Chapter 19 - The Broken Sanctuary
The mill descended into a hellstorm of fire and screaming metal.
Cole was fast—far faster than an administrator had any right to be. He drew a custom Walther PPK from his cashmere coat, firing three rapid shots as he dove behind the armored wheel of the Suburban. The bullets sparked off the concrete pillars behind Claire, biting into her left shoulder. She gasped, spinning from the kinetic impact, but kept her feet, firing blind around the vehicle's bumper to pin him down.
"Emily!" I screamed, breaking into a dead sprint toward the rear doors of the Suburban.
The third operative, who had been sitting in the driver’s seat, kicked his door open, raising a Glock toward my chest. I didn't think. I didn't calculate. All the civilized instincts of a corporate attorney burned away in a split-second flash of primal fury.
I launched my entire body forward, tackling the guard into the deep snowdrift. We tumbled over the ice, wrestling for the weapon. His thumb gouged into my eye socket; pain exploded behind my skull in blinding white light. I screamed, biting down brutally onto his wrist until I tasted warm, metallic blood. He shrieked, dropping the gun. I seized a jagged piece of rusted iron pipe protruding from the frozen dirt and drove it down with everything I had into his temple.
The man went limp.
I scrambled to my feet, panting, covered in snow and blood, and ripped open the rear door of the Suburban.
"Daddy!" Emily wailed, throwing her small arms around my neck.
"I’ve got you, baby! I’ve got you!" I pulled her into my arms, shielding her tiny body with my chest as gunshots rang out behind us.
Thirty feet away, Claire had closed the distance on Marcus Cole. His gun had been kicked into the snow, and he was on his knees, clutching a catastrophic wound in his abdomen. Claire stood over him, her weapon pressed firmly against the center of his forehead, her left arm hanging limp, blood dripping down her fingertips onto the pristine snow.
"Do it, Helena," Cole coughed, spitting crimson onto his designer coat. "Kill me. It doesn't stop the clock. The Directorate doesn't send one team... they send waves. You can't run forever. Not with a child."
Claire didn't blink. The wind whipped her silver-streaked hair across her blood-splattered cheeks.
"I'm not running anymore, Marcus," she whispered.
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*BANG.*
The gunshot echoed across the frozen valley, then silence settled over the timber mill, broken only by the howling wind and Emily’s muffled sobs against my shoulder.
