Chapter 7 - Smoke from Below
The thin, acrid smell of burning electrical wiring drifted up from the open basement window, stinging Clara’s nostrils. The distant sound of crackling flames echoed hollowly from the bowels of the house, mixing with the muffled shouting of men moving through the subterranean corridors.
"He set a fire," Clara breathed, the reality of the disaster crashing down upon her. She wrenched her arm free from Elena’s grasp. "Elena, get out to the street. Call the fire department, call anyone, just get away from this house."
"I'm not leaving you to clean up your family's mass grave by yourself!" Elena yelled back over the growing roar of the subterranean fire. She grabbed Clara’s shoulders, forcing her to make eye contact. "We do this together, or we burn together. Pick one."
Clara stared into Elena’s eyes, seeing a fierce, unwavering loyalty that she knew she didn't deserve. She nodded once, a grim resolution settling over her features. She quickly tucked the revolver back into the deep pocket of her green cardigan, grabbed a heavy garden hose coiled near the patio, and hauled it toward the basement window.
As Clara approached the ledge, a dark silhouette burst through the smoke. It was the young man in the gray hoodie, coughing violently and clutching his arm, which was now bleeding heavily from a deep laceration. He stumbled over the concrete lip of the window, collapsing onto the grass just as a wall of thick black smoke billowed out behind him.
"The... the server," the kid choked out between hacking coughs, pointing a trembling finger back into the dark abyss. "He didn't just have paper files... there's a mainframe down there. And it's hooked to a gas line."
Arthur emerged right behind the kid, coughing and swatting at the smoke, his tailored suit now ruined by soot and ash. Despite the fire, Arthur’s eyes burned with a manic intensity. He lunged past the kid, ignoring the flames entirely, and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a heavy steel detonator box with a single red toggle switch.
"If I go down, the whole block goes up," Arthur rasped, his face twisted in rage as he hovered his thumb over the switch. "No more secrets. No more hiding."
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Clara didn't hesitate. She grabbed the brass nozzle of the heavy garden hose and swung it with all her might, blasting a high-pressure stream of freezing water directly into Arthur’s face and chest. The force of the water knocked him flat on his back, sending the detonator skittering across the lawn into the overgrown bushes.
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