Chapter 63 - Fire in the Cryo-Chamber
I didn't wait for him to flank me. Dropping low, I slid across the frost-slicked tiles beneath the billowing clouds of liquid nitrogen, using the zero-visibility fog as a thermal shield. Julian’s infrared optic flared red through the white mist, but my vest was equipped with cold-burn dispersion fibers; to his thermal scope, I was an indistinguishable smudge against the frozen air.
He fired blind into the fog, three rounds chewing through the floor beside my hip.
I rose directly behind his blind spot, kicking the back of his knee with the steel toe of my combat boot. The joint buckled with a sharp crack, and Julian dropped to one knee with a grunt of pain. Before he could pivot his firearm toward me, I slammed the butt of my sidearm directly into his jaw, shattering teeth and splitting his cheek wide open.
He tumbled across the floor, blood splattering the pristine white tiles, but his reflexes were terrifyingly swift. He swept my ankles out from under me, and I hit the ground hard, my instinct instantly curling my entire body around Noah to shield him from the violent impact.
Noah cried out, a sound that pierced straight through my soul.
"He’s Vance property!" Julian roared, lunging atop me, his fingers wrapping like iron bands around my throat. His face was unrecognizable—covered in blood, eyes dilated with synthetic stimulants, the mask of civilization stripped away completely. "You were nothing but dirt, Clara! A surrogate with an expired shelf life!"
My vision narrowed to a tunnel of black spots as his grip crushed my windpipe. In his eyes, I saw no remorse, no memory of our vows, no trace of the boy I had kissed under the autumn trees six years ago. There was only greed, power, and the icy cold rot of the Vance dynasty.
With my left arm keeping Noah securely pinned against my ribcage, my right hand blindly clawed at my tactical belt. My fingers closed around a high-pressure nitrogen injector pen used for lab field sampling.
I didn't hesitate. I drove the six-inch titanium needle straight into Julian’s exposed thigh and slammed the release valve.
The tank dumped minus-two-hundred-degree nitrogen straight into his femoral muscle.
Julian’s scream tore through the subterranean vault, a raw, inhuman sound as the deep tissue in his leg flash-froze and shattered internally. His grip on my throat broke instantly, his hands clutching his leg as he collapsed sideways, thrashing in agonizing convulsion.
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I rolled to my feet, gasping for oxygen, my chest burning like acid.
Above on the shattered mezzanine, Eleanor Vance was racking the slide of an assault rifle, her eyes burning with pure venom. "You insolent guttersnipe," she snarled, aiming directly at Noah. "If I cannot harvest him, no one will."
