Chapter 120 - Blood and Black Ice
"Down!"
Mark slammed into me, driving me into the concrete alcove of the fire suppression station just as the grenade detonated with an ear-splitting whiteout of pressure and light.
Before the smoke could clear, two Vanguard operatives in white winter assault gear swung through the breached bulkhead, their suppressed carbines raised in sweeping arcs.
I didn't wait for my vision to clear. I fired through the white haze from the deck, three rounds center-mass into the first operative. The bullets punched through his ceramic plates, knocking him backward into the shattered doorframe.
Mark rolled out from behind the steel column, firing his carbine in controlled two-round bursts. The second operative’s head snapped back, his weapon clattering against the metal grate as he collapsed in a heap of white nylon and crimson spray.
"Move!" Mark barked, hauling me to my feet by my combat harness.
We sprinted through the smoking breach into the main concourse of Level 1. The air here was freezing, howling through the ruined blast doors from the blizzard outside. Snow was already drifting across the bloodstained floor of the security checkpoint.
Across the courtyard, standing behind a wall of reinforced bulletproof glass in the security command bridge, stood my mother.
Eleanor Blackwood looked immaculate despite the sub-zero gale whipping through the compound. She wore a tailored black cashmere coat with an arctic fox fur collar, her silver hair swept back in an elegant, unyielding chignon. Beside her, shivering violently in a designer parka and clutching a crocodile-skin handbag like a shield, was Evelyn.
My sister’s face was pale, her eyes darting frantically between the dead guards on the floor and the monitors displaying the countdown timer for the facility's scuttle charge.
Eleanor saw me.
She didn't flinch. She didn't drop her head in shame. She looked down at me from the elevated platform with the exact same expression of cold, disdainful annoyance she used to wear when I brought home a stray dog or spilled water on her antique mahogany dining table.
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She pressed the intercom button on the console inside the bulletproof booth.
"Claire," her voice drifted down from the overhead speakers, clipped, melodic, and entirely devoid of human feeling. "You always were an exhausting child. I gave you six months to play the grieving widow, and this is how you repay the family name? By handing our sovereign accounts to the federal authorities?"
