A look of displeasure at the ambush being only partially successful crossed the mayor’s face before his features smoothed out again.
“Very well, go down and find out what the scouts discovered about her friends’ location and bring up some of this medication she had in her trailer.”
When Evan nodded and turned to head back to the elevators, the mayor snapped his fingers and pointed at the open section of the floor that they had thrown the man out of.
“Quickly Evan, quickly. You can use the elevators to come back up.”
Emily thought she saw a glimmer of annoyance in Evan’s eyes but he quickly nodded his head and turned in the direction of where the open floor was. She followed his movements with her eyes as the mayor launched into the gruesome details of what would happen to her should he not get what he wanted. Emily tuned him out and watched Evan closely as he reached down and grabbed what looked like a mess of belts with a carabiner attached to it.
She saw it was a harness of some kind as he slid his arms through the loops and buckled them together. When he reached up and clipped the carabiner on to a thick line of braided steel wire that she hadn’t noticed before, she saw that it ran through the open hole and realized exactly what it was. She also noted her assault rifle was still slung over his back and the holstered handgun at his waist. He dropped through the opening with one hand clutching the mechanism that was attached to the carbineer, that she guessed was a brake to control his descent, and disappeared.
The mayor finally lost his temper at her ignoring him and bellowed at her.
“Pay attention you little bitch! There’s no escape from my judgment so you’d better listen to me!” he said, red-faced with anger.
Emily looked at the girl with the steel collar around her neck connected to a chain. It was then she noticed the cruel amusement in the grins and smirks of the men scattered around the platform and saw her future. They would beat, torture and rape her again and again until they killed her. She would rather be dead than face that kind of future.
She looked at the hole, the pile of harnesses and then dug deep to let the ice-cold rage fuel her. Pulling one of her gloves off and stuffing it in her pocket, she turned her head to face the mayor and borrowed one of Josh’s favorite sayings.
“Challenge accepted!”
Emily launched herself towards the opening in the floor, dropping to her knees to slide the last bit, so she could scoop up one of the harnesses by its carabiner. She didn’t spare a glance at the room around her, only focusing on getting her hands ready to snap the metal that may or may not save her life to the wire that would allow her to escape. She knew that there was only a fraction of a chance that this would work but she was okay with that. She would rather fall to her death than stay in such a bleak future. She had a split-second thought that she hoped her friends were watching so when she died, they would know it was okay to leave and not risk their lives to try and rescue her.
All these thoughts and more spun through her mind as she slid to towards the edge of the opening. As she tipped through it, she reached out with the hand that was still wearing her thick leather winter glove to grasp the wire as tight as she could while swinging up her bare hand with the carabiner in it to try and click it onto the wire. Gravity and speed took over as she began to fall and the friction against her glove burned through to her skin underneath causing her to release the wire involuntarily. She frantically grasped at the harness and managed to swing her arm into one of the loops. When she lost her grip on the carbineer with her bare hand and started to fall, she knew she had failed. Emily squeezed her eyes shut in resignation of her death just as her body jerked and a hot flare of pain shot through her shoulder. Her eyes flew open to look above her and she saw that she had managed to clip on to the wire but she was only held up by one loop of the harness that had wrapped around her wrist. Eyes wide that she wasn’t falling to her death, she swung her other arm up and grabbed at the other loop that was fluttering in the wind of her fast descent down the line. She managed to get the loop under her armpit to ease the pressure on her wrist and shoulder and then turned her focus to what was ahead.
Evan, who was properly harnessed, was controlling the speed of his descent as she barreled towards him, twenty feet behind and closing fast. Now that she knew she wasn’t about to die on the pavement below, she ruthlessly shoved aside the terror of the last few seconds and spun up her next moves in her mind.
Coming up behind him at top speed would be dangerous for her from not only the impact to his body but her precarious hold on her own harness. She had to make sure that when she hit him she wasn’t knocked out of her own harness.
Only seconds behind him, she spread her legs apart and lifted them as best as she could. The impact with his body wasn’t as hard as she’d anticipated because they were both traveling forward so she didn’t delay in wrapping her legs around his waist and crossing her ankles to anchor herself to him. It took him a second to recover from the shock of someone slamming into him but once he had, he started thrashing to knock her off. Using her legs as leverage, she wrapped the arm that was looped into the harness to snake around his neck and give her an even better purchase. She used his harnessed body to push herself up closer to the wire to ease the tautness of the canvas strap wrapped around her wrist and waved her arm in a circle to unwrap the strap. Her hand felt weak and partially numb from the blood flow being cut off so she clenched it a few times and then went for the prize of his holstered handgun resting just under where her thigh was blocking his way to reach for it. She kept her grip on it as tight as she could with her weakened hand. She knew this was her only chance to have the advantage. If she dropped the gun and made it to the bottom of the line with Evan, he would easily take her down with his bigger body and strength and this would all have been for nothing.
