Chapter 6: Shadows on the Wall**
Julian instantly reached out and extinguished the kerosene lamp. Darkness flooded the abandoned shop, illuminated only by the rhythmic sweeps of headlights through the window slats.
“Stay down,” Julian commanded in a whisper. He drew Lily against his chest and pushed Clara flat onto the cot.
Outside, the heavy thud of two car doors slamming echoed through the rain. Julian peered through a crack in the rotting wood. Two large men in heavy trench coats were walking toward the iron gate, rain glistening on the black steel of suppressed handguns gripped at their sides.
“They tracked Lily,” Clara gasped, terror seizing her voice. “Someone at the diner must have tipped them off.”
“They don’t know I’m here,” Julian whispered, his pulse thumping in his ears like a war drum.
Julian was done running. For six years, he had been a hollow shell, trapped in passive mourning. But holding his daughter’s trembling hand and feeling Clara’s shallow breath beside him reawakened an unstoppable, primal resolve. He was not going to let them take his family twice.
“Clara, is there a rear exit?”
“The back cellar door leads to the old drainage canal,” she murmured. “It’s rusted shut, but the wood frame is rotten.”
Julian turned to Lily, cupping her cheeks with his hands. “Lily, I need you to be the bravest girl in the world. Hold onto your mother’s hand and crawl behind the flower racks. Do not make a sound, no matter what you hear. Understand?”
Lily nodded silently, her big hazel eyes wide in the dark, biting her lower lip.
May you like
Julian picked up a heavy iron crowbar resting against the workbench. The front door handle jiggled, followed by the splintering crack of a boot kicking the deadbolt.
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