Chapter 10 - THE TUNNEL

The tactical team breached the southern door while firefighters attacked the flames.

Grant and I drove toward the northern fence.

Smoke covered the desert.

We could barely see the maintenance building behind us.

The cable trench ended beneath a locked steel grate.

Grant used a crowbar to force it open.

A narrow concrete tunnel stretched into darkness.

I heard Grace crying somewhere inside.

“Eli!” I shouted.

No answer came.

Grant entered first with his flashlight and weapon.

I followed despite the heat and smoke moving through the tunnel.

We crawled nearly fifty feet before finding Hannah.

She was coughing and struggling to drag herself forward.

“Eli went back,” she said.

“Why?”

“Cole grabbed Grace.”

My heart dropped.

Hannah explained that Eli had reached the tunnel with the baby.

Cole caught them near the entrance.

Eli handed Grace to him.

Then he told Cole that he knew the recovery phrase.

Cole forced Eli back toward the building.

The boy had traded himself to keep Grace away from the fire.

“Where is the baby?” I asked.

Hannah pointed behind her.

Grace lay inside a shallow cable compartment.

Eli had wrapped his hospital gown around her and hidden her beneath the concrete ledge.

She was alive.

Grant called the rescue team and ordered officers to retrieve Hannah and Grace.

Then he turned toward the burning building.

“We’re going back for Eli.”

The heat became unbearable as we entered the cooling chamber.

Metal pipes groaned overhead.

Sprinklers sputtered without releasing water.

Cole’s voice echoed from the main room.

“Say the words!”

“I don’t know them,” Eli cried.

“You told me you did!”

“I lied.”

A loud impact followed.

I tried to move forward, but Grant held me back.

Through the smoke, we saw Cole standing beside a row of fuel drums.

Eli knelt several feet away.

Cole raised a lighter.

“You ruined everything,” he said.

Eli looked directly at him.

“No.”

“My mom ruined everything when she stopped being afraid of you.”

Cole’s face twisted with rage.

He moved toward the boy.

Grant stepped into the doorway.

“Drop the lighter.”

Cole froze.

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Then he smiled and opened his hand.

The burning lighter fell toward the fuel.