Chapter 7 - INTO THE MOUNTAIN TUNNEL
Dante hewed open the heavy steel plate of the underground hatch, revealing a steep, concrete-lined ladder leading down into absolute blackness.
"Go! Down the ladder!" Dante ordered, pushing me gently toward the opening.
"What about you?" I turned back, gripping his jacket as I saw the pale, sickly color of his face under the red emergency lights. "You can't fight an entire squad with one arm!"
"I'll buy us time," Dante said, his steel-gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned right through the darkness. "Go, Claire. I'm not letting them touch you."
Before I could argue, heavy footsteps charged down the hallway toward the examination room.
Dante shoved me down the ladder, slammed the heavy steel hatch shut above my head, and threw the manual locking bolt into place just as a burst of automatic gunfire raked across the surface of the floor boards overhead.
"Dante!" I screamed into the metallic darkness of the tunnel, banging my fists against the underside of the hatch.
"Keep moving forward, Claire!" his muffled voice shouted from above, punctuated by the sharp crack of his pistol returning fire. "Follow the light at the end of the tunnel! I'll be right behind you!"
Tears streamed down my face, hot and blinding. I had known this man for less than forty-eight hours, yet the thought of him dying alone in that room tore my heart in two.
I wiped my eyes, grabbed my heavy-duty flashlight from my pocket, clicked it on, and began crawling through the narrow, damp concrete conduit. Thor trotted closely behind me, whimpering softly in the dark.
The tunnel sloped gently downward, winding deep into the rocky heart of the mountain. After what felt like an eternity of crawling over rough stones and splashing through icy subterranean puddles, a faint, pale beam of moonlight appeared ahead.
An exit.
I scrambled out of the narrow concrete pipe, tumbling onto a bed of damp pine needles and snow in a secluded ravine hidden deep within the dense evergreens. Thor bounded out right behind me, shaking the water off his thick coat and barking sharply toward the tree line.
I scrambled to my feet, scanning the ridge above.
Where was he? Why wasn't he following?
Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the night sky behind us.
A ball of bright orange fire illuminated the ridgeline, followed by a shockwave that rattled the trees and sent a shower of sparks into the dark clouds.
The clinic.
May you like
They had blown up the clinic.
"No..." I dropped to my knees in the snow, the breath leaving my lungs in a ragged gasp as the place I had called home for five years vanished in a plume of smoke and fire.