Emily knew he realized that she had taken his gun by the way he started to buck and thrash his body even harder but in his current position, he had no leverage to shake her off. She didn’t hesitate for one second when she positioned the gun barrel against the back of his head and pulled the trigger - causing the jerking and bucking to stop as his body went lax in death. Blinking the blood that had blown back onto her face out of her eyes, she tilted to the side of him slightly to see what was ahead. When she had impacted with him, Evan had released the brake, causing them to pick up speed and now the end of the line was only seconds away. She had time to see what looked like a huge snowbank ahead and to release her legs from around his waist before they slammed into it.
Every bone and muscle in Emily’s body exploded in pain at the impact and she was helpless to do anything but hang in position, held up by one arm still in the harness loop. Hot coppery blood filled her mouth from where her teeth cut into her lip when she slammed into Evan’s shoulder blade, causing her to choke as some of it ran down her throat. Her free arm, that had been holding the gun and was now empty, felt like a floppy noodle as she clawed at his jacket to raise herself up enough to slip her other arm out of the harness loop. As soon as she was free from the harness, she took a step back and promptly fell flat on her butt.
She knew she had to get up and move but her head was still reeling from the impact and all she could do was sit for a moment and stare at the mattress she had thought was a snowbank, that someone had leaned against the wall to cushion the zip line landings. As her mind cleared, her eyes tracked up Evan’s body to her rifle and she gently rubbed at her bruised sternum where it had impacted with the gun. Even though everything hurt and all she wanted to do was sit there for a while she rolled over to get on her hands and knees to try and stand up. Facing back the way she had come sent the surge of adrenaline her body needed to push past the pain because she saw that one of the mayor’s men had just dropped through the tower floor onto the line and was coming after her.
Emily scrambled to her feet and staggered back to Evan to unclip her rifle from his back before spinning away and searching for her next direction. The only thing tha
t had kept her alive so far was an absolute disregard for her own safety and a whole lot of luck. She knew that the mayor not having anyone posted up here was a lucky stroke for her but that would change in the next few moments if she didn’t get moving.
Spotting an access door twenty feet away, she moved as fast as she could towards it and flipped the rifle’s safety to off. Wrenching the door open, she gasped out her relief at the landing and stairwell being empty. With one hand on her rifle and the other holding tight to the railing to steady herself, she quickly stumbled down the stairs until she ran into a final door. She took three seconds for a deep breath and then cracked the door as silently as she could. Peeking through the door she saw that she was in another parking garage.
Squinting in the dim light her eyes tracked over to the brightest area and what she saw had her almost bursting out with a disbelieving laugh. Somehow, she had ended up right back in the parking garage that she had driven into not that long ago and parked right where she had left it, by the access ramp, was her sled with one of the men ordered to guard it sitting on its bench seat.
She searched the rest of what she could see of the level looking for the second man and came up empty. Emily knew time wasn’t on her side as the man sent to follow her on the zip line would be landing at any moment above her but she didn’t want to just run out and start shooting. It would alert anyone nearby and the flying bullets might damage her ride out of here. She needed to get closer and do this as silently as possible.
Opening the heavy door just enough to slide through it, she then held it as it closed until it made a soft click. The man on her sled was facing to her right so she went left along the perimeter of the garage, dodging abandoned cars and trucks until she reached the corner that faced the man’s back. She knew her pursuer had to have landed by now so speed had to top stealth. A deep breath and a strong shooter stance had the three-round burst she fired off hitting the man’s torso, causing him to tumble off of the sled seat while the noise of the shooting created a thunderous echo throughout the garage.
Emily was already moving as the body fell from the sled and was across the short distance in seconds. Jumping on her sled, she fired it up and threw it in gear to race a tight circle around on the bare concrete causing an unholy screech and sparks to fly off of the skis as she positioned it to speed up the ramp. She saw more than heard the stairwell door slam open as she twisted the throttle to fly up the ramp onto the snow-covered street that was now bathed in early morning light. Swinging to the right, she didn’t even consider trying to find a different way out of the area. She knew where she was going by backtracking the route Evan had forced her to take into the core, so that was the route she would take to get out of it.
Her speed bordered on reckless but she refused to consider slowing as her one goal was to not be captured again. Blocks sped by in a blur as people who had watched with indifference when she was brought in now stopped and watched in surprise as she sped past them. If any one of them thought to try to stop her, they were too late by the time she made it past them. The last main obstacle in her path to freedom was the guarded bus gate that she was coming up on. The noise of her roaring engine had alerted them so they all stood to face her either on top of the buses or in front of the barricade gate. Releasing one of the handles of the sled, she propped her rifle up on the windshield and flipped the selector to full- automatic. As soon as she figured she was close enough she let loose, raking the tops of both buses with automatic fire and sending men falling or diving off, either in death or in search of cover. Finally hitting the brakes, she came to a stop in a shower of snow a few feet from the barricade. She shot up from her seat and grasped her rifle in both hands while facing the four men that had crouched down in front of the barricade when she had opened fire. Praying that she still had a few bullets left, she switched back to single shot and stabbed towards the barricade.
“Open it or die!” she yelled at them.
