Chapter 36 - The Subterranean Siphon
Before I could stop her, Sarah lunged toward the pressure wheel. Bullets chewed into the concrete around her, one grazing her upper arm and tearing through the fabric of her coat. She didn't flinch. Grabbing an abandoned iron crowbar from the floor, she jammed it into the spokes and threw her entire body weight against the lever.
With a catastrophic shriek of shearing iron, the floodgate yielded.
A wall of water five feet high erupted from the reservoir pipe behind the ambushers, roaring through the tunnel like a living beast. The syndicate operatives were instantly swept from their feet, their screams swallowed by the deafening roar of the deluge.
The surge hit our ledge an instant later.
The icy torrent knocked my legs out from under me. I wrapped both arms fiercely around Evelyn, locking her against my chest, while my right hand clamped onto Lily’s collar as she was ripped from behind the valve.
"Julian! Sarah!" Lily shrieked before the water engulfed us completely.
We were hurled into the subterranean river, tumbling through darkness, foam, and roaring noise. I kept my head above the churning surface by sheer force of will, fighting to keep Evelyn’s airway clear of the freezing spray. Beside me, a hand broke through the froth—Sarah, gasping for breath, grabbing Lily’s wrist and pulling her close.
The current violently carried us through twisting storm tunnels, past crumbling brick arches and submerged drainage grates. The roar of the water grew louder, shifting from an enclosed rumble to a hollow, echoing cascade ahead.
A drainage weir.
"Hold on!" I screamed into the roaring spray. "Impact!"
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We shot over the lip of the concrete spillway, plummeting ten feet into the churning pool of the city’s lower harbor basin. The cold shock of the harbor water struck us like an anvil, knocking the remaining breath from my lungs.
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