Chapter 7 - The Collision
Marin woke up to the terrifying smell of leaking gasoline and burning rubber.
She was hanging completely upside down, held securely in place by her frayed seatbelt.
Her head throbbed violently, and warm blood trickled slowly down the side of her face.
She frantically turned her head and saw Leo securely strapped into his car seat in the back.
The little boy was crying softly, but he appeared to be miraculously uninjured.
Marin let out a massive sigh of relief and quickly unbuckled her seatbelt.
She crashed heavily onto the crushed roof of the truck but immediately crawled toward the backseat to free her son.
She pulled Leo into her arms and kicked a shattered window completely out of its frame.
They crawled out into the freezing snow just as the crushed engine block sparked dangerously.
Marin turned around to help her brother, but her heart instantly sank into her stomach.
Beckett was completely pinned behind the crushed steering column, his legs trapped in the mangled metal.
He was bleeding profusely from a massive, fatal wound across his chest.
Beckett looked at her with incredibly peaceful, tired eyes and told her he could not feel his legs anymore.
Marin grabbed his bloody hand and desperately tried to pull him free from the wreckage.
Beckett gently pushed her hand away and handed her a spare, loaded pistol.
He ordered her to take the boy and run deep into the dark woods before the men from the SUV arrived.
He promised to buy her exactly three minutes of time with the ammunition he had left.
Marin sobbed uncontrollably, realizing she was losing her brother for the second time in her life.
She kissed his scarred forehead, grabbed Leo tightly, and sprinted blindly into the dense, dark forest.
Ten minutes later, a sleek black helicopter violently touched down on the closed highway above the crash site.
Raphael Santoro sprinted down the steep embankment, his weapon drawn and his eyes wide with absolute panic.
He found the burning pickup truck surrounded by the bodies of three dead mercenaries.
He ripped the crushed door open and found Beckett Holloway bleeding out his final moments.
Beckett looked up at the billionaire boss who had supposedly ruined his entire life.
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He smiled a bloody smile and whispered that Marin had never betrayed him at all.
Beckett pointed a trembling finger toward the dark woods and said they were hunting his son right now.
