Chapter 29 - The Crossing
I pushed Sarah and Lily behind the sturdy steel frame of the Explorer, using the engine block as a makeshift barrier.
"Stay low," I muttered, sliding my hand inside my coat to grip the heavy steel barrel of the nickel-plated Beretta Vincent had left behind in the garage—a piece I had kept tucked under my driver’s seat ever since we crossed the state line.
"Moretti!" the second man yelled, moving cautiously along the tree line to flank our left side. "You think you can blow up fifty years of business and just walk away into the woods? The board wants blood!"
"Tell the board I'm fresh out!" I shouted back, stepping out from behind the door and squeezing off two rapid rounds toward the dirt in front of their boots.
The heavy slugs kicked up a geyser of mud and gravel, forcing both men to dive behind the doors of their sedan.
"Nate, look!" Sarah whispered urgently, tugging at my sleeve. She pointed downstream, fifty yards below the broken bridge, where a narrow, rusted iron maintenance catwalk spanned the churning white water, half-hidden by overgrown ferns and fallen birch logs. "The old logging flume! It leads straight into the ridge cave system!"
"Move!" I yelled, grabbing Lily’s hand while Sarah clutched the yellow tin to her chest.
May you like
We bolted toward the tree line, scrambling down the steep, muddy embankment just as a shotgun blast roared behind us, peppering the bark of the birch trees with a deadly cluster of buckshot that showered us in wood chips and leaves.
We hit the iron catwalk at a dead sprint. The old metal shrieked and groaned under our boots, swaying violently over the rushing rapids below as the freezing spray whipped against our faces.
