Chapter 5 - Into the Abyss
They plunged down the steep, muddy embankment as a fresh wave of automatic gunfire shredded the brush right where they had been standing a second before. Mud and loose shale gave way beneath their boots, sending small avalanches of rock tumbling down into the dark chasm below.
Victor led the descent, using his free hand to grab onto exposed roots and saplings to keep from dropping the unconscious woman, his boots slipping violently in the wet clay. Diego followed closely, firing upward into the fog to discourage anyone from leaning over the edge to pick them off.
Ramon shielded Lily with his entire body, sliding down the treacherous slope on his heels, his fingers tearing into the damp earth as he maintained a grip on the child's jacket. The roar of the rushing river below grew louder with every foot they descended, a thunderous white-water torrent cutting through the heart of the gorge like a liquid blade.
Bang!
A high-caliber sniper round clipped a boulder an inch from Ramon's head, sending a stinging spray of granite shrapnel across his cheek and drawing a thin line of bright red blood. He didn't flinch. He hauled Lily over a fallen log, pushing her down into the relative cover of a massive boulder shelf near the riverbank where Victor and Diego had already taken defensive positions.
"Clear!" Diego shouted, panting heavily as he dropped behind a jagged rock, weapon raised toward the slope above.
Victor laid the unconscious woman gently onto a patch of dry moss beneath the rocky overhang. Her breathing remained shallow, her pale face slick with cold sweat, but she was still holding onto the silver medallion so tightly her knuckles were stark white. Lily scrambled to her side immediately, sobbing softly as she stroked her mother's damp hair.
Ramon crouched at the edge of the boulder shelf, peering upward through the dense ferns and mist. For a moment, the gunfire stopped. The only sound was the deafening roar of the river and the ragged breathing of his men.
"They stopped firing," Matteo muttered, joining Ramon at the edge, wiping blood and mud from his forehead. "Why aren't they pushing the advantage?"
Ramon’s dark eyes narrowed as he scanned the upper ridge. The mist seemed to part slightly, revealing a lone figure standing on the precipice directly above them, looking down into the gorge.
The figure wasn't holding a rifle. Even from this distance, through the gray haze, Ramon could see the glint of something unnatural catching the faint morning light—a cold, metallic flash where a left eye should have been.
It was Viktor Vance.
He didn't raise a weapon. Instead, Viktor raised one gloved hand in a slow, mocking salute, turned on his heel, and melted back into the fog as if he had never been there at all.
Before Ramon could process the impossibility of what he had just seen, a low, ominous rumble echoed from upstream—a sound that didn't belong to the natural storm or the river.
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Matteo’s tactical radio hissed to life, cutting through the static with an automated alert. "Boss... sensors just tripped upstream. They didn't stop firing because they were retreating. They just blew the old logging dam."
Ramon whipped his head upstream. Through the veil of fog, a massive wall of white water, churning with splintered logs and debris, rounded the bend of the river and came barrelling down the gorge directly toward them at terrifying speed.
