Chapter 7 - Blood in the SnowWe didn't make it to the back door.
Crash!
The front wooden door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and white pine shards. Two operatives in full night-vision gear and tactical body armor swarmed through the smoke, their automatic rifles raised and locked on our position.
"Target sighted! Do not fire—repeat, secure the female!"
"Not in my house, you bastards!" Declan roared.
Before the lead operative could swing his barrel, Declan lunged forward like a grizzly bear, slamming the heavy wooden dining table directly into their chests. The impact sent both men crashing backward onto the porch.
"Hannah, run! Through the cellar hatch!" Declan shouted, firing a warning shot from his rifle into the ceiling rafters to buy us a second of cover.
"I'm not leaving you!" I screamed, paralyzed by terror as the second wave of operatives poured through the smashed doorway.
One of them lunged past Declan, grabbing my arm with iron grip strength. The cold steel of a taser pressed against my ribs.
"Got her!" the operative barked into his comms.
Suddenly, a loud, high-pitched whistling sound echoed from above the tree line.
Whirrrrrr-boom!
A blinding flash of light and a deafening concussion wave rattled the cabin windows, sending a shower of shattered glass cascading over the floor. Through the open door, I saw a massive black military-grade drone hovering just above the clearing, its landing skids lowered.
A figure stepped down from the drone’s rope ladder as it touched the snowy ground.
It was Khalid Al-Masri himself, wearing a heavy wool overcoat over an expensive suit, looking entirely out of place in the snowy Canadian wilderness.
He stepped over the splintered threshold, his eyes gleaming with cold triumph as he looked down at me pinned by his operative.
"Well, Hannah," Khalid smiled, stepping closer and extending a hand to brush a streak of soot off my cheek. "You certainly know how to make an exit. But a maze only has one center, and you've just run right into it."
Declan struggled against two guards who had pinned him to the floor, blood dripping from his forehead. "Let her go, you rich piece of trash!"
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Khalid didn't even bother looking at Declan. He kept his eyes locked on mine, reaching down to gently lift the brass-bound journal from my trembling fingers.
"Thank you, my dear," Khalid whispered, flipping open the charred cover to page forty-two. "The final key. With this, the world as we know it changes tonight."
