Page 17 of The Kill Clause
She scoffs. “And how long do you think you can live without it? The excitement, the glamour, the sense of living outside the arbitrary rules that hold this corrupt society together.”
“We’ll manage,” says Julian. Under the table he takes my hand. I squeeze tight.
“Did you really think this would work?” She holds up the drive. “Do you imagine that I didn’t know about your journals, your flimsy insurance policy? Your lawyer friend, the one who’s supposed to send them to the FBI if anything happens to you? He’s already dead.”
Julian doesn’t react, his expression unreadable.
“Nora,” I say. “Just let us go.”
She looks down at the table, then back up at us.
“I’m sorry, kids,” she says. And for a second it seems like she really is. There’s a sadness I haven’t seen before, and something clenches inside. I’m the child who doesn’t want to let her rescuer down. “But that’s not the way this works.”
Nora rises and heads toward the door, leaving the drive as if she couldn’t care less about it, taking her weapon from the kitchen counter. I dive for my gun, but she’s gone before I reach it.
That’s when the first explosion detonates, and the front windows blow in spraying glass and sound, the cold from outside. Julian grabs me as a second explosion hits us from behind, knocking us both down. My ears are ringing, the world stuttering as Julian pulls me to my feet and we run out into the night and into the woods as bullets spit behind us,tearing up the ground. Looking back, I see that the house is already on fire.
We run through the frigid darkness, breath coming in clouds. There are voices behind us. They’re getting louder, closer.
This is how it ends.
11.
Except. The root cellar, if the entrance isn’t buried under feet of snow.
“This way,” I tell him, pulling him east. The voices grow louder; flashlight beams bounce in the trees.
We run through the forest detritus, moving fast and sloppy, slipping, getting up again, scrambling. We’re the prey tonight, fighting for our lives.
Finally, we reach the door of the root cellar. I sweep away icy fallen leaves and key in the code, and it opens with a click.
He hesitates, looking behind us. “Is there another way out?”
“There’s a tunnel,” I tell him. “It lets out down by the road.”
The beams of flashlights dance in the trees. We can’t outrun them. There’s no other option.
We climb in, shut the door above us, and lock it.
They’ll have to blast their way in, unless they hack the lock.
We climb down and down. It’s a single room with shelves of supplies, a cot, a television attached to a VCR, a collection of tapes and books. A battery-operated generator, a hot plate. We could stay down here for a month. But they’re already atthe door. There’s a heavythud,thudas we make way down a narrow passageway toward the door to the tunnel.
I’ve grabbed a flashlight from the supplies. The tunnel is endless, winding, or seems so. We keep moving, silent. Finally, we reach the end. I key in another code, and the door pops open. We push out into the night and run.
The car is where we left it, hidden. Inside, the go bag, a cache of guns under the back seat. In the distance, the house is burning, great flames licking into the sky.
We climb inside, both of us silent. When he turns the ignition, the engine won’t start. It’s dead. Julian, pale in the moonlight, looks at me.
Wraiths move from the trees. Men in black with guns in their arms, lights on their vests. We’re surrounded. I’m all out of tricks and escape routes; my heart thuds, a timpani drum in my chest.
Then an odd calm comes over me. There’s a peace, or can be, when you’re about to die. I saw it in the eye of the doe, the sight of something beyond. Felt it when Drake’s hands were on my throat.
Nora steps into the beams of the headlights.
“That’s the end, kids,” she says solemnly. “Let’s get this over with.”
Julian turns to me. “I’m sorry. I wish we’d tried harder when we still had the chance.”
