Chapter 13 - The Blackout at Block Seven
The rain hammered relentlessly against the windshield of Marcus’s Honda Civic as they sped down the highway toward the federal penitentiary, trailing a convoy of state police cruisers with sirens wailing. Leo pressed his face against the cold glass, his hazel eyes wide with dread.
"Why would the prison go into lockdown?" Leo asked, his voice trembling. "Sterling is arrested. Who is left to stop her release?"
"Sterling has loyalists embedded everywhere," Vance said from the passenger seat, his laptop glowing in the dark interior as he tracked the prison’s digital grid. "Someone inside that facility received orders before Sterling was cuffed. They're trying to destroy the physical evidence log before the federal marshals arrive."
"And Mom is in Block Seven," Marcus said, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. "Right next to the evidence archive."
As the towering barbed-wire fences of the federal penitentiary finally loomed out of the darkness, the scene unfolding before them was utter chaos. Red emergency lights bathed the concrete watchtowers in an eerie glow. Plumes of black smoke billowed from the administrative wing, and alarms wailed piercingly into the stormy night.
Marcus slammed on the brakes as a heavily armored transport van blocked the main prison gates. State troopers scrambled out of their cruisers, weapons drawn, taking cover behind their doors.
"Stay in the car, Leo," Marcus ordered, throwing his door open.
"No way!" Leo yelled, unbuckling his seatbelt and scrambling out into the pouring rain before Marcus could stop him.
"Leo, get back here!" Vance shouted, but the boy was already sprinting past the police barricade, dodging officers and equipment bags as he headed straight for the breached pedestrian gate of the prison courtyard.
The heavy steel doors of the prison's main entrance stood wide open, a thick haze of smoke spilling out into the cold night air. Leo coughed, pulling the collar of his hoodie over his nose as he slipped past a dazed guard leaning against the stone wall.
He raced down the long, industrial corridors, following the emergency backup lights toward Block Seven. The air smelled of ozone, burnt plastic, and fear.
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As Leo reached the heavy reinforced doors of Block Seven, he stopped dead in his tracks. The security keypad had been blown open with an explosive charge. Standing inside the control room, holding a heavy metal crowbar and smashing the remaining server towers, was a man in a black tactical uniform—and he was standing directly over Sarah, who was tied to a chair with her hands bound behind her back.
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