Chapter 28 - The Avalanche Protocol
"Get back in the car! Now!" Sarah screamed, her voice cracking as she grabbed the handles of my wheelchair and threw all her weight backward, hauling me away from the center of the road just as the first massive pine log crashed down onto the asphalt exactly where I had been parked a second earlier.
The world erupted into a deafening roar of grinding timber, crushing ice, and roaring snow. The avalanche tore across the mountain pass like an unleashed freight train, burying our SUV's rear bumper under tons of frozen debris and completely sealing off the escape route behind us.
Through the swirling white chaos, I caught a glimpse of Victoria turning around and climbing swiftly back into her sleek black limousine, her silver cane tapping against the doorframe before the vehicle smoothly accelerated right through the thinning edge of the snowslide, disappearing down the mountain as if a wall of ice was nothing more than a minor speed bump.
"Evelyn! Are you okay?" Sarah shouted over the deafening whistle of the wind, pulling me behind the sturdy concrete abutment of a drainage culvert just as a second wave of powdery snow cascaded over us.
"I'm fine," I coughed, wiping the wet snow from my face with a gloved hand, my heart hammering furiously against my ribs not from fear, but from a cold, blinding fury. "She thinks she can bury us alive just like Jonathan tried to drown me. She’s making the exact same mistake they all make: she thinks I'm helpless because I'm in this chair."
Sarah pulled her tactical radio from her coat, tapping the emergency transmit button frantically. "Miller! Miller, do you copy? We’ve been cut off by an engineered avalanche on the upper ridge. Send the backup tactical unit up the logging trail immediately!"
Silence hissed through the speaker, followed by a burst of static, and then a weak, distorted voice that made our blood run colder than the snow around us.
"The... the logging trail is mined," Miller's voice sputtered through the broken signal, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire echoing in the background down at the base of the pass. "We're... we're taking heavy fire from an unverified paramilitary group... they've locked down the entire mountain grid... repeat, we are completely..."
The transmission cut out with a sharp, whining electronic screech, leaving nothing behind but the dead, hollow hum of a disconnected line.
Sarah lowered the radio slowly, her face completely drained of color. "They didn't just ambush us on the road, Evelyn. They planned a full-scale tactical isolation of the entire estate. Whoever is backing Victoria isn't just using corporate lawyers anymore—they're using private mercenaries."
"And they think we're trapped," I said quietly, gripping the metal wheels of my chair and staring up at the winding, treacherous cliff path that led directly toward the old chapel behind the Vance estate—the very place where Helen’s wooden casket had supposedly been buried twenty-five years ago.
"Sarah," I said, turning my wheelchair around to face the steep, snow-covered stone staircase that cut straight up the side of the cliff, bypassing the blocked road entirely. "Can you carry me up those stairs?"
Sarah stared at the steep, ice-covered steps vanishing into the blinding white storm, then down at my wheelchair, and finally into my eyes. She didn't hesitate for a single second. She tucked her pistol back into its holster, unclipped a pair of heavy-duty tactical climbing crampons from her belt, and strapped them securely over her boots.
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"Hold on tight, Evelyn," Sarah said grimly, locking her jaw as she hoisted my entire chair off the ground, lifting me over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a wounded commander into battle. "We're going to crash their little family reunion."
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