Chapter 2 - The Sanctuary in the Dark
Dragging a six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound man into a narrow drainage pipe while carrying a newborn baby inside your coat is a physical impossibility under normal circumstances. But adrenaline is a strange, terrifying drug. It turns fear into raw, unyielding muscle.
Hannah hauled the unconscious man through the mouth of the hatch just as two figures in heavy tactical raincoats stepped into the light of the alley above. She heard the metallic clack-clack of weapons being readied directly over their heads.
"Check the corner!" a harsh, raspy voice shouted from above. "Where the hell is Moretti? He was bleeding out right here!"
"There’s fresh blood leading to the fence," another voice answered. "He couldn't have climbed it. Search the perimeter! Call the Captain—tell him Moretti slipped away, but he's down!"
Inside the damp, freezing darkness of the tunnel, Hannah pulled the heavy iron hatch shut inch by agonizing inch, easing the latch back into place without making a sound. Water cascaded down the curved concrete walls, splashing around their ankles in a murky, ice-cold stream.
"Sis... is he dead?" Jade whispered from the darkness, her voice quivering with terror.
Hannah sank onto her knees in the shallow water, her chest heaving as if she had just run a marathon. She placed two fingers against the side of the man’s neck. A faint, irregular thud answered her touch.
"He's breathing. Barely," Hannah panted. She checked the baby inside her coat. Leo had stopped crying, lulled by the rhythm of her frantic heartbeat and the warmth of her body, though his small lips were still pale. "Jade, pass me your phone. Turn on the flashlight."
Jade quickly handed over her cracked smartphone. The weak beam of light cut through the gloom, revealing a long, abandoned storm drain that ran beneath the city's industrial sector. It smelled of old silt, rust, and rain, but it was dry enough along the concrete ledges to offer temporary shelter.
Hannah propped the wounded man—whose name, according to the men above, was Moretti—against the curved tunnel wall. She unbuttoned his suit jacket completely. The wound on his flank was horrific. A high-caliber bullet had torn through his side, leaving a jagged, gaping tear that was oozing thick, dark blood. Worse still, his left thigh had a deep graze that was actively bleeding into his trousers.
"We can't take him to a hospital," Hannah realized aloud, her medical training—two years of dropped nursing school courses before she had to quit to care for Jade—kicking in. "Those men up there... they're searching hospitals first."
"We can't keep him here either!" Jade argued, hugging herself as she shivered in the damp cold. "He’s huge, sis! If those bad guys find us, they’ll kill us all!"
"Look at his clothes, Jade," Hannah said softly, shining the phone light on his face. "Look at the baby's blanket. This baby is wrapped in pure Egyptian cotton. This man’s suit costs more than our apartment building. If we leave him to die, whoever killed him will find us through the baby. But if he lives..." She paused, looking into the infant's quiet, dark eyes. "...maybe we survive this."
Hannah took off her thick wool cardigan—the only warm layer she had left—and tore it into long, wide strips using her teeth and hands. She pressed a thick wad of the fabric directly against the gaping bullet wound on his side.
The man jolted awake with a gasping scream, his body seizing violently against the concrete wall. His hands flew up, slamming against Hannah’s wrist with terrifying power.
"Stay down!" Hannah hissed, leaning her entire body weight against his chest to pin him. "If you scream, they'll hear us through the grates! Keep quiet!"
Moretti’s eyes snapped open, blazing with an intense, predatory wildness. For a second, he didn't recognize her. He saw only a threat. His fingers tightened around Hannah’s throat, cutting off her air. Jade screamed in horror.
"Leo..." Hannah choked out, tapping her chest where the baby lay sleeping against her collarbone. "I... have... Leo..."
The moment the child's name left her lips, the wildness in the man's eyes vanished, replaced by a sudden, devastating clarity. His fingers uncurled from her neck, dropping limply to his side. He panted heavily, hot air whistling through his bloody lips.
"You..." he whispered, his voice a ruined raspy growl. "You took him."
"I dragged both of you down here," Hannah grunted, rubbing her neck as she reapplied pressure to his wound. "And if you try to choke me again, I’ll throw you back up to those men in raincoats."
A tiny, almost invisible flicker of humor touched the corner of Moretti's mouth before vanishing beneath a wave of sheer agony. "Feisty... for a girl... in a ruined cardigan."
"Shut up and hold this," she snapped, taking his heavy, blood-soaked hand and placing it firmly over the makeshift bandage. "We need to move. They're searching the alley above us. Do you know where this drain leads?"
Moretti swallowed hard, his eyes scanning the pitch-black tunnel. "Two hundred yards... north. It exits... near the old brickworks on 4th Street. Near the safehouse."
"Can you crawl?"
May you like
Moretti looked at his ruined leg, then up at Hannah, who was holding his son securely against her warm chest. His expression transformed from a dying victim to a man who had commanded armies.
"For my son?" he rasped, his voice cold as steel. "I can crawl through hell."
