Chapter 6 - The Blood Trail
The sweet-smelling gas burned my throat as I desperately searched for a solution.
The boys were getting incredibly drowsy, their heads drooping toward the floor.
I knew we only had a few minutes before we all lost consciousness completely.
I grabbed a heavy metal flashlight from the emergency supply kit on the wall.
I climbed onto a storage crate and smashed the heavy flashlight directly into the ventilation grate.
The metal cover bent but refused to break under my frantic blows.
I told Evan to hand me the small fire extinguisher from the corner of the room.
I used the heavy red cylinder as a battering ram, striking the grate with all my remaining strength.
The screws finally stripped, and the metal cover crashed to the floor.
I quickly stuffed a heavy wool emergency blanket into the duct to block the gas.
The air quality stopped deteriorating, but we were still trapped inside the sealed room.
I shined my flashlight up into the ductwork and realized it was large enough to crawl through.
I hoisted Evan up first, instructing him to pull his younger brothers into the shaft.
I climbed up last, struggling to fit my shoulders through the narrow opening.
We crawled slowly through the pitch-black metal tunnels, suffocatingly hot and covered in thick dust.
We navigated blindly for twenty minutes, listening to the armed men shouting in the rooms below.
The duct suddenly sloped downward, ending at a loose metal grate near the floorboards.
I kicked the grate open and tumbled out into a massive, hidden library I had never seen before.
The boys scrambled out behind me, coughing and covered in dirt.
I grabbed my flashlight and swept the beam across the dark room.
The light stopped on a large pool of fresh, dark crimson blood near a leather armchair.
Adrian Vale was slumped against the wall, clutching a massive gunshot wound in his side.
His expensive suit was completely ruined, and his face was terrifyingly pale.
I rushed to his side, pulling bandages from my pockets to apply hard pressure to the wound.
Adrian grabbed my wrist with surprising strength, stopping my hands.
He coughed, spitting a fine mist of blood onto the wooden floor.
He told me to leave him and take his sons as far away from this house as possible.
He handed me a small piece of paper covered in numbers and a heavy black handgun.
Adrian whispered that the numbers unlocked the offshore account containing my sister's medical funds.
I refused to take the paper, telling him we were all getting out of this alive.
He shook his head weakly, his eyes filled with a profound, crushing sorrow.
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He said the man leading the assault team was not a rival cartel boss.
The man hunting them tonight was Silas Vale, his own younger brother.
