Chapter 29 - The Trap at Saint Jude’s
"Go! Into the shaft!" Marcus commanded, cocking his weapon. "My boys and I will hold the stairwell for three minutes. That’s all the time you'll have before they flood the lower chamber with neurotoxin canisters."
"Marcus, you won't survive if you stay," I protested, catching his arm.
Marcus smiled faintly, a tired, paternal smile that looked heartbreakingly like my father's. "I've lived ten years longer than I deserved, Elena. Ethan trusted me to protect his children. Julian... you take care of her."
Julian met the old soldier’s eyes and gave a stiff, solemn nod. "On my life, Marcus."
Marcus shoved the heavy metal grate away from the wall, exposing a narrow, damp concrete conduit that plunged downward into the pitch-black earth. "Go! Now!"
Julian led the way, with Maya directly behind him, and me bringing up the rear with a tactical flashlight pressed against my gun barrel. We squeezed into the suffocating darkness just as deafening gunfire erupted behind us.
The noise inside the shaft was overwhelming. The sharp crackle of assault rifles, the heavy boom of breaching charges, and the shouting of men dying in the subterranean corridor echoed through the metal ductwork. Tears streamed down my face, but I kept pushing Maya forward, refusing to let grief slow our steps.
The tunnel was damp, freezing, and choked with rust and spiderwebs. Julian crawled ahead of us with mechanical determination. I could see the dark stains spreading across the bandages on his back, but he didn't utter a single sound of complaint. Every breath he took rattled in his chest, yet he moved like a machine fueled entirely by protective fury.
After what felt like an eternity of scraping through stone and steel, the air turned crisp and cold. The sound of running water grew louder.
Julian kicked open a rusted iron grate choked with dead vines, tumbling out into a bed of freezing pine needles beside a fast-moving mountain creek. Maya and I scrambled out after him.
The rain had finally slowed to an icy drizzle. Behind us, high up on the ridge, an orange fireball erupted into the pre-dawn sky as Marcus detonated the bunker's emergency self-destruct charges, taking the surface team with him.
"Marcus..." Maya sobbed into her sleeve.
Julian hauled himself up against a massive birch tree, his breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps. "He bought us... an hour. No more."
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"Where do we go?" I asked, scanning the dark forest. "They control the roads, the police frequencies, and the ports."
"Saint Jude’s," Julian coughed, pointing south along the riverbed. "The old abandoned chapel three miles downstream. Ethan kept an emergency transport buried in the crypt. If we can reach the vehicle before Sterling reorganizes his scouts, we have a chance."