Chapter 12 - A Shot in the Dark
Bang!
The gunshot deafened Clara. The muzzle flash illuminated Arthur’s enraged face for a fraction of a second. The bullet shattered the concrete wall inches from her head.
Clara dropped to the floor and scrambled under the heavy oak desk.
"Graves! Get the backup generators online!" Arthur roared in the darkness.
Suddenly, a small, trembling hand grabbed Clara’s ankle. She nearly screamed, but a familiar voice whispered in her ear.
"Clara, it’s me."
It was Julian. He had escaped the chaos upstairs and found the breaker box in the hallway.
"Julian, you have to run," Clara whispered, pulling him into a tight embrace under the desk.
"I know a way out," the boy whispered back, his voice surprisingly steady. "There’s an old coal chute in the back of the maintenance room. We can crawl through it to the gardens."
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Arthur’s heavy footsteps moved blindly around the room. "I will find you, Clara. And when I do, I will make it hurt."
Clara grabbed Julian’s hand. Relying on the boy’s memory of the basement, they crawled silently out from under the desk, slipping past Arthur in the pitch black, and burst into the hallway, sprinting toward the maintenance room.
