Chapter 6 - The Underground Maze
I froze as I stared down the barrel of Marcus's gun.
"David pays me a hundred thousand dollars a year to make his little problems disappear," Marcus confessed without a hint of remorse.
He held out his free hand and demanded the flash drive containing the evidence.
I pretended to reach into my pocket, my mind racing for a way out of this deadly trap.
Instead of the flash drive, my fingers wrapped tightly around the heavy steel travel mug filled with hot coffee I had bought earlier.
I ripped the mug from my coat and threw the scalding coffee directly into Marcus's face.
He screamed in agony, dropping his gun as he clawed at his burning eyes.
I grabbed Leo by the collar and sprinted toward the maze of rusted train cars.
"Run, Leo, don't look back!" I shouted over the sound of the pouring rain.
We scrambled through the narrow gaps between the massive steel boxcars, trying to lose the corrupt detective.
I spotted an open door on a decaying freight car and boosted Leo inside before climbing up behind him.
We crouched in the absolute darkness, listening to Marcus cursing loudly as he searched the yard.
"I am going to find you, Claire, and I am going to make this hurt!" Marcus yelled from outside.
Leo clung to my arm, his small body trembling violently in the cold.
Suddenly, the rotten wooden floorboards beneath our feet gave out with a terrifying crack.
We plummeted through the floor of the boxcar, falling into the pitch-black abyss below.
I braced myself for a fatal impact, but we landed on a soft pile of dirt and canvas tarps.
I pulled out my burner phone and turned on the flashlight to assess our surroundings.
We had fallen into a hidden, reinforced concrete tunnel stretching deep beneath the train yard.
This was not a forgotten sewer line; there were electric lights wired to the ceiling and crates stacked against the walls.
We had stumbled directly into David's underground smuggling network.
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As I shined the light down the corridor, I saw something that made my blood run cold.
There was a fresh trail of blood leading into the darkness, and the footprints matched the exact size of Sarah's shoes.
