Chapter 6 - Darkness and FireInstantly, the brilliant overhead spotlights and tactical flashlights flickered and died. The entire fifty-thousand-square-foot estate plunged into pitch-black, suffocating darkness.
"What the hell?!" Agent Vance shouted, stumbling backward as his night-vision gear whined in adjustment. "Secure the perimeter! Someone tripped the main grid!"
In the pitch black, absolute chaos erupted. Shouts echoed down the marble hallways, heavy boots slipped on polished wood, and the frantic clicking of safety switches filled the air.
"Danny! Grab him!" Vance roared.
A heavy hand clamped down onto my shoulder from behind, trying to jerk me backward out of my chair.
Adrenaline surged through my veins. I didn't hesitate—I slammed my elbows backward into the officer’s ribs with every ounce of upper-body strength I possessed, hearing the man grunt as the wind was knocked out of him. Grabbing the hand rims of my chair, I spun hard to the left, crashing through the open study doors into the pitch-black hallway.
"He's escaping toward the service wing! Cut him off!"
I didn't head for the front elevators. I wheeled myself at breakneck speed toward the dark, narrow entrance of the service staircase—the seventy-two steps leading down to the underground garage.
My tires bumped heavily over the top threshold as I threw myself into the stairwell just as emergency red backup lights flickered to life overhead.
The descent was sheer madness. I couldn't walk, but I knew how to navigate the metal wheelchair down a steep incline by locking the front casters and letting momentum carry me sideways along the metal railing. Every bump sent sharp, agonizing phantom shocks up through my legs, but I didn't stop.
I reached the bottom landing just as the heavy fire door swung open from the inside.
It was Emma.
She was carrying a heavy canvas duffel bag over her shoulder, her face streaked with dust and sweat, her bandaged hands gripping a heavy iron fire extinguisher.
"What are you doing?!" she yelled over the blaring alarms. "You're supposed to be in the panic room!"
"The FBI is sweeping the entire upper floor," I panted, grabbing her jacket sleeve and yanking her toward the drainage tunnel access door hidden behind the utility pipes. "If they catch you here, they’ll lock you up as an accomplice. Take the duffel bag—it has enough bearer bonds to clear your mother’s facility for the next twenty years—and get out through the tunnel."
Emma stared at the bag, then down at my hands gripping her jacket, and finally up into my eyes.
She didn't run.
Instead, she dropped the heavy canvas bag onto the concrete floor, grabbed the handles of my wheelchair, and shoved past me toward the exterior exit.
"Are you out of your mind?!" I roared, trying to turn my chair around. "Leave me here! They want me, not you!"
"Shut up, Danny," Emma snapped back, her voice ringing with an absolute, terrifying authority that made every guard in my syndicate look like a schoolboy. "For two years, you’ve sat in that chair feeling sorry for yourself, letting everyone tiptoe around your anger because you were too scared to face the real world. I’m not running. And I’m certainly not leaving you here to rot in a federal cage."
Before I could answer, the heavy steel door at the top of the stairwell was blown open with a deafening crash.
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"Freeze! FBI!"
Agent Vance and three tactical officers spilled into the stairwell, their weapons raised, blinding red laser sights painting the concrete walls around us.
