Chapter 6 - The Ghost
I screamed and ripped the keys entirely out of the ignition.
The red timer on the dashboard continued to count down relentlessly.
Nine seconds.
Harlan unbuckled his seatbelt and completely kicked his passenger door off its rusted hinges.
He grabbed Belle from the back seat in one fluid, desperate motion.
I scrambled out of the driver's side, my knees scraping hard against the concrete floor.
Five seconds.
We sprinted out of the bunker and threw ourselves into the muddy drainage canal.
I covered my head with my arms just as the timer reached zero.
The vintage muscle car erupted into a massive ball of blinding white fire.
The shockwave threw us violently against the muddy banks of the canal.
Debris rained down around us, splashing heavily into the shallow water.
Harlan groaned in pain, clutching a large piece of shrapnel embedded in his shoulder.
He forced himself to stand up, ignoring the blood pouring down his arm.
He told me we had to keep moving before Silas saw the smoke and tracked our location.
We hiked through the freezing water until we reached a deserted industrial park.
Harlan leaned against a rusted chain-link fence and pulled out a backup satellite phone.
He dialed a secure number and demanded an immediate emergency extraction.
Ten minutes later, a heavily armored black medical van screeched to a halt beside us.
Two men in dark scrubs pulled us inside and immediately began tending to Harlan's bleeding shoulder.
The van drove aggressively through the dark city streets, finally descending into an underground parking structure.
We were rushed into a hidden basement clinic equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology.
A surgeon wearing a blue mask and gown was already waiting for us in the operating room.
She immediately took Belle from my arms and placed her on a sterile table.
The doctor administered a specialized serum directly into Belle's IV line.
Harlan collapsed onto a nearby cot, his face pale from severe blood loss.
The doctor finished stabilizing the little girl and finally turned around to face us.
She reached up with gloved hands and slowly pulled down her blue surgical mask.
Harlan gasped, his eyes widening in pure, unfiltered shock.
May you like
The brilliant underground doctor who had just saved Belle's life was Evelyn Voss.
She was Harlan's estranged wife, the woman who had supposedly died in a car crash three years ago.
