Chapter 7 - The Poisoned Sanctuary
The sweet smell of the green gas hit Elise’s lungs instantly, making her vision blur.
It was a neurotoxin, designed to incapacitate and kill within minutes.
Caleb started coughing violently, his already weakened body failing under the chemical assault.
“He hacked the panic room’s life support system,” Caleb wheezed, sliding down the steel wall.
Elise covered her mouth and nose with her uniform apron, though she knew it wouldn't filter the deadly gas for long.
“How do we open the door?” Elise yelled over the loud hiss of the vents.
“We can’t,” Caleb choked out. “The electronic lock is deadlined from the outside.”
Elise looked around the small, metal room in sheer desperation.
Her eyes locked onto a small, unassuming metal plate bolted to the floor beneath a heavy tactical supply crate.
“What is under that plate?” she demanded, dropping to her knees and trying to pry it open.
Caleb squinted through the green fog.
“It is a manual override box for the hydraulic floor hatch,” he explained weakly.
“But it requires a specialized key tool that is locked in Jonah's office.”
Elise didn't care about specialized tools.
She pulled a heavy metal hairpin from her messy bun and jammed it into the tiny mechanical lock on the floor plate.
She wiggled the pin frantically, relying on the lock-picking tricks she had learned growing up in a bad neighborhood.
With a sharp click, the metal plate popped open.
Inside was a mess of colored wires and a heavy red lever.
“Pull it!” Caleb ordered, his eyes rolling back in his head as the poison took effect.
Elise grabbed the red lever and yanked it upward with all of her remaining strength.
A loud mechanical grinding sound echoed beneath them, and a section of the steel floor suddenly dropped open like a trapdoor.
Fresh, cold air rushed up from the dark abyss below.
Elise grabbed Caleb by the collar of his expensive shirt and practically dragged his dead weight toward the hole.
They tumbled down a short metal chute, landing hard on the dirt floor of a hidden underground tunnel.
The heavy steel trapdoor slammed shut above them, sealing the poison gas inside the panic room.
Elise lay in the dirt, gasping for clean oxygen, her lungs burning like fire.
Caleb was unconscious next to her, his breathing shallow and rapid.
She slapped his cheek hard, forcing him to wake up.
“Don't you dare die on me now,” Elise commanded fiercely.
Caleb groaned, opening his eyes and looking around the dark, damp tunnel.
“These are the old Prohibition smuggling tunnels,” Caleb whispered, deeply impressed she had gotten them out.
“They lead past the estate walls and exit into the forest.”
He pushed himself up, resting his arm heavily around Elise’s shoulders.
They began to walk slowly through the dark, muddy corridor toward freedom.
Suddenly, a bright red digital light blinked in the darkness ahead of them.
Elise stopped dead in her tracks, shining her phone's weak flashlight toward the blinking light.
Bolted to the wooden support beams of the tunnel were dozens of blocks of plastic C4 explosives.
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Wired to the center block was a digital timer glowing ominously in the dark.
The timer was already ticking down, reading exactly two minutes and forty seconds.
