Chapter 24 - THE RUNAWAYS
The silver Volvo wagon roared out of the driveway, its headlights intentionally switched off, tires screaming against the asphalt as Ethan threw the wheel hard to the right.
Behind them, the gray sedan stationed at the corner roared to life, high beams snapping on like twin searchlights, cutting through the darkness and pinning the Volvo in their glare.
"Hold on!" Ethan shouted, slamming his foot flat against the accelerator.
The engine whined, the speedometer climbing past forty, then fifty miles per hour through the narrow, tree-lined residential streets of Oakridge. In the back seat, Daniel had Lily pinned securely beneath his body, shielding her small frame from any stray bullets that might come through the rear windshield.
*Crack! Crack!*
Two high-caliber rounds punched through the Volvo’s rear tailgate, shattering the back glass into a blizzard of safety pebbles. Lily screamed, a pure, piercing sound of primal terror.
"They're shooting to disable the engine!" Daniel yelled over the roar of the rushing wind. "Ethan, take the old lumber road through Blackwood Ridge! They won't know the terrain!"
Ethan didn't hesitate. At the intersection of 4th Street, he violently yanked the emergency brake. The rear of the Volvo kicked out into a controlled ninety-degree slide, rubber smoking as the tires bit into the gravel shoulder of the abandoned logging trail. The sedan pursuing them was caught off guard, overshooting the turn by fifty yards before its brakes locked up in a shower of sparks.
The Volvo plunged into the absolute blackness of the dense pine forest.
Branches scraped violently against the doors like fingernails clawing at metal. The road was barely two dirt ruts overgrown with weeds and exposed boulders. Ethan fought the steering wheel, his muscles screaming in agony, his bandaged hands burning where the burns had cracked open again, leaving red smears on the leather wheel.
"Did we lose them?" Daniel gasped, peering through the shattered rear window into the pitch-black trail.
"For five minutes, maybe," Ethan panted, his chest heaving. "Sterling has satellite tracking on our license plate if he’s tapped into the state system. We have to abandon this car before sunrise."
"Where do we go?" Daniel asked. His voice wasn't panicked anymore; it had hardened into something cold, pragmatic, and desperate. "Every hotel requires ID. Every highway has automated toll cameras. If Sterling controls the grid, we can't buy gas with a card without ringing a bell directly on his desk."
Ethan reached onto the passenger seat, tapping the black Pelican case. "We go to the only person Sarah trusted who survived the purge."
Daniel stared at him through the darkness. "Who? Sarah didn't have any family left. Her lab team—"
"Her lab team was executed or bought," Ethan interrupted, steering the car around a deep mud crater. "Except for one man. Dr. Robert Chen. The retired chief toxicologist for the state crime lab. Mom mentioned him in the letters she hid under the floorboards in the cabin. She said if the worst happened, Chen had a private laboratory off the grid in the Adirondacks."
Daniel fell silent. He remembered. Robert Chen was Sarah’s doctoral advisor thirty years ago—an eccentric recluse who had resigned from public service after blowing the whistle on a corrupt chemical dump in the late nineties.
"That's four hours north," Daniel said quietly. "We don't have enough gas to make four hours. The tank is at a quarter."
Ethan watched the fuel needle hover dangerously close to the red line. "We stop at the abandoned quarry depot near Miller’s Creek. My buddy Marcus's dad keeps old farm diesel stored in the back sheds. We siphon what we need and keep moving."
Twenty minutes later, the Volvo crawled out of the logging trail and into the rusted industrial graveyard of the Miller’s Creek gravel quarry. Dilapidated steel silos towered against the star-strewn sky like giant sentinels.
Ethan killed the engine. The silence was immediate and deafening, broken only by the ticking of the cooling manifold and the sound of their ragged breathing.
"Stay in the car," Ethan said, sliding the captured suppressed pistol into his jacket pocket. "I’ll find the diesel canisters."
"Take this," Daniel handed him Sarah’s heavy brass flashlight. "Five minutes, Ethan. If you aren't back in five minutes, I’m coming after you."
Ethan nodded, slipped out of the driver's seat, and crept into the shadows of the rusted maintenance shed. The air smelled of old motor oil, sulfur, and stagnant rainwater.
Inside the shed, rows of rusted steel barrels stood in the darkness. Ethan swept the flashlight beam across the labels until he found a row of yellow plastic jerrycans marked *DIESEL*. He grabbed two five-gallon cans and turned to leave.
Suddenly, a faint, rhythmic clicking sound echoed from the high rafters of the shed.
Ethan froze. He clicked off the flashlight instantly, melting against the steel siding.
Above him, on the narrow maintenance catwalk fifty feet in the air, a red laser sight cut through the gloom, drawing a bright crimson dot across the concrete floor.
It wasn't Julian Sterling’s tactical team.
A woman’s voice, smooth, cold, and dripping with venomous amusement, drifted down from the catwalk rafters:
"Hello, stepson. Did you really think you were the only ones who knew about Sarah’s little mountain trail?"
Ethan felt his blood turn to liquid nitrogen.
Stepping out onto the metal catwalk, backlit by the moonlight filtering through the skylight, stood Vanessa Vance.
Her ankle monitor was gone, replaced by a combat harness and a submachine gun slung casually over her shoulder. Her face, bruised from her earlier arrest, was twisted into a triumphant, psychotic grin.
"You broke bail," Ethan whispered into the dark.
May you like
"Bail?" Vanessa laughed—a sound that echoed like dry bones rattling in a jar. "Darling, Mr. Sterling doesn't pay bail. He pays the judge. Now, drop the cans and bring me that case, or I put a bullet through Daniel’s skull before you can take another breath."
***
