Chapter 54 - The St. Jude's Chimera
Gunfire erupted beneath me in a violent, deafening cacophony. The flashes of Miller’s muzzle lit the vertical shaft in jagged strobe-light pulses, answered by the rhythmic, suppressed chatter of military-grade carbines. Ricochets whined off the iron rungs inches beneath my boots.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, dulling the agony of my healing ribs and fractured pelvis. I hauled myself up the iron ladder with one arm, cradling Leo against my chest with the other, his tiny body trembling against the vibrations of the concrete shaft.
*I survived the balcony,* I told myself, every ragged breath burning my throat like dry lye. *I survived the saltwater. I will not die in a sewer.*
My hands hit the underside of a cast-iron manhole cover. It was heavy, crusted with decades of street grime and road salt. I planted my feet on the narrow ladder rungs, wedged my back against the opposite brick wall, and shoved upward with everything I had left.
The cover grated against the asphalt, shifting three inches. Cool, fresh autumn air poured into the shaft, carrying the scent of rain, exhaust, and wet leaves.
Below, Miller’s gunfire ceased. A heavy thud echoed up the tunnel, followed by a voice speaking into a comms channel: *"Primary escort neutralized. Asset carrier moving toward the surface grid on Charles Street. Intercept at sector four."*
They had taken Miller down.
Tears blurred my vision, but there was no time to mourn. I threw my entire weight into the iron lid, sending it flipping across the pavement with a loud clang. I scrambled out onto the wet asphalt of a narrow alleyway behind an old brownstone, panting, soaked in soot and sweat.
Boston was asleep under a canopy of low, bruised rain clouds. It was 3:00 AM.
Across the street, parked silently under the yellow glow of a sodium streetlamp, sat an unmarked black ambulance. The side panel did not bear the seal of the city emergency services. Stenciled in faint, matte-gray lettering along the lower rim was an emblem I recognized with a sickening jolt: a double helix woven around a silver anchor.
The Aegis Vanguard Foundation.
The rear doors of the ambulance swung open before I could turn to run.
May you like
Stepping down onto the pavement was not a tactical soldier, but a woman in a tailored wool coat, leaning heavily on a brass cane, her face wrapped in a silk scarf to guard against the biting river wind.
It was Victoria Vance. My mother.
