Chapter 6 - Through the DarkJulian hauled Nora to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in his left shoulder where a piece of shrapnel had torn through his coat and skin. Blood soaked his shirt, but adrenaline kept his nervous system firing on all cylinders.
"The service door," Julian panted, his vision swimming slightly from the smoke. "Where is it?"
"Three steps to your left," Nora said, her voice remaining eerily steady amidst the chaos. She reached out, her gloved hand finding the rusted iron push-bar of the alley exit with unerring precision. "The hinge sticks. You have to kick it near the bottom."
Julian didn't hesitate. He drove the heel of his Italian leather shoe straight into the lower corner of the steel door. It popped open with a loud screech, letting in the freezing, sleet-filled air of the alleyway.
"Go!" Julian pushed Nora and Ghost through the threshold into the dark, narrow passage between two brick tenements.
As soon as they cleared the doorway, a burst of gunfire raked the brickwork just inches from Julian’s head, showering him in red masonry dust. He ducked behind a steel dumpster, leveling his Sig Sauer back toward the open doorway.
A hitman’s silhouette appeared in the dim light of the alley.
Julian squeezed the trigger twice. Bang. Bang.
The silhouette dropped instantly, disappearing back into the kitchen shadows.
"Julian! We have to move!" Nora called out from the deeper shadows of the alley, where Ghost stood like a dark sentinel beside her, blocking the wind. "Moretti’s men control the main street at the end of this block. We can't go that way."
"Then where?" Julian asked, sprinting over to her and grabbing her hand, guiding her through the maze of trash cans and fire escapes.
"Up," Nora said. "The fire escape on the old textile mill. Third landing. There's a maintenance hatch that leads into the upper rafters of the abandoned rail terminal. Nobody goes up there because the stairs collapsed ten years ago."
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Julian looked up at the rusted iron lattice of the fire escape dangling twenty feet above the alley floor. Normally, scaling a vertical wall with one injured arm and a blind companion would be impossible.
For Julian Voss, impossible was just an invitation to rewrite the rules.
