Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I gritted my teeth.
“I didn’t tell the kids, but I have the Death Folder with insurance, and the will, and all that crap. It’s backed up on my laptop. The children know about it, and that affidavit is in there, with his fucking signature on it. Once my death is announced, they will learn that their father doesn’t want them. My children will think they don’t have anyone left in this world. People break promises all the time. Roger promised to love me. Melissa promised to be my friend. London promised to protect me.
“Promises must be kept, Bear. Especially to children. I promised Tia I wouldn’t die in this hellhole and I meant it. We are going to survive. We will get out of here if I have to crawl on my hands and knees all the way to that damn gate.”
Drishya Chandran blinked her big brown eyes. On paper, she was twenty-one. To Elias, she looked about fifteen at most.
It’s not that the kids are getting younger; it’s that I’m getting older.
“I’m sorry,” Drishya said. “I honestly didn’t see anything.”
They had settled Tia and Noah into one of the HQ apartments. The guild headquarters took up an entire office tower in Schaumburg. Twelve floors of offices, meeting rooms, apartments, R&D labs, sitting in the middle of a twenty-five-acre greenbelt space. The building had a clinic with an emergency room, two restaurants, a gate diver-rated gym, a movie theater, an arcade, a park, and a roof garden. It was a village onto itself, and he’d assigned Haze to look over the children. All of their needs would be met, and Haze would unobtrusively chaperon them if they chose to wander. Elias had called ahead, and when the kids arrived, their apartment featured a brand-new cat tree and a robotic litter box. Mellow hated both, hissed at him again, and hid under the bed instead. He wasn’t very fond of cats, and the feeling was clearly mutual.
After the kids were settled, Leo and he turned around and went to Elmwood, where he’d commandeered the Elmwood Public Library as their makeshift office. Guild policy dictated that in case of a fatal event wiping out the assault crew, the gate had to be secured at all times, and he intended to sit on it until they accumulated enough divers to go in.
Through the glass window of the conference room Elias could see the gate looming like a dark hungry mouth, bathed in the glow of the floodlights. No matter how many lives they threw into it, it would never be enough. It was past one in the morning, and he was out of coffee.
“Walk me through it one more time,” he said.
“The drill head jammed,” Drishya said. “I showed it to Melissa. She said to go get the new one from the cart in the tunnel. I went to get it. The next thing I know Wagner is running out of the tunnel, and Melissa is behind him, and her face doesn’t look right. I’m like okay, I guess we are doing that now, so I turned around and ran to the gate. I heard an explosion behind us, so I didn’t look back. I didn’t even know London made it until I was out.”
“Were you the first to the gate?”
“Yes. I was scared.”
“Who came out after you?”
“Wagner.”
Middle-aged Wagner with arthritic knees somehow overtook both Melissa and London, who sprinted faster than most Olympic athletes. If Melissa and London wanted to get their story straight without being overheard, the only time to do so would be just inside the breach, after Drishya and Wagner exited.
“Why was the cart with the spare parts in the tunnel and not at the site?” Elias asked.
“It didn’t fit. The site sloped to the stream and there wasn’t a lot of flat ground, so we could only get three of the four carts in.” Drishya counted off on her fingers. “Cart One had the generator, lights, and first aid, so it had to come in. Carts Two and Three were for the ore. Adamantite is heavy, so we didn’t want to carry it too far. Cart Four with the spare parts had to live outside.”
“So there was adamantite at the site?” He’d read Leo’s notes of Melissa’s interview, but it seemed almost unbelievable that so much adamantite could exist in one place.
“Oh yes. That’s how my drill broke. Chipped off a chunk this big.” Drishya held her hands out as if lifting an invisible basketball.
“Was the adamantite in plain view?”
The miner shook her head. “No. Buried, and half of it underwater. It took the DeBRA about ten minutes to find it. She had to mark it with paint for us.”
Was this why they were attacked? Was something protecting the ore?
Drishya sighed. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Everyone is dead.”
“It is, and they are,” Elias confirmed.