Chapter 7 - The Burning Truth
The shockwave threw Nora violently against the bedroom wall.
Ears ringing, she scrambled through the dust and debris.
The entire front half of the cabin was engulfed in roaring orange flames.
Dominic was already pulling Silas from the shattered wooden chair.
The old man was barely conscious, bleeding heavily from a deep gash on his forehead.
"We have to go!" Dominic yelled over the roar of the fire.
He hauled Silas over his broad shoulder.
He grabbed Nora's hand and dragged her toward a small window at the back of the bedroom.
Dominic kicked the glass out and practically shoved Nora through the frame.
She tumbled into the snow outside, gasping for the freezing, clean air.
Dominic followed, dragging Silas behind him.
They sprinted toward the tree line just as the rest of the cabin collapsed in a fiery explosion.
The heat washed over them, but they kept running until they reached the cover of the dense pine forest.
Dominic dropped Silas roughly onto a patch of snow.
The old man groaned, clutching his ribs in agony.
"Who attacked us?" Nora demanded, her heart pounding frantically against her ribs.
Dominic checked his weapon, his face grim in the moonlight.
"Rourke," he answered.
"He must have tracked my car."
"He's tying up loose ends."
"If my father really worked for the Syndicate, Rourke was his primary enforcer."
He grabbed Silas by the collar of his ruined shirt, pulling him upright.
"You said they wiped Emily's memory," Dominic growled.
"How?"
Silas coughed up a terrifying amount of blood.
"A chemical compound," he wheezed.
"Developed during the Cold War."
"It erases trauma, but it takes everything else with it."
Silas looked at Nora again, his eyes struggling to focus.
"They used it on you, didn't they?"
Nora touched her scarred cheek, a cold knot forming in her stomach.
"I woke up in Chicago twelve years ago," she whispered.
"I don't remember anything before that."
Silas nodded weakly.
"You were the prototype," he confessed.
"The Syndicate kidnapped orphans, runaways, girls nobody would miss."
"They experimented on them."
"They branded the successful subjects."
He looked back at Dominic.
"When your father offered Emily..."
"They already knew the process worked."
Dominic's grip on the old man tightened dangerously.
"Who is she?" Dominic demanded, pointing at Nora.
"Who was she before they erased her?"
Silas opened his mouth to speak, but a red laser dot suddenly appeared on his chest.
A suppressed rifle cracked in the distance.
Silas jerked violently, a neat hole appearing between his eyes.
He slumped back into the snow, dead instantly.
Dominic threw himself over Nora, pinning her to the freezing ground.
"Sniper!" he hissed.
More bullets tore through the trees around them, kicking up terrifying plumes of snow.
"We can't stay here," Dominic ordered.
He grabbed Nora and hauled her to her feet, keeping low.
They ran blindly through the dense woods, the crack of sniper fire following them relentlessly.
They stumbled down a steep embankment, crashing through frozen underbrush until they reached a narrow, icy stream.
Dominic pulled her under the overhang of a large, snow-covered boulder.
They huddled together in the freezing dark, listening to the heavy boots of mercenaries crunching through the snow above them.
Nora was shivering so violently she could barely breathe.
"We're going to die out here," she whispered, tears freezing on her cheeks.
Dominic looked at her, his eyes burning with a terrifying intensity.
"No, we're not," he promised.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He didn't dial a number.
He simply pressed a single red button on the screen.
"What did you just do?" Nora asked.
May you like
Dominic looked up toward the ridge where the mercenaries were searching.
"I just called the Syndicate."
