Chapter 38 - The Descent into Darkness
They fell through absolute blackness.
The wind was a roaring monster, tearing the breath from their lungs and freezing their skin on impact. Below them, the luxury train exploded into a spectacular fireball as it slammed into the jagged granite floor of the canyon, sending a pillar of orange flame hundreds of feet into the blizzard.
"PULL THE CHORD!" Vanessa shrieked through the slipstream.
Claire counted the seconds in her head, watching the raging river rush up to swallow them.
*Three. Two. One.*
She ripped the deployment D-ring.
*WHAM!*
The parachute deployed with a violent, bone-snapping jerk that felt like being hit by a truck. The three-point harness dug savagely into Claire’s wounded shoulder, threatening to tear her arm from its socket. A collective scream tore from all three throats as the military canopy caught the turbulent updrafts of the burning gorge.
Two suspension cords snapped instantly under the triple weight.
*PANG! PANG!*
The canopy oscillated wildly, spiraling toward the icy pine forest that lined the riverbank.
"BRACE!" Dominique yelled.
They slammed through the frozen pine canopy at forty miles an hour. Branches whipped across their faces, snapping like gunshots, tearing their clothes and absorbing the lethal momentum before the parachute snagged in the thick boughs of a centuries-old fir tree.
The tether snapped.
All three women fell through the final ten feet of branches, crashing hard into a six-foot snowdrift at the base of the tree.
For a long time, there was only silence.
Only the soft hiss of falling snow, the distant crackle of the burning train wreckage half a mile down the river, and the ragged, shallow breathing of three broken sisters lying tangled in the white drift.
Claire rolled onto her back, staring up through the pine needles at the cold, indifferent stars. Blood dripped from her nose, her shoulder was entirely numb, but her heart was beating.
Beside her, Vanessa groaned, pushing herself up from the snow, wiping ice and blood from her eyes.
Dominique lay five feet away, her dislocated arm clutched against her chest, her breathing shallow and ragged. She turned her head slowly, looking at Claire through the dim light of the burning canyon.
"Why?" Dominique whispered, her voice devoid of any arrogance, sounding like a terrified, lost child. "Why did you save me?"
Claire reached into her coat pocket.
Her fingers closed around the titanium drive. Miraculously, despite the explosion, the fight, and the fall, the metal casing was intact.
"Because the Syndicate destroyed our mother," Claire whispered, her voice raspy and cracked. "They destroyed our father. They spent twenty-four years turning us into weapons to kill each other."
Claire held out her hand to Dominique.
May you like
"It’s time we pointed those weapons at them."
***
