Chapter 11 - The Escape to the Woods
“Let her go!” I screamed, scrambling across the concrete floor on my hands and knees, ignoring the sharp pain of my split lip and bruised ribs. I lunged at Marcus’s legs, digging my fingernails into the fabric of his trousers, trying to pull him down.
One of the mercenaries stepped forward, driving the heavy plastic butt of his rifle directly into my shoulder. The blow sent me rolling backward onto the floor, my arm going completely numb from the impact.
“Tie her up and leave her for the cops,” Marcus ordered the mercenaries without looking back, tucking a struggling, screaming Lily under his right arm like a football while pointing his pistol at the door. “The flight out of the private airstrip leaves in forty minutes. If we miss that window, the feds will have the entire state airspace locked down.”
“Daddy, no! Let me go! I want my Mommy!” Lily shrieked, kicking her little sneakers against his shins and biting down hard onto the heel of his hand.
Marcus cursed violently, almost dropping his pistol as he jerked his hand back from her teeth. “Shut up, you little brat!” he snarled, raising his weapon to strike her across the face with the barrel.
That moment of distraction—that microsecond where his arrogance turned into physical frustration—was the only opening I had left.
From the hallway outside the safe room, a sudden, blinding burst of automatic gunfire ripped through the drywall. The mercenary standing over me collapsed instantly, his chest riddled with rounds, his rifle clattering across the floor.
Standing in the doorway, bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to her left shoulder, was Officer Miller. Her tactical vest was torn and stained with dark blood, her face pale as death, but she held her Glock 19 leveled with two steady hands, her eyes burning with professional fury.
“Drop the weapon, Thorne!” Miller roared, firing two rapid, suppressed shots that took down the second mercenary before he could even raise his rifle.
The room dissolved into absolute, chaotic pandemonium. The third mercenary returned fire, bullets sparking off the steel frame of the safe room door, forcing Miller to duck back into the hallway for cover.
Marcus didn't try to fight Miller; his self-preservation instinct overrode his rage. He dropped Lily onto the floor, fired three blind shots into the hallway to keep the officer pinned, and sprinted toward the rear window of the master bedroom across the hall—the emergency escape route he had claimed didn't exist.
“Mommy!” Lily screamed, scrambling across the concrete floor toward me through the smoke and debris.
I scooped her up into my arms, ignoring the screaming agony in my shoulder, and ran toward the doorway where Officer Miller was slumped against the wall, reloading her pistol with shaking, blood-stained fingers.
“Miller! Are you okay?!” I yelled, pulling her up by her good arm.
“I’m hit bad... arterial bleed in the shoulder,” Miller gasped, coughing up a fine spray of crimson mist. She shoved her spare car keys into my hand, her eyes locking onto mine with desperate urgency. “My unmarked cruiser... parked in the tree line behind the garage. Take the kid... get to the highway... Units 8 and 14 are three minutes out... go!”
“I’m not leaving you here to die!” I cried out.
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“He has another shooter outside!” Miller yelled, shoving me toward the rear kitchen door with the last of her physical strength. “I’ll hold the hallway! Get that little girl out of here, Sarah! Run!”
I didn't look back. I clutched Lily to my chest, kicked open the heavy back door of the kitchen, and plunged out into the freezing, torrential autumn rainstorm that was raging over the woods behind the safe house.