One of the men decided he was brave enough to take on this teenage girl. He launched to his feet and fired his gun without aiming and the bullet plowed harmlessly into the snow-covered street a few feet in front of him. He didn’t get a chance to correct his aim as Emily shot him in the chest then moved the barrel back to cover the other three.
All she said to them was, “Next?”
She kept her expression and tone hard and prayed this worked. She could tell by how light the rifle was that she was either out of bullets or at best had only one left. Thankfully, the three men threw down their weapons and started to haul the barricade to one side. As soon as she judged the sled could fit through, she ordered them to the side to their knees facing away from her. The second the last man landed on his knees she dropped back onto the bench and cranked the throttle, sending the sled through the opening. She knew she hadn’t taken out all the men that had been on top of the buses but there was nothing she could do about that now except pray that her luck held and hope she didn’t take a bullet in the back for her trouble.
As each block passed, she kept her speed as high as she dared until she came to the intersection where she was ambushed. Finally slowing, she looked back the way she had come and was completely shocked that no one was following her yet. These guys were either idiots or they were without any kind of working vehicle. Either way, she would take it.
Leaving the sled idling, she jumped off to rush to the dumpster that had blocked her way and leaned into it to try and push it out of the way. The adrenaline that had been feeding her strength started to drain away, leaving her legs week and her head spinning before she had even moved the dumpster a few inches. The noise of her own engine and the blood that was roaring in her ears at the desperation she felt to get to the river and across to safety masked the sound of another engine until it was almost on top of her.
With the adrenaline gone and most of her rage with it, she was left with the overwhelming emotions of fear and terror of what would happen if they caught her again. A whimper of fear escaped her as she frantically ejected her magazine and saw that she was in fact out of ammunition. She lunged towards the sled to keep going in a different direction when her name being screamed from the other side of the dumpster made her spin back towards it. There was nothing hard or cold about the trembling “Here!” that came out of her mouth.
Emily Mather was a different person than the girl she was when the lights went out. She did what she had to do and killed when she had to but when the dumpster moved out of the way and she saw Josh walk through the opening, she reverted back to that young, terrified girl and collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
Chapter Twelve
Thirty minutes earlier…
Dara helped Josh unhook the trailer from one of the sleds while Cooper rolled up the overhead door, revealing Matthew standing on the other side.
The man took in their set expressions and asked cautiously, “Have you decided how you’re going to go forward? Are you headed to the hospital and home now?”
Josh used his boot to give the unhooked hitch a shove, separating it from the sled before answering.
“Not quite yet. We understand your concerns about bringing the gangs to your doorstep and we think we have a plan that will take that out of the equation. I know you think it’s best to sacrifice Emily for the good of all but that’s just not something we’re willing to do. Our plan now is for Dara to stay here for a couple of hours and then head up to the hospital to meet up with our other friends. Cooper and I are going to take one sled across the river to assess the situation. He’s going to stay up in one of the buildings to be my lookout and feed me information over the radio while I try to blend in with the people over there. I’ll see if I can get close to where they’re holding Emily. We don’t plan on starting a war that would put everyone in danger but we do have to try to save her. It’ll all come down to whether or not I can sneak in and possibly free her without starting World War Three. Cooper will be in place to see whether or not I’m either successful or captured. If I
can get her out, we’ll head directly west, away from here, so we won’t be drawing them to the zoo. Either way, whether I’m caught or manage to get Emily freed, Cooper will head back here to let you know what happened.”
Matthew shook his head in resignation. “I can see I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, but again, I have to remind you of what’s at stake. You brought all those children here to be safe and what you do next will determine whether or not we come under attack. You’re putting everyone’s lives at risk all for the sake of one person. I just can’t believe this is something your parents would approve of.”
Josh’s expression hardened. “My parents raised me to do the right thing and to never give up. That’s why we brought those kids here and that’s why I’ll go and try and rescue my friend and that’s why I will lead anyone who comes after us away from your community. Matthew, I appreciate the help you’ve given us but quite honestly - it’s the adults that screwed up our world. To us, it feels like we’re the ones doing the cleanup now.” Josh shook his head dismissively. “We’ve got to go. There’s just over two and a half hours until the deadline we gave our friends at the hospital and I plan to get in, get my friend, and get out before that deadline hits. So, if you want to throw us out of here go ahead but nothing you can say is going to change our minds.”
Matthew heaved out a frustrated breath. “I’m not going to throw your friends out. Dara is welcome to stay here until she has to leave to go to the hospital. Quite frankly, you’ve put me in a position where I now need Cooper to come back to help defend this place should the gang decide to attack us. So, go on your rescue mission and good luck to you.” He paused as his features softened. “I mean that. I hope you find your friend and you both make it out okay.”
There was nothing else to say so Josh gave Dara a quick embrace before he and Cooper hopped onto the sled and drove out of the garage. It was late enough now that the community was waking up so there were more people out on the pathways that gave them curious looks as they drove towards the river gate. Josh hoped that Dara wouldn’t have any problems with Aaron and his men while they were gone but he had to have faith that she could handle herself without them.
STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 104
