Chapter 8 - THE EXPLOSION ON FIRETHORN LANEKatherine grabbed Grace’s hand in the pitch-black subterranean tunnel, pulling her forward through the damp, narrow passage. The air was thick, heavy, and tasted of sulfur and wet clay, but every step forward carried them farther away from the death trap Frank had engineered.
"Keep moving, Grace! Don't look back!" Katherine panted, her knees scraping against the rough stones, her elegant wedding dress now completely shredded and caked in dark earth.
Behind them, muffled through yards of packed dirt and timber, a low, rumbling vibration shook the earth beneath their feet.
BOOM.
The shockwave rolled through the tunnel like an underground earthquake, sending loose gravel and dust cascading down from the ceiling. A wall of orange light flashed at the far end of the tunnel where the exit opened up near the creek bed, turning the darkness into a blinding strobe.
"Robert!" Grace shrieked, collapsing onto her knees in the mud, her voice cracking with a grief so profound it felt like her chest was tearing open.
"Grace, we can't go back!" Katherine yelled over the roar of the fire echoing from the surface. "If we stop here, Frank wins! Move!"
Dragging a half-conscious, weeping Grace behind her, Katherine lunged toward the mouth of the tunnel, bursting out into the cold, gray morning air just as the entire roof of Blackwood Cabin collapsed inward in a massive pillar of fire and black smoke.
Cinders drifted through the pine trees like dark snow.
At the edge of the clearing, parked by the wooden bridge, Frank stood leaning against his luxury SUV, holding a remote detonator in one hand and a lit cigar in the other, watching his masterpiece burn.
He didn't expect anyone to walk out of the ground.
May you like
When Katherine and Grace emerged from the brush—covered in soot, blood, and mud—Frank’s cigar slipped from his fingers and landed in the wet grass.
"Well, well," Frank sneered, recovering his composure quickly, pulling a heavy 9mm pistol from his shoulder holster. "Turns out rats are good at digging after all. Too bad you won't live long enough to tell the EPA about the gas leak."
