Chapter 184 - The Snowline Ambush
Silence descended for three agonized seconds, broken only by the hiss of the ruptured radiator and the frantic, rhythmic thump of the helicopter's rotor blades circling above.
Emma was wedged against the driver’s seat back, her body instinctively wrapped around Maya like a shield. Maya was sobbing silently, trembling from head to foot, but she was conscious.
"Julian!" Emma yelled through the dim light of the cabin. "Mercer!"
"I'm here," Julian groaned. He was half-hanging from the rear bench, his forehead bleeding where it had hit the safety pillar. He pulled a serrated pocket knife from his vest and began slashing at the jammed seatbelt pinning Mercer’s legs against the collapsed dash.
Mercer was unconscious, a deep gash across his temple, his breathing shallow.
"We have to get out," Emma said, kicking at the shattered glass of the rear door. "Julian, the helicopter—they're landing!"
Through the rear window, Emma could see the black aircraft touching down in a snowy clearing thirty yards up the logging trail, its skids settling into the drifts. The side door slid back. Four figures dressed in grey winter alpine camouflage jumped out, carrying suppressed carbines, their tactical lights cutting through the blowing snow.
"Leave Mercer," Julian panted, his hands covered in blood as he sliced through the nylon strap. "He’s an official agent. They won't shoot him outright; it creates too much red tape with the mounties. But us? Thomas will bury us in this marsh."
Julian shoved the rear door open with both boots. Cold air rushed in like a bucket of ice water. Emma crawled out backward into the knee-deep snow, pulling Maya behind her. Maya’s boots sank instantly into the freezing slush, but Emma hauled her into her arms, ignoring the blinding pain in her bruised ribs.
"Run for the tree line!" Julian ordered, pulling Mercer's discarded sidearm from the floorboards. "There’s an old sugar shack two hundred yards due north. That marks the Canadian boundary!"
The alpine team spotted them. A beam of white light locked onto Emma’s back.
*Pfft-pfft-pfft.*
Three suppressed rounds snapped through the birch branches beside Emma’s head, showering her hair with frozen woodchips. Maya shrieked in terror. Emma didn't look back; she leaned forward, her winter boots churning through the drifts, her breath tearing from her throat in jagged sobs.
Julian dropped to one knee behind the overturned Suburban, bracing his wrist on the rear tire, and returned fire. Two shots cracked against the engine block of the downed helicopter, forcing the pursuers to duck behind the drifts for cover.
"Move, Emma! Don't look back!" Julian’s roar tore through the howling wind.
Emma ran until her legs were numb, the weight of the child and the heavy titanium cylinder dragging her toward the ground. Her foot caught an exposed root beneath the snow, and she went down hard, sliding down an embankment into a frozen creek bed. Maya rolled out of her arms, landing on a bank of soft snow, her mittens reaching out blindly.
"Mommy!"
Emma dragged herself up on her hands and knees. Blood dripped from her split lip onto the virgin snow. She grabbed Maya by the jacket, pulling her under the shelter of an overhanging cedar bluff.
Behind them, the gunfire ceased. A terrible, heavy silence fell over the mountain cut.
Then, through the falling snow, footsteps approached—slow, rhythmic, deliberate. Not the hurried scramble of tactical operatives, but the measured tread of a man who owned the land beneath his boots.
A flashlight beam danced across the creek bed, illuminating the silver-tipped spruce branches. A figure stepped out of the shadows, wearing a heavy charcoal overcoat with a torn beaver-fur collar, his left arm held in a sling, his pale face smeared with soot and dried blood.
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It was Thomas Vance.
"Did you really believe your mother had the spine to kill me, Emma?" he asked, his voice smooth, cultured, and devoid of humanity. "Eleanor has always been a coward. She hesitated at the last second. And hesitation in our family is a death sentence."
