gunfire immediately shifted, chasing Marcus’s footsteps down the concrete labyrinth.
Julian wrenched open the rusted hatch. Cold, sewage-tainted air blasted into his face.
"Clara, look at me," Julian said, his voice dropping into an intense, quiet rhythm. "You have to slide down first. Daddy is right behind you. I will catch you at the bottom. Do you trust me?"
Clara looked at the dark opening, then at the angry purple marks on her legs, and finally into Julian’s eyes. She nodded once.
Julian lifted her into the metal chute. She slid down the slick incline into the dark. A second later, a soft splash signaled she had reached the shallow water below.
Julian forced his broad frame into the chute, pushing off with his boots. He plummeted six feet into knee-deep, freezing runoff, scooping Clara up into his arms before she could lose her balance.
They were inside a vaulted brick storm tunnel. Above them, sirens howled in the distance—the sound of Victoria’s institutional power rolling in like a tide.
Julian turned toward the faint glimmer of harbor lights at the end of the tunnel.
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He didn't just want to escape anymore. The woman who had killed his wife, drugged his child, and chained her like a dog was sitting in a penthouse suite waiting for a flash drive.
Julian whispered into Clara’s hair: "We’re going to end this, baby. I promise you."
