CHAPTER 6 — THE THIRD SISTER
The cabin walls exploded inward.
Gunfire tore through broken windows.
Glass showered across the floor.
I pushed Emma and Ella behind an overturned table.
"There has to be another way out!"
Ella grabbed my sleeve.
"This way!"
She led me through a hidden trapdoor beneath an old rug.
The passage descended beneath the mountain.
Far older than the shelter.
Stone walls.
Cold air.
Underground streams.
Almost like forgotten tunnels built generations ago.
Emma suddenly stopped.
"We're close."
"Close to what?"
"Our sister."
My heart nearly stopped.
"What?"
The girls nodded together.
"Rose."
Everything Olivia had recorded suddenly made sense.
There hadn't been two survivors.
There had been three.
The tunnel ended before a heavy steel door.
Ella knocked three times.
Silence.
Then...
A teenage girl's voice answered from inside.
"Emma?"
"Ella?"
The lock clicked.
The door slowly opened.
Standing there was a sixteen-year-old blonde girl with the same pale-blue eyes.
She stared at me in complete disbelief.
"You..."
Her voice cracked.
"You're Ethan."
I nodded speechlessly.
She smiled through tears.
"Olivia said you'd come."
She reached into a cabinet and removed a waterproof case.
Inside was a modern flash drive.
"This is everything."
"What is it?"
"Every recording."
"Every payment."
"Every judge."
"Every sheriff."
"Every politician."
"The entire corruption network."
Before I could respond—
The mountain shook violently.
An explosion echoed above us.
Dust poured from the ceiling.
Mark's voice thundered through hidden speakers.
"I've found the tunnels."
Then another voice echoed behind him.
Cold.
Powerful.
Terrifying.
"No witnesses leave this mountain alive."
Rose's face turned completely white.
She whispered only four words.
"That's Governor Harrison."
The governor of North Carolina.
The highest-ranking official Olivia had trusted.
The man the entire state believed was a hero.
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And he had just ordered the murder of four children...
...and me.
