Chapter 12 - Through the Iron Pipe
The front door splintered as Marcus's men slammed their shoulders against the barrier from the outside.
"Now! Go!" Silas roared, yanking the braided rug aside to expose the rusted iron ring of the root cellar trapdoor.
Kristen didn't hesitate. She grabbed the ring, hauled the heavy wooden door open, and dropped down into the damp, subterranean dark, hoisting Leo after her. She reached back up, grabbing Maya just as heavy boots thudded onto the cabin floor above them.
"Clear the room!" a voice shouted overhead.
Kristen pulled the trapdoor shut and dropped the heavy wooden security bar into place from the inside, plunging them into absolute blackness. Frigid water instantly soaked her sneakers, rising to her shins as she waded into the corrugated metal drainage culvert that stretched out into the black unknown.
"Hold onto my belt loops, kids. Keep your heads down," Kristen whispered fiercely, her voice echoing off the curved steel walls.
They began to wade through the icy, rushing water, the current pulling against their legs with surprising force. Behind them, muffled shouts and the sound of heavy furniture being overturned echoed through the ground from Silas’s cabin.
"Mom, it's so cold," Maya sobbed quietly, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.
"I know, baby. Just keep moving. We're almost out," Kristen encouraged, though her own limbs were going numb from the freezing runoff.
After what felt like hours of agonizing wading through the claustrophobic pipe, a faint rectangle of gray dawn light appeared ahead. The culvert opened up into a concrete drainage ditch bordered by tall reeds, fifty yards from the main highway where a solitary diner sign flickered in the gray morning mist.
They scrambled out of the pipe, collapsing onto the frozen grass of the embankment. Kristen immediately pulled the satellite phone from her soaked canvas tote, her shivering fingers fumbling with the tiny rubber keypad.
She dialed extension seven.
The line rang twice before a sharp, authoritative male voice answered: "Vance. State your clearance code."
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"My name is Kristen Miller," she panted, water dripping from her hair and soaked beige cardigan. "I have my grandfather's original charter, and I am ready to sign my mother's arrest warrant."
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