Chapter 8 - THE RECKONING
The high-explosive 12-gauge slug hit the first executioner mid-chest, detonating his tactical armor and hurling him ten feet across the concrete floor.
I hit the ground in a combat roll, absorbing the impact, and came up firing. The second guard’s head snapped back as two rounds ripped through his visor.
"Contact! Catwalks, main floor! Open fire!" Vance screamed, lunging behind an armored steel pillar as his remaining security detail opened up with automatic weapons.
A storm of copper and lead chewed through the concrete around me. I dove behind an overturned forklift, brass casings showering over my shoulders as I slammed another drum magazine into the receiver.
"Issa!" Dante’s voice tore through the gunfire, raw, broken, and desperate. "Get out of here! The signal—it's destabilizing!"
"Shut up, Dante!" I yelled back, leaning out from behind the forklift and firing three consecutive rounds into the signal jammer's power cell. The electronic tower erupted in a shower of sparks and black smoke. "I spent five years thinking you were a monster! You don't get to die until we have an argument about it!"
A guard attempted to flank my position, but a high-velocity rifle round cracked through the high skylights above—Celeste, firing from the perimeter crane. The guard crumpled to his knees.
The room devolved into sheer, unadulterated carnage. Vance's personal guard was elite, but they were fighting soldiers who had nothing left to lose. I advanced across the smelting floor like a mechanical force of nature, every round finding bone and sinew. When the shotgun clicked empty, I dropped it, drawing both sidearms, firing in rhythmic synchronization.
Within ninety seconds, the only men left standing were Vance, cowering behind the master control console, and me.
The digital timer on Dante's chest flashed violently:
00:02:15.
WARNING: TELEMETRY DRIFT DETECTED. AUTOMATIC DETONATION IMMINENT.
"The codes!" I barked, stepping toward Vance with my smoking weapon leveled at his forehead. "Input the disarm sequence, Vance, or I peel your skin off inch by inch."
Vance smiled, a bloodied, pathetic sneer. "It’s hardcoded to my biometric thumbprint and Dante’s retina, Rowan. But you were always too soft for the end-game."
With a sudden, frantic lunge, Vance reached for a secondary detonator switch on his console.
I didn't hesitate. I pulled the trigger. The bullet took him between the eyes, dropping him instantly over the electronic controls.
I spun toward Dante. The timer blinked:
00:00:45.
"Issa, run," Dante gasped, struggling against the heavy chains that bound his wrists to the iron beam. Tears cut clear tracks through the blood and soot on his cheeks. "The failsafe is active. Vance was lying—there's no remote abort once the secondary circuit trips. You have forty seconds to clear the blast radius. Run!"
I sprinted toward him, ignoring the burning agony in my lungs and the smoke scorching my throat. I grabbed Vance’s severed combat knife from the floor, wedging it into the shackle locks, throwing my entire weight against the tumblers.
"I am not leaving you!" I screamed, slamming the butt of my pistol against the rusted iron clasp.
"You have to live!" Dante pleaded, his voice breaking into a sob as his dark eyes locked onto mine—the same eyes that had watched me through the burning foyer five years ago. "For our child! If she survived... if you survived... you have to protect her!"
"She's alive, you idiot!" I shouted, the first shackle snapping open with a loud metallic crack. "Her name is Maya! She’s five years old, she has your curls, and she refuses to eat her crusts just like you do! Now shut up and help me break this damn lock!"
Dante froze. A shockwave seemed to pass through his battered body, deeper and more profound than any bullet he had ever taken. A single, choked breath tore from his chest.
"She's... alive?"
"Yes! Now pull!"
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With a roar born of impossible, primal strength, Dante surged forward. The adrenaline surging through his veins shattered the second weakened shackle. He was free.
Timer: 00:00:12.
