Chapter 6 - Into the Smoke
The world vanished in a concussion of heat, noise, and blinding orange light.
As the rear kitchen wall blew outward, the concussive wave picked up the heavy oak table and hurled it across the room. Shards of splintered timber and drywall rained down in a suffocating blizzard of plaster dust. Somewhere in the pitch-black chaos, Victoria shrieked, her voice cutting off abruptly as a heavy thud signaled someone hitting the floor.
“Rachel! Grab my hand!” Her father’s voice roared through the ringing in my ears, cutting through the thick, acrid reek of sulfur and cordite.
I didn’t hesitate. I dropped low, crawling blindly across the ruined floorboards until my palm found his calloused grip. He yanked me hard behind the overturned bar just as a volley of automatic gunfire chewed through the upper panels of the wooden counter, sending lethal splinters flying inches above our heads.
“They’re using the kitchen breach!” Marcus Vance’s voice echoed from the front doorway, sounding angrier now, though heavily strained by the sudden influx of heavy smoke. “Flush them out! I want that box intact, and I want Sterling alive!”
“We aren’t going to survive another minute in here, Dad,” I choked out, coughing as the thick, oily smoke filled my lungs. The left side of my face throbbed fiercely, the scar tissue pulling tight and dry against the heat. I reached into my coat pocket and clutched the manila envelope containing the inspection reports; it was our only leverage, and I wouldn't let it burn.
Through the haze of smoke and flashing strobe lights from the tactical vans outside, a dark silhouette materialized near the shattered back exit. It wasn't one of Marcus’s mercenaries. A gloved hand reached through the jagged frame of the blown-out kitchen door, waving frantically.
“Over here! Move, move, move!” a low voice barked.
It was Julian Sterling, his expensive suit scorched and torn, bleeding from a shallow graze across his temple. He wasn't trying to shoot us; he was looking for a way out just as desperately as we were.
My father raised his revolver toward the doorway, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t trust him, Rach! He’s just as bad as Marcus!”
“We don’t have a choice,” I whispered, dragging myself up against the bar. “If we stay here, Marcus puts a bullet between our eyes. If we go with Sterling, we stay alive long enough to fight back.”
Before my father could argue, a blinding beam of a tactical flashlight cut through the smoke inside the main room, accompanied by heavy combat boots crunching over glass. Marcus’s men were closing in.
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With a guttural grunt, my father hoisted himself up, grabbed my arm, and lunged with me straight through the smoking, shattered frame of the kitchen doorway into the rainy mountain night.
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