PART 8 — The Darkness of the Past
The knife struck the power cable with a hard smack. A shower of sparks flew apart, and the single light source in the warehouse went out at the exact same moment. The room was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
"Fuck!" Arthur screamed.
A loud shot echoed through the warehouse, followed by the clattering sound of a bullet ricocheting off a steel beam. The noise was deafeningly loud in the enclosed space.
"Claire!" Monique shrieked.
I didn't hesitate for a second. I dropped to my knees and crawled by touch across the cold, wet concrete floor. I knew Monique's position. I reached the chair where she was bound and slapped my hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
"Stay quiet," I whispered very close to her ear.
In the distance, I heard Arthur's heavy footsteps. He cursed under his breath, and I saw the small, bright light of his phone screen turn on. He was using it as a flashlight, sweeping the beam wildly across the warehouse.
"You can't escape, Claire!" he yelled. His voice sounded furious, almost unhuman. "This warehouse is locked! There is only one exit!"
I felt quickly along Monique's arms. My pocketknife was somewhere on the floor near the broken lamp, so I couldn't use that. But Monique wore a heavy silver chain around her neck with a sharp, angular pendant. With trembling fingers, I tore the chain free and began scraping the metal against the thick cable tie around her wrists.
The beam of light from Arthur's phone slowly moved in our direction. Fifteen meters. Ten meters.
"Just sign the papers," Arthur shouted. "Then it's over! Why fight for the money of a man who cheated on you for thirty years?"
"I'm not fighting for his money!" I shouted back, disguising my voice to mislead him about my location. "I'm fighting for my children!"
Arthur turned abruptly toward the left side of the warehouse, thinking I was there. He fired another shot. The muzzle flash illuminated his face for a fraction of a second.
Cut. Cut. Cut.
The edge of the chain finally sliced through the plastic of the cable tie. Monique freed her hands. Quickly bending over, she untied the bindings around her ankles.
"Head for the back door," Monique whispered very softly. "There's an emergency exit behind the stacked pallets."
"And you?"
"I'll distract him. It's my fault all of this happened. I should never have helped Daniel," she said with a determination that surprised me.
Before I could stop her, Monique stood up. In the darkness, she grabbed a heavy iron chain dangling from a pallet and threw it with a loud crash against the far side of the warehouse.
"There she is!" Arthur screamed, running with his flashlight toward the spot where the chain had fallen.
Monique grabbed my arm and pulled me in the opposite direction, through a narrow gap between the stacked wooden crates. We ran by touch toward the rear of the warehouse. My heart pounded in my throat.
We reached the emergency exit. It was a heavy steel door with a crash bar. Monique pushed against it, but the door was jammed with rust.
"Help me!" she gasped.
Together, we pushed against the bar with all our strength. Just as the door burst open with a loud creak, a voice echoed right behind us.
"Found you," Arthur said.
The light beam from his phone fell directly into my eyes. I was blinded. I heard the mechanical click of the gun's hammer being pulled back.
"End of the story, sister," Arthur said.
At that exact moment, a deafening sound erupted from outside. A heavy vehicle crashed through the shipyard's fence at high speed, headlights blazing bright. Without slowing down, the vehicle drove straight toward the warehouse's emergency exit!
Arthur looked back in shock at the bright glare.
The vehicle plowed through the rusted steel door. With a massive crunch of tearing metal and shattering glass, the front of the car burst into the warehouse, striking Arthur dead-on from the side.
Arthur was thrown several meters away, slamming hard against a stack of wooden pallets. The gun flew from his hand and vanished into the darkness.
The car came to a halt with screeching tires. The driver's door flew open.
My breath caught. I expected to see Lucas.
But stepping out of the car was a man with a piercing gaze, dressed in dark clothing.
It was Julian.
