Chapter 34 - The Weight of Betrayal
"Down! Get them down the hatch!" I bellowed, stepping between the glowing door and my family.
Sarah clipped the carabiner of the medical harness to the descent cable, expertly lowering Evelyn’s fragile frame into the darkness. Lily scrambled onto the iron rungs of the ladder, descending with agile panic, guided by Sarah’s steady voice from below.
I kept my weapon trained on the glowing circle of the door. The heat radiating into the room was intense enough to scorch the varnish off the supply crates. The outer hinges snapped with the sound of a rifle shot. Through the blinding white glare of the cutting torch, the silhouettes of tactical helmets appeared.
"Julian De La Tour!" an amplified voice boomed from the breach, distorted by a respirator. "Surrender the biological assets! The Matriarch offers full clemency to the primary heir. Yield the second twin, and your daughter Lily will inherit her rightful seat!"
"Tell the Matriarch her lineage ends tonight!" I roared back, pulling the pin on two fragmentation grenades I had stripped from the sentries at the South Gate. I tossed them clean through the burning breach into the antechamber.
"Fire in the hole!" a voice screamed outside.
The double explosion shook the foundations of the complex, throwing a cloud of shrapnel, dust, and human screams across the threshold. Taking advantage of the smoke, I threw myself down the open hatch, sliding down the guide rope with gloved hands until my boots struck the slippery concrete of the maintenance ledge below.
Sarah caught my arm, steadying me above the black, rushing waters of the subterranean canal. Below us, the current surged toward the bay, wild and relentless.
Above, through the open hatch, flashlight beams pierced the smoke, sweeping across the abandoned vault floor.
"Julian," Sarah whispered, her face pale in the glow of my tactical lamp. "The emergency release for the siphon gate is thirty yards ahead. If we open it, the river will flood this tunnel and drown their pursuit—but it will seal the vault above forever."
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"Pull it," I said without hesitation. "Everything we need is right here."
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