Chapter 5 - The Crash
The heavy SUV careened wildly toward the guardrail as the tires completely lost their grip on the black ice.
"Hold on tightly!" Gideon yelled, fiercely gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled desperation.
He violently yanked the emergency brake, sending the massive vehicle into a terrifying, uncontrollable spin.
The side of the SUV slammed brutally into the metal guardrail with a deafening, metallic screech.
Sparks flew brilliantly into the dark night as the heavy armor scraped against the freezing steel.
The vehicle violently tipped onto two wheels, teetering dangerously over the massive, fatal drop into the gorge.
Gideon threw his entire body weight toward the center console, desperately trying to counterbalance the vehicle.
With a heavy, sickening thud, the SUV slammed back down onto all four tires, burying its crushed front end deep into a snowbank.
Total, suffocating silence immediately followed the horrific crash.
The engine hissed loudly, thick white smoke pouring rapidly from the completely destroyed hood.
"Norah, are you hurt?" Gideon gasped, his chest aching terribly from the violent impact of the airbag.
"I'm okay," her small, trembling voice came from the darkness of the back seat.
Gideon violently kicked his jammed door open, the freezing mountain wind instantly biting into his exposed skin.
He unbuckled the terrified child and pulled her safely out into the knee-deep, freezing snow.
They could absolutely not stay inside the vehicle, as whoever cut the brake lines might be tracking the GPS.
Gideon wrapped Norah tightly in his heavy coat once again and began trudging through the dense, dark forest.
The bitter cold was an immediate, ruthless enemy, freezing the moisture inside Gideon's lungs with every single breath.
They walked for over an hour, the absolute silence of the mountain woods broken only by the crunching snow.
Norah never complained once, her brave little face buried deep against Gideon's warm shoulder.
Eventually, the faint, flickering neon glow of an old, abandoned gas station appeared through the heavy pine trees.
Gideon kicked the rotting wooden door open, sweeping the dark, dusty interior with his loaded handgun.
The place was completely empty, smelling strongly of stale gasoline and rotting wood.
He found an old wool blanket in a back office and quickly wrapped it entirely around the shivering child.
Gideon managed to start a small fire in an old rusted metal barrel using broken chair legs and old receipts.
He found a dusty, battery-powered emergency radio on a shelf and flicked the dial to a local news station.
He hoped to hear a weather report to gauge their absolute chances of survival until morning.
Instead, a harsh, synthesized emergency broadcast tone blared loudly through the static-filled speaker.
The frantic news anchor announced a statewide amber alert for a missing seven-year-old girl named Norah.
Gideon's blood ran completely cold as he listened to the terrifying rest of the urgent broadcast.
The police were actively hunting an armed and highly dangerous suspect wanted for kidnapping the child and attempting to murder her mother.
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The news anchor slowly read the name of the primary suspect aloud on the air.
It was Gideon Vale.
