Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty
Richard looked less like a human being and more like a creature dragged from a furnace. Half of his dark button-up shirt was burned away, exposing severe second-degree blistering across his shoulder and neck. His face was smeared with carbon soot and dried blood, but his eyes were bright with an unhinged, manic clarity.
The tactical operative scrambled to his feet, drawing a combat knife from his chest rig, but Richard did not give him room to maneuver. With a feral roar, Richard drove the heavy crowbar straight into the operative's shoulder, pinning him against the container's interior wall.
"You're five minutes too late, Vance's lackeys!" Richard snarled, wrenching the operative's helmet off and slamming his forehead into the exposed metal beam. The soldier slumped limp to the floor, motionless.
Ava dragged herself backward, sobbing into the dark. "Stay away from me! Don't touch me!"
Richard dropped the crowbar with a clatter. He stood there, chest heaving, his gaze fixing on Ava in the dim moonlight filtering through the open door. "You think I want to hurt you, Ava? Look at what they did to you! Look at this mess!"
He limped toward her, his posture collapsing from that of a predator to a man shattered by his own choices. "I kept you in that house for eleven years! I gave you a bedroom, I gave you books, I made you dinner every single night! I kept the wolves from the door!"
"You threw me down the stairs!" Ava screamed, the tears burning against her bruised cheeks. "You broke my leg!"
"Because you were going to run!" Richard screamed back, his voice cracking with horrifying vulnerability. "You found the passport! You were going to run straight into their net! I had to make you unmovable! If you couldn't walk, you couldn't leave the perimeter!"
From the corner of the car, Cole stirred, his fingers brushing against his dropped weapon. "Mitchell... you're insane. You were supposed to be her handler, not her warden."
Richard didn't turn around. Without looking, he drew a backup revolver from his waistband and fired a single shot into Cole's chest.
Cole shuddered, his head falling back against the wooden crate. He let out one ragged exhale, and his body went completely slack.
Ava screamed, a raw, primal sound of absolute horror.
Richard holstered the revolver, his hands trembling violently as he reached down to scoop Ava into his arms. "We’re getting off this train at the bridge. Before the sweep teams arrive. Karen is already waiting at the rendezvous."
Ava froze mid-sob. "Mom? You said she was dead!"
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"I lied," Richard whispered, his breath hot against her ear as he carried her toward the edge of the rushing, roaring open doorway. "Karen never left my side. She never will. She works for the same people I do, Ava."
Beneath them, the train began to roar over a towering iron trestle bridge, the black waters of a swollen river churning hundreds of feet below.
