Chapter 9 - The Rescue
Vincent rushed toward the sound, shining his flashlight against a massive pile of fallen rocks.
The tapping sound grew slightly louder, coming from behind the heavy rubble.
“Sofia, are you in there?” Vincent screamed, tearing at the heavy rocks with his bare, freezing hands.
A weak, raspy voice answered from the dark void.
“Vince?” the voice coughed, completely devoid of strength.
It was her.
After three agonizing years, he had finally found his wife.
“I’m here, baby, I’m getting you out,” Vincent promised, tears streaming down his face for the first time in years.
Dominic rushed over and used the heavy pry bar to lever the massive boulders out of the way.
They worked frantically, ignoring their bleeding hands and the suffocating, toxic gas filling their lungs.
They finally cleared a small opening in the rock wall.
Vincent shined the light inside and saw a pale, incredibly frail woman huddled in the corner.
She was shivering violently, clutching a ragged blanket around her thin shoulders.
Vincent crawled through the opening and pulled her into a desperate, crushing embrace.
“I thought you were dead,” Vincent sobbed, burying his face in her matted hair.
Sofia cried weakly, clinging to his coat with trembling fingers.
“I tried to escape so many times, Vince,” she whispered brokenly.
“We have to move right now, the gas levels are critical,” Dominic yelled from the main tunnel.
Vincent scooped Sofia into his arms, carrying her easily despite the exhausting rescue.
They crawled back out of the collapsed tunnel and began the long sprint toward the surface.
The smell of gas was now overwhelmingly strong, burning their eyes and throats mercilessly.
They reached the main entrance just as the sun began to break over the distant mountain peaks.
They stumbled out into the freezing, fresh morning air, coughing violently.
Vincent laid Sofia gently onto the snow, wrapping his heavy tactical jacket tightly around her.
She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes filled with profound gratitude and lingering fear.
“We did it,” Dominic gasped, leaning heavily against a tree to catch his breath.
Suddenly, the deafening roar of engines completely shattered the quiet morning.
Three heavily armored black SUVs crested the snowy hill and sped directly toward them.
Charles Bellamy stepped out of the lead vehicle, holding a detonator in his hand.
He looked absolutely furious that Vincent had escaped the police and found the mine.
“You really are a persistent pest, Vincent,” Charles yelled over the roaring engines.
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“But you are all going to burn together now.”
Charles pressed his thumb aggressively down onto the red detonator button.
