Chapter 20 - The Final Choice
"No!" Clara screamed.
In a fraction of a second, Arthur gathered the last ounce of life left in his battered body. He threw himself forward against his chains, his shoulder striking the rusted chassis of the submerged car with a deafening crash, shifting the metal just enough to snag the nylon rope of the bassinet with his bound hands.
"Shoot, Julian!" Arthur roared, spitting blood.
Vivian’s snipers fired. Two rounds tore through Arthur’s back, driving him beneath the rising water, but his fingers remained locked in a death-grip on JJ’s rope.
Julian didn't hesitate. He launched himself toward the metal ladder leading to the catwalk, scaling it with inhuman speed. Vivian swung her rifle toward him, firing blindly, the rounds pinging off the iron rungs, one grazing Julian’s shoulder, tearing open flesh and fabric.
Julian reached the platform, slamming his full weight into Vivian. The rifle clattered over the railing, vanishing into the churning water below.
They slammed against the iron grate, Vivian fighting like a feral beast, clawing at Julian’s eyes with surgical scalpel blades she had hidden within her sleeves. Julian caught her wrists, his grip crushing bone, but Vivian smiled—a blood-soaked, victorious grin.
With her free hand, she pulled a remote detonator from her tactical vest.
"The main floodgates," Vivian choked out through the blood in her mouth. "The reservoir wall is wired with C4. If I press this, fifty thousand gallons of lake water will collapse the ceiling in ten seconds."
Down below, Clara was swimming frantically through the rising water, reaching Arthur’s submerged body and prying JJ’s floating bassinet toward the safety of the concrete ledge.
"Julian! I have him! I have JJ!" Clara cried out, lifting the crying baby into the safety of an alcove above the water line.
Julian pinned Vivian against the railing, his forearm pressing against her throat. "Drop the detonator, Vivian! It's over!"
Vivian looked down at Clara holding the baby. Then she looked up into Julian’s eyes, her gaze completely hollowed out by madness.
"It’s not over, brother," Vivian whispered softly. "Mother always said... a Vance never leaves the table without burning the house down."
Vivian’s thumb slammed down on the red toggle.
A series of muffled, concussive thuds vibrated violently through the bedrock.
The concrete walls at the rear of the cavern split open like paper. A colossal wall of black, freezing water—tens of thousands of gallons from the underground lake reservoir—burst through the fissures with the force of an oncoming freight train.
The iron catwalk groaned and snapped in half.
Julian fell, plunging into the violent, swirling vortex below. He breached the surface, gasping for air, desperately fighting the raging current as the water level surged toward the cavern ceiling at terrifying speed.
"Julian!" Clara screamed from the ledge, clutching JJ against her chest with one arm, reaching her other hand down into the swirling abyss.
Julian reached up, his fingers brushing Clara’s outstretched hand.
But beneath the surface, a pair of ice-cold hands locked around Julian’s ankles with superhuman, dying strength, dragging him down into the black depths.
Beneath the churning water, Vivian’s open, lifeless eyes stared up through the dark, her hands locked around his legs like iron shackles, anchoring him to the sinking wreckage of Harold’s car.
The water reached Clara’s waist on the ledge. The exit tunnel behind her was crumbling under the pressure of the flood.
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"Julian!" Clara cried out into the rising roar of the water, her tears lost in the spray, her strength fading as the ceiling began to collapse.
From the black depths below, Julian looked up through the glass-like surface of the rising tide, seeing his wife and son illuminated by the flickering emergency lights for what felt like the final time, before the dark water closed completely over his head.
