Chapter 17 - The Ascent Through Fire
Isabel did not look back.
Carrying the dead weight of the unconscious child, she scrambled toward the iron spiral staircase. The metal treads were already blistering hot, scorching through the soles of her riding boots. Every breath of the sulfurous air felt like swallowing crushed glass.
Above her, the steel emergency hatch—the one Halden had sealed when he descended—stood fifty feet up, bathed in the spinning red glare of the emergency lights. But the locks had engaged with two-ton pneumatic deadbolts.
"Think, Isabel, think," she muttered between choked sobs, her thighs burning as she took the stairs two at a time. The heat was rising behind her like an incoming tide. The catwalk beneath her shuddered as the supports melted and tore away from the rock walls, plunging into the red fire below.
She reached the top platform. The hatch was solid cast steel, five inches thick.
Next to the hatch, an emergency pressure-release valve sat behind a glass case. Isabel smashed the glass with the butt of her Colt. Inside was a heavy iron pry-bar connected to a mechanical manual bypass.
She wedged her body against the iron railing, wrapped both arms around the lever, and pulled with everything she had.
The mechanical gear screamed in protest. Her shredded shoulder tore open completely, warm blood soaking through her shirt, blinding pain radiating down to her fingertips. "Move, you bastard!" she roared into the smoke.
With a sound like an artillery shell firing, the pneumatic seal broke. The massive steel hatch swung open three inches.
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A blast of cold, dry night air hit Isabel’s face like a holy blessing.
She squeezed through the gap, pulling Naira through after her, and tumbled out onto the hard, cracked caliche of the canyon rim just as the staircase behind them collapsed entirely into the inferno.
