Chapter 16 - The Doctor's Prescription
The interior of the meatpacking plant was a nightmare of twisted metal, screaming alarms, and heavy black smoke.
Clara coughed violently, pulling the collar of her turtleneck up over her nose and mouth.
The smell of burning flesh and copper blood was overwhelming.
She navigated through the maze of hanging meat hooks and rusted conveyor belts, stepping carefully over the bodies of fallen Russian mercenaries.
"Victor!" Clara screamed, her voice barely audible over the roaring flames.
Gunfire echoed from a metal catwalk high above the main processing floor.
Clara looked up and saw Victor pinned down behind a heavy steel vat, returning fire at three men armed with automatic shotguns.
He was hopelessly outnumbered, and his cover was rapidly deteriorating under the heavy barrage.
Clara noticed a large chemical storage tank sitting directly beneath the catwalk where the Russian shooters were positioned.
The faded label read 'Anhydrous Ammonia'.
In her years of treating chemical burns in the Narrows, Clara knew exactly how volatile the substance was when exposed to extreme heat.
She didn't have a gun, but she had a medical bag full of highly reactive compounds.
She pulled out a massive glass bottle of pure rubbing alcohol and a roll of heavy medical gauze.
Working quickly, she stuffed the gauze into the bottle, creating a crude but effective Molotov cocktail.
She pulled a silver lighter from her pocket—a nervous habit she had kept since her college days.
She lit the gauze, the blue flame instantly catching the alcohol fumes.
Clara stepped out from behind the concrete pillar and threw the flaming bottle with all her might.
It shattered directly against the rusted valve of the anhydrous ammonia tank.
The resulting chemical reaction was instantaneous and violently explosive.
A massive cloud of toxic, burning white gas erupted upward, completely engulfing the metal catwalk.
The Russian shooters dropped their weapons, screaming in agony as the caustic gas burned their eyes and lungs.
Victor didn't hesitate.
He broke from cover, expertly taking down the blinded men with three precise, lethal shots.
He vaulted over the railing, dropping down to the main floor directly in front of Clara.
His face was covered in soot, and a deep gash on his forehead was bleeding freely.
"I told you to stay in the car!" Victor yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her behind a reinforced concrete wall.
"I just saved your life, you ungrateful bastard!" Clara yelled back, wiping soot from her own eyes.
Before Victor could respond, a heavy, metallic banging sound echoed from a locked freezer door at the back of the room.
Victor kicked the heavy steel door open, his weapon raised.
Inside the freezing room, Silas was chained to a heavy metal pipe, shivering violently.
His face was a bruised, bloody mess, and his left shoulder was dislocated, hanging at a sickening angle.
Clara rushed past Victor, dropping to her knees on the icy floor next to Silas.
"I've got you, Silas," Clara said gently, pulling a syringe of morphine from her bag.
Silas looked up at her through a swollen, purple eye, a weak smile forming on his bloody lips.
"You really need to start listening to the boss, Doc," Silas groaned as she injected the painkiller.
"I'll take it under advisement," Clara replied, wrapping a thick thermal blanket around his freezing shoulders.
"Victor, help me pop his shoulder back into the socket so we can get him out of here."
Victor holstered his weapon, his expression softening as he looked at the woman who continuously defied him to save his family.
"Hold him steady," Victor ordered.
With one brutal, precise movement, Victor snapped the joint back into place.
Silas blacked out from the pain instantly.
May you like
"Grab his legs," Victor told Clara, hoisting Silas’s heavy upper body over his shoulder.
They needed to leave before the entire building collapsed, but the war was far from over.
