Chapter 5 - The Weight of Steel
I couldn't hear my own voice over the screaming noise inside my ears, but I felt the cold fence against my back as I scrambled backward through the mud.
"You haven't changed at all," Daniel said, stepping over Officer Cole's dazed body with casual indifference. He brought the crowbar up, resting it lightly against his shoulder as he advanced on me. "Always running to authority figures. Always thinking someone else's uniform will protect you from me."
My hand was still wrapped around the pepper spray canister. My vision was clearing, returning in sharp, agonizing fragments.
"Where is Emily, Clara?" Daniel asked, stopping six feet away. "Is she in the car at the end of the alley?"
"She's... she's far away from here," I rasped, forcing my voice through my raw throat.
"Don't lie to me," Daniel snapped, his calm demeanor instantly shattering into the familiar, terrifying rage I had endured for ten years of marriage. "I saw the unmarked sedan pull up! I know she's in that car!"
He took a heavy step forward, raising the crowbar.
I didn't hesitate. I lifted my arm and pressed the actuator button on the pepper spray, aiming directly for his eyes.
A thick, orange stream of oleoresin capsicum struck Daniel straight across his face.
Daniel screamed—a guttural, animalistic roar of pain—and stumbled backward, dropping the crowbar into the mud as he clutched his eyes with both hands.
"You bitch!" he shrieked, thrashing wildly in the narrow alley.
I didn't waste a second. I didn't try to run back to the car. I lunged forward, grabbing the heavy iron crowbar from the mud, and turned toward the cellar hatch.
Officer Cole was on his knees, shaking his head violently, trying to regain his balance. "Clara... wait..." he coughed, his hands reaching blindly for his missing sidearm.
"Get your gun, Cole!" I yelled, my hearing finally cutting back in over the ringing. "The power cable!"
I ran to the cellar opening, raised the heavy crowbar over my head, and brought it down with everything I had onto the thick black electrical cable running into the basement pit.
SPARK!
A blinding blue arc of electricity erupted from the severed rubber line, showering my arms in hot sparks as the heavy copper wire snapped in two.
Instantly, the low, electronic hum that had lingered in the air ceased.
Ten yards away, inside Cole's parked sedan, the dashboard radio burst back into chaotic, glorious life:
"--ALL UNITS ON MAPLE DRIVE, BE ADVISED, PRIMARY DISPATCH HAS RE-ESTABLISHED SIGNAL! AUTOMATED ALARM IN BASEMENT HAS CLEARED! ENTRY TEAM, MOVE IN!"
Daniel, his eyes bright red and streaming with tears, lunged at me from the shadows of the fence, his heavy arms swinging blindly.
He caught me across the shoulder, sending me crashing down into the wet gravel beside the cellar opening. The crowbar flew from my grip, disappearing down the dark concrete stairs.
Daniel pinned me to the wet ground, his heavy knee pressing onto my chest, his fingers digging into my throat.
"You destroyed everything!" he spat, his breath smelling of stale coffee and copper. "You ruined my family! You ruined my life!"
I couldn't breathe. The sky above me swam in dark, terrifying patches of gray and black.
May you like
Then, through the haze, I saw Officer Cole stand up behind him.
Cole didn't use his gun. He stepped forward, drove his heavy tactical boot straight into the side of Daniel's knee with a sickening CRACK, and pulled Daniel off me in one fluid, brutal sweep.
