Chapter 79 - The Flight from the Inferno
The lower levels of the mountain compound were a war zone.
Smoke billowed through the concrete utility tunnels. Emergency red lights pulsed overhead, bathing the corridors in a hellish crimson glow. In the distance, the rat-tat-tat of automated turrets cutting down the remaining Blackwood mercenaries echoed like distant thunder.
Noah was quiet now, whimpering softly against my chest, his small cheek pressed into the hollow of my neck.
"We're almost out, baby," I whispered, coughing against the acrid fumes. "Mama's getting us out."
I followed the emergency evacuation signs toward the subterranean maintenance depot. When I burst through the final double doors, the vast concrete bay was deserted—Eleanor’s support staff had already evacuated, or perished in the opening assault.
Parked near the massive blast doors was an armored all-terrain rover, its matte-black frame reinforced with heavy steel grilles and bulletproof windows. The keys were in the ignition, left behind by fleeing technicians.
I scrambled into the driver's seat, carefully securing Noah into an emergency medical carrier strapped into the reinforced passenger bucket. I sealed the harness with trembling hands, kissing his forehead.
"Hang on, Noah."
I slammed my foot on the accelerator.
The rover’s twin-turbo diesel engine roared to life with a feral growl. I punched the dashboard override button for the external bay doors. The massive hydraulic steel gates began to open, groaning under their immense weight, revealing the howling snowstorm outside.
Before the doors could open fully, a group of three surviving mercenaries in tactical vests sprinted into the depot, spotting the vehicle.
"Stop that rover!" one shouted, raising an automatic rifle.
I didn't brake. I slammed the pedal to the floor.
The heavy armored vehicle surged forward, crushing through tool racks and fuel drums. Bullets pinged harmlessly off the reinforced windshield, spiderwebbing the outer laminate but failing to penetrate. The rover smashed through the opening steel gates with a deafening metallic screech, bursting out of the mountain redoubt into the blinding whiteout of the Canadian wilderness.
Freezing wind slammed against the chassis as the tires caught traction on the snow-packed mountain road. Behind us, deep within the heart of Elysium Ridge, a series of catastrophic secondary explosions erupted. A massive fireball punched through the upper levels of the mountain, collapsing the glass penthouse into a fiery avalanche of stone and twisted steel.
The compound was burning.
Julian was dead. Eleanor was buried beneath a million tons of concrete and fire.
I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, guiding the roaring rover down the treacherous, icy switchbacks, descending toward the remote logging roads that led back to civilization.
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We had survived.
***
