Page 74 of Not This Night

But Miguel was still pacing, still obscuring his body behind the hostages and the terror he wielded around him like a cloak. His eyes were wild, wide with fury and grief. His words were a garbled torrent of rage, punctuated by the sharp whip-crack of his gun being cocked.

"Someone did this to her! Which one of you was it?" His shouting echoed through her earpiece, the sound a jagged edge of raw pain and madness. Victims whimpered, their cries muffled, but terror was a language that needed no translation.

Rachel's grip tightened on her rifle, knuckles white as she scanned the room.

Miguel's voice clawed through the airwaves, each word a serrated edge, growing more and more desperate.

What was his endgame? Find the specific doctor or nurse and just kill them? Was this just a sick interlude before finishing them all off? Rachel doubted anyone tied in that room would survive without their intervention.

Rachel crouched on the car roof, the rifle cold and steady in her grip. Small tremors of weeping seeped from the radio, threading the atmosphere with dread.

"Tell me!" Miguel's scream punctured the fragile silence.

Rachel's finger rested near the trigger, a whisper away from steel. Her eyes swept the clinic interior, the scope a narrow window into the unfolding nightmare. She scanned room by room, seeking—

There. Gasoline cans huddled like specters against the wall, their silver bodies scarred with use. A dark sheen marred the carpet, winding around chairs, desks, abandoned.

"Damn it," Rachel muttered, the words barely escaping her lips. She adjusted her position.

He was going to burn the place to the ground.

Miguel’s shadow danced across the blinds as he paced back and forth. Rachel's finger hovered over the rifle's trigger, her gaze locked through the scope. The crosshairs followed his every step, seeking a moment of stillness. His voice, a torrent of anger and accusation, filtered through the earpiece.

"Come on," she whispered, a silent plea for Miguel to pause. To give her that one clean shot. Hostages huddled in the corner, their bodies shrinking with each of his thunderous steps. Time was running out. The gasoline fumes rose in invisible plumes, ready to ignite at the smallest spark.

"Stand still," Rachel commanded through gritted teeth. But Miguel was a tempest, erratic and wild.

He was getting violent. His voice rising.

“You did this. It was you, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”

“She doesn’t work here anymore!” a voice suddenly blurted out. “None of them do. The staff is new. We don’t know anything about—”

But the bold woman’s cries were cut off as he struck her across the face and sent her reeling.

Rachel grimaced.

Miguel screamed, a long and torturous sound like a child having a meltdown. His victims quaked and screamed in response, muted by their gags, but terrified of the madman’s rage.

He had something in his hand. A lighter? Was he going to burn himself too? It was possible. All too commonly, killers with specific targets would turn their murderous means on themselves once their goals were achieved.

He would kill them all, ablaze and burning like some funeral pyre—like a smoke signal for his suffering.

She needed him distracted. She needed to buy time. But more than that she needed him to stop moving.

Only one thought occurred to Rachel. She cursed, and shouted into her earpiece, transmitting to the radio Ethan had slipped upstairs.

A split-second decision. Her voice broke through, stern and unyielding. "Miguel, this is Ranger Blackwood. Stand down."

His rant was cut short. Confusion etched across his face as he spun toward the radio's origin. The hostages flinched. Silence clawed at the room, filled only by the pounding of Rachel's pulse.

"Listen to me, Miguel," she continued. "You’re surrounded. It’s over.”

Miguel's eyes darted to the radio nestled against the cracked window sill, a small black interloper in his otherwise meticulously orchestrated chaos. The color drained from his face, replaced by a twisted mask of terror and rage. His hand shot out like a striking snake, closing around the arm of a trembling woman huddled with the others.

He had stopped moving, but not long enough. He was quick; she had to give him that.

"Who is this? Where are you?" Miguel's voice thundered, his gun pressed cold and unyielding against the hostage's temple. Her sobs became the metronome of dread ticking in the background, a sharp counterpoint to the heavy thuds of Rachel's heartbeat.

---