Chapter 6 - The Ice River
The black SUV tore across the snow-covered pavement, aiming directly at us.
There was nowhere to run on the open shipping dock.
Behind us was a twenty-foot drop into the freezing, jagged ice of the harbor.
I pushed Emily and Lily behind a stack of rusted steel shipping containers.
Mark stood in the open, waving his arms to draw the vehicle's attention.
The SUV swerved, accelerating straight toward my brother.
At the very last second, Mark dove out of the way.
The heavy vehicle smashed violently into the steel containers, buckling the metal in half.
The airbags deployed, and the engine hissed in a cloud of white steam.
I ran to the driver’s side door and wrenched it open.
Greg was slumped over the steering wheel, dazed and bleeding from his forehead.
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out onto the frozen concrete.
I pinned him down and demanded his cell phone and his car keys.
Greg coughed and spat blood onto the snow.
He laughed and told me it didn't matter because Margaret had already frozen all my bank accounts.
He said I had no money, no allies, and nowhere to hide.
I searched his pockets, found his encrypted phone, and took the keys to the damaged SUV.
The engine was still running, but the front axle was heavily bent.
I yelled for Emily, Lily, and Mark to get inside the vehicle.
We piled into the battered car just as Margaret’s other vehicles rounded the corner of the burning warehouse.
I slammed the SUV into reverse, ignoring the horrible grinding sound from the engine.
I spun the wheel and drove straight toward the perimeter fence.
Bullets shattered the rear window, spraying glass across the back seats.
Emily shielded Lily with her body as I smashed through the chain-link gate.
We sped into the dark, empty streets of the industrial district.
The car was barely holding together, pulling violently to the right.
I knew we couldn't outrun them in this broken vehicle.
We needed a place to hide and regroup.
I remembered an old, abandoned church on the edge of the city that my father used to maintain.
I drove the crippled SUV into the woods behind the church and shut off the engine.
We sat in the freezing darkness, listening to the distant sound of police sirens.
Emily grabbed my arm, her eyes wide with panic.
May you like
She pointed to the encrypted phone I had taken from Greg.
The screen was glowing with a live GPS map, and a blinking red dot was moving directly toward our exact location.
