Chapter 8 - The Drop
"No!" I screamed, struggling against Roman’s grip.
Roman dragged me toward the chair, his eyes scanning the intricate wiring of the bomb.
He noticed the thick pressure plate sitting underneath Chloe’s chair.
"If she stands up, it detonates," Roman deduced instantly.
The timer ticked down to six seconds.
Without hesitating, Roman shoved his hands under the metal plate, bearing the weight.
"Get her up on three!" he commanded.
"One, two, three!"
I pulled Chloe out of the chair, slicing her bindings with my pocketknife as she fell into my arms weeping.
Roman took her place, pressing his full body weight down on the rigged plate.
The timer stopped at exactly two seconds.
A slow, mocking applause echoed through the warehouse speakers.
"Very heroic, nephew," Elias’s voice boomed over the PA system.
"Let the girls go, Elias," Roman shouted back, sweating from the tension.
"I think not," the voice laughed. "I just needed you all in exactly that spot."
A loud mechanical grinding noise echoed beneath our feet.
Before I could even process what was happening, the concrete floor beneath us simply gave way.
It was a hidden trapdoor, designed for loading heavy cargo into the subterranean dock levels.
Roman, Chloe, Titan, and I plummeted downward into absolute darkness.
We slammed onto a cold steel floor, the impact knocking the wind out of me.
I looked up to see the trapdoor snap shut, locking us inside a giant metal box.
Suddenly, a massive crane engine roared to life above us.
The entire metal room jolted upward, swaying violently in the air.
"We are in a shipping container," Roman realized, his face turning pale.
May you like
The swaying stopped, followed by a terrifying moment of weightlessness.
Elias had dropped the container directly into the freezing Atlantic Ocean.
