Chapter 2 - The Gravel Pit Sanctuary
The truck didn't make it to Victor’s shop.
The rim of the rear wheel dug into the soft clay shoulder of the old county road, throwing us into a slow, grinding roll that ended with the passenger side pinned against the chain-link fence of the abandoned Oakridge Gravel Pit. The glass of my window shattered inward, a rain of safety-glass pebbles covering Lily’s back as she screamed.
For a second, there was only the sound of steam escaping from the crushed radiator and the high-pitched, electronic whine of my phone, which had fallen into the footwell.
"Clara," Victor groaned. He was slumped over the wheel, a thin line of dark blood trickling from his hairline down into his grey beard. He wasn't dead, but his shoulder was pinned by the collapsed steering column. "The glove box... the brass key... get the kids out..."
I didn't look for the key. I kicked the driver’s side door open with both feet, scrambling over Victor’s unconscious body while dragging Noah by his overalls. Lily followed, her small face pale and silent now, her shock having progressed past the point of tears.
We tumbled out onto the gravel, the air thick with the smell of spilled transmission fluid and dry weeds.
The black SUV had stopped fifty feet behind us. The driver’s side door was open, but Mark wasn't running. He was walking toward us, his steps measured and slow. In his right hand, he held a small, black device that looked like a garage door opener, but it had a long, rubberized antenna sticking out of the top.
"Clara," he called out. His voice was perfectly clear, carrying over the wind that swept through the open pit. "Let the children go. This has nothing to do with them. You've been looking at things you don't have the clearance to understand."
"Stay away from us!" I yelled, pulling both kids behind the rusted hull of an old conveyor belt that had been left to rot in the weeds. My hands were covered in Victor’s blood and grease, the grit of the gravel pit digging into my palms.
"I can't do that," Mark said. He was thirty feet away now. The sunlight caught the side of his face, revealing a small, pale scar that ran from his earlobe down to his collarbone—a scar I had never noticed in twelve years of marriage. Or perhaps it was a scar he had only recently acquired, hidden beneath the high collars of the shirts I bought him for his birthdays. "If you take them, they’ll put them in a facility. The agency doesn't leave loose ends, Clara. Especially not ones with my DNA."
"What agency?" I shrieked. "You work for a consulting firm in the city! I’ve been to your office, Mark! I’ve met your boss!"
"You met an actor named Richard who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens," Mark said, his voice flat. He stopped twenty feet away, his shadow falling across the rusted iron of the conveyor belt. "The office was a lease-by-the-hour suite. We set it up because you were starting to ask why I was traveling to Zurich twice a month. Now, give me the phone."
"I don't have it," I lied.
"It’s in your pocket, Clara," he said, his hand reaching out. "And if you don't hand it over, the remote wipe is going to trigger. When it does, the lithium battery is going to thermal-runaway. It’ll take your fingers off before you can drop it."
As if on cue, the phone in my pocket began to vibrate with a high, intense frequency. The fabric of my jeans started to feel warm.
I pulled the device out and threw it at his feet.
The screen was bright red now, a single word flashing in white text: CRITICAL.
Mark didn't look down at it. He stepped on the glass with his heavy boot, crushing the screen into the gravel until the red light died. "Good. Now, the children."
"No!" Lily screamed, her small hand reaching out from behind my back to throw a handful of dry gravel at his face.
The stones hit his chest and bounced off. He didn't even flinch. He didn't look angry; he looked disappointed. He took another step forward, his hand reaching for Lily’s arm.
Then, a sudden, deafening honk shattered the quiet of the pit.
Victor’s truck—or what was left of it—had restarted. The engine was screaming, the shattered radiator spraying a grey mist of coolant into the air as the heavy vehicle surged backward. Victor had managed to free his shoulder, and he was steering with his left hand, his face covered in blood, his eyes wide with a manic, old-man fury.
The rear bumper of the truck hit the conveyor belt, sending the entire five-ton iron structure crashing sideways.
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"Run!" Victor roared through the shattered window.
I didn't look back to see if the metal had pinned Mark. I grabbed Lily and Noah and ran deeper into the gravel pit, heading toward the concrete silos that rose like grey giants against the northern horizon.
