Chapter 15 - Family Ties
I rolled over onto my back, shielding Emily under my chest.
Luke stood over us, holding a jagged piece of exploded compressor casing, his face blackened by oil soot.
"You ruined it, Mark!" he screamed, his voice wild and unhinged. "All Sarah had to do was shut her mouth! The money was already moved! I had a whole new life waiting!"
"You tried to freeze your own sister to death!" I yelled back, scrambling backward across the slick floor, keeping Emily behind me.
"She was going to put me in a cage for twenty years!" Luke raised the heavy iron shard over his head. "I'm not going back to prison!"
A muffled grunt came from behind him.
Sarah, still bound to the folding chair, threw all her remaining weight sideways, slamming the steel chair legs directly into the back of Luke’s knees.
Luke buckled with a sharp yelp, dropping the iron shrapnel.
I surged forward from the floor, driving my shoulder directly into his midsection. We both crashed through the open doorway of the freezer, tumbling out into the fog-filled main warehouse.
We hit the concrete hard. Luke threw a frantic, wild punch that caught me across the cheekbone, splitting the skin. I ignored the pain, grabbed his collar with both fists, and slammed his head back against the concrete floor until his hands went limp.
He lay there in the swirling fog, groaning, his nose bleeding onto the ice.
I stood up, chest heaving, wiping blood from my mouth.
"Sarah!" I yelled into the freezer.
I ran back inside, pulled the pocket knife from my work pants, and sliced through the tape binding her wrists and ankles.
She pulled the tape from her mouth, coughing raggedly, and fell directly into my arms.
"Emily..." Sarah whispered, burying her face in our daughter’s neck as Emily clung to both of us. "Emily, baby, Mommy’s here."
"We have to move," I said, pulling them both to their feet. "The ammonia lines are leaking. This whole building is going to be toxic in two minutes."
We stumbled out of the blast freezer into the smoky aisle.
Standing ten feet from the exit door, blocking the only way out, was Mrs. Harris.
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Her face was blistered from the cold gas, but her hands were steady. And she was holding the black .380 automatic leveled dead-center at Sarah's forehead.
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