Ch.29: The Body

The shotgun blast echoes in the marble foyer, a thunderclap trapped in a bottle.

Thorne jerks backward. He hits the floor hard, sliding a few feet on the polished stone. His chest is a ruin of torn fabric and blood.

He doesn't move.

"Clean shot," Aris says, admiring his work. He pumps the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell. It clatters onto the floor, spinning like a coin.

"No," I whisper.

The guards haul me to my feet. I sag between them, my legs useless, my spirit broken. I stare at Thorne's body. His eyes are closed. His trench coat is soaked in red.

He came for me. He fought for me. And now he is dead.

"Take her back downstairs," Aris orders. "And double the dosage. I want her comatose until the extraction team arrives."

He looks at Thorne.

"And get rid of the garbage. The furnace is in the sub-basement. Incinerate him before the cops cut through the shutters."

The guards drag me away.

I scream. I fight. I kick my bare feet against their shins. But I am weak, and they are strong. They carry me down into the dark, back to my cell, back to my grave.

They throw me onto the bed. They strap me down.

But they don't leave.

Two more guards come down the stairs. They are dragging something heavy.

Thorne.

They are dragging his body by the ankles. His head bounces on the concrete steps. *Thud. Thud. Thud.*

They drag him past my cell.

"Furnace room," one of them grunts. " Boss wants him ash."

They drag him down the corridor, toward the heavy iron door at the end of the hall. The incinerator.

I strain against my bonds. I have to see.

They open the furnace door. I can see the orange glow of the pilot light reflecting off the walls.

"He's heavy," one guard complains.

"Just toss him in," the other says.

They swing the body. Once. Twice.

They heave him into the small, dark room adjacent to the furnace—the staging area. They don't put him directly into the fire yet. They have to prep the machine.

They slam the door shut and lock it.

"Let's go," the first guard says. "I don't want to be down here when the boss starts cutting again."

They walk away. They leave the basement.

Silence returns.

I lie in the dark, tears leaking from my single eye, burning the raw skin on my cheek.

He’s dead. It’s over.

I look at the monitor. Aris is upstairs, pacing. He is on the phone, shouting at someone. Probably his lawyers. Probably the police. Spinning his story.

I look back at the furnace room door.

It’s a heavy steel door with a small, reinforced glass window.

I stare at the window.

A shadow moves behind the glass.

I blink. It must be a trick of the light. A hallucination born of grief and drugs.

But then, a hand presses against the glass.

It smears blood on the pane.

Then a face appears.

Thorne.

He is pale. He is covered in blood. But his eyes are open.

He looks at me. He sees me strapped to the bed.

He raises a finger to his lips. *Shhh.*

He’s alive.

The shotgun blast... he must have been wearing a vest. A Kevlar vest under his trench coat. It stopped the pellets, but the impact would have broken ribs, maybe stopped his heart for a second.

But he’s alive.

He points to the lock on his door. Then he points to me.

He is trapped. I am trapped.

But we are both alive.

And we are both in the basement.

Aris thinks he killed the intruder. He thinks he won.

He doesn't know he just locked a wolf in the sheep pen.

He's alive. But now he's a prisoner too.