So, I did.
The shot echoed like a bomb in the cavern. Everyone jumped in surprise, including me. The kickback from the shot was stronger than I expected, straining my wrist and sending the gun flying right out of my hand.
For a moment everyone froze. I was certain that I had missed. I’d barely even aimed the gun, just pointed in the general direction I wanted the bullet to go.
However, after a moment of stunned silence, my captor dropped to his knees only a few feet away from Brody, his hand pressed against his stomach. Blood immediately seeped between his fingers.
Chaos erupted.
The other cult members ran for their injured companion, trying to patch up his wound.
I should have been doing something. I should have taken advantage of the distraction to get to Brody, but all I could do was stand there in stunned shock.
I’d actually hit him. For the first time in my life, I’d fought back, and it had worked. Minutes ago, that man had held my life in hishands, and now, he was on the ground bleeding from a hole in his stomach that I’d put there.
It was terrifying.
A hand grabbed my arm. At first, I instinctively pulled away, until I realized it was Brody. He’d done what I failed to do and used the distraction as an opportunity to escape. His hands were still bound together, but his feet were free and that was all he needed.
“Come on,” he said as he dragged me toward the vault door. “Let’s get out of here.”
At that same moment the cult members noticed our escape, but it was too late. Brody and I were already up the stairs and out the door. Without the key, we couldn’t close it behind us. The hidden door that the cult members had used to sneak up on us was still open. So, we headed down that smaller tunnel, hand in hand off into the dark as we ran for our lives.
CHAPTER 13
Brody
We hadno idea where we were going as we ran off into the pitch black. The tunnel behind the hidden door that our attackers had used to sneak up on us could lead anywhere.
But anywhere had to be better than where we’d just escaped.
That had been far too close. I knew something was suspicious when the tunnel collapsed and cut us off from Magnus and Trent. The supports had been stable and shouldn’t have caved in so suddenly. It was clear someone was trying to set a trap for us, yet I’d still allowed them to sneak up on us.
I hadn’t been retired from the military that long. Just less than a year. Yet, my skills were already getting rusty if a bunch of barely trained civilians could get the drop on me.
My fingers were going numb from the strength of Ellis’s grip on my hand as we ran blindly through the dark.
I should have been paying attention to where we were going. The tunnel wasn’t completely black now. Some light managed to leak through cracks in the ceiling, meaning we weren’t too far underground. However, all I could think about was my worry for Ellis. The man hadn’t said anything, but I knew he had to be panicking. He’d just shot a man. It had been a gut shot, not immediately fatal, but there was a very real possibility that he’d just taken a life.
I remembered my first kill. It had been in the middle of battle. I was posted up on a high perspective to offer cover fire for the rest of the unit. There had been more enemies than we predicted, and my commanding officer’s voice had come through the radio piece in my ear, ordering me to take the shot. I’d acted automatically, just like I always had in practice, but the moment after I pulled the trigger and watched a man’s body collapse through the scope on my gun, I felt my whole world shift around me. I’d crossed a line I could never come back from, and even though I’d known it was coming, I still wasn’t prepared. Nothing could truly prepare you for taking a life.
I struggled with myself for a while afterward, trying to come to terms with my new identity as a murderer.
Sanctioned murder, but still murder.
Right now, Ellis was probably still in fight or flight mode, so he hadn’t processed the fact that he’d shot a man, but it was bound to catch up with him eventually.
I didn’t want that. Ellis deserved to live his life in innocence, without the weight of another man’s life on his conscience.
If only I could have been the one to pull the trigger instead. I’d chosen my path, and the weight of one more life would be nothing compared to the burdens I already carried.
“I think there’s something up ahead,” Ellis said as we ran, snapping me out of my thoughts.
Sure enough, the light leaking through the ceiling revealed that the tunnel dead-ended into a staircase that led to the surface. The two of us paused at the bottom of the stairs. They weren’t that tall. Maybe only about twenty feet. It was close enough for us to see that the stairs lead to a large rectangular trapdoor in the ceiling.
Ellis looked at me for direction. “Do we go up? I mean, we have to, right? There’s nowhere else for us to go.”
He was right, of course. There was no other path for us, but before I could say as much, the decision was made for us. Voices sounded in the tunnel, approaching from behind. The cult members had followed us, and by the sound of it they were gaining quickly.