Chapter 6 - THE descent of SHADOWS
The wind screamed in their ears as they dropped through the dark.
Ten feet.
Twenty feet.
Adrian’s arms clamped around Emma’s body, twisting their fall mid-air.
They slammed hard onto the perforated steel floor of the maintenance cradle.
The impact drove the air from Emma's lungs.
The steel suspension cables groaned, swaying violently in the gale-force wind seventy floors above Wacker Drive.
Adrian scrambled up instantly.
He hit the emergency descent switch on the electric winch box.
The heavy motorized drum shrieked into motion.
The cradle plunged downward through the pouring rain, descending along the exterior glass facade at terrifying speed.
Above them, muzzle flashes strobed through the gray smoke on the mechanical deck.
Bullets sparked off the heavy steel cables supporting their platform.
One cable snapped with a sound like a rifle shot.
The cradle tilted violently at a thirty-degree angle.
Emma screamed, sliding across the wet steel toward the empty abyss.
Adrian lunged across the tilted floor.
His right hand clamped around her wrist.
His muscles bulged against his wet suit jacket.
He hauled her upward, pulling her flat against his chest.
His left arm locked around the remaining steel support post.
"Hold onto me!" he roared over the roar of the storm.
Emma buried her face in his neck, her arms locking around his shoulders with desperate strength.
He was soaking wet, cold as ice, but his strength was absolute.
He didn't let her slip an inch.
The cradle crashed into the concrete terrace of the fourth-floor parking annex.
The metal frame crumpled on impact, throwing them onto the slick asphalt.
Adrian rolled to absorb the shock, keeping his body beneath hers.
They slid ten feet across the puddles, coming to a halt against a concrete pillar.
Emma lay breathless on his chest, her heart hammering against his ribs.
Adrian breathed hard, his dark hair plastered across his forehead.
He looked up at her through the dark.
"Are you whole?" he asked, his voice strained.
"I think... I think my ribs are bruised," she wheezed.
"Can you walk?"
"If it means getting away from David, I can fly."
Adrian let out a short, breathless laugh.
He pushed himself up, wincing slightly as his left shoulder took his weight.
A dark stain of red was spreading across the fabric of his torn charcoal jacket.
A bullet graze from the catwalk.
Emma noticed it immediately.
"You're hit!"
"It's nothing," he dismissed, stepping toward an unmarked black Dodge Charger parked in the executive stall.
He smashed the driver's side window with his elbow.
He reached inside, unlocked the door, and ripped the plastic cover off the steering column.
Two wires sparked in his fingers.
The engine fired up with a throaty roar.
"Get in," Adrian said.
Emma climbed into the passenger seat, kicking away the shattered glass.
Adrian backed out of the stall at forty miles per hour, tires smoking against the damp concrete.
He smashed through the wooden security gate of the parking garage, launching the car into the rain-slicked streets of the South Loop.
The city lights blurred past in streaks of amber, red, and neon blue.
Emma looked over at him.
His face was drawn, pale beneath his dark stubble, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"Where do we go?" she asked.
"My penthouses are burned," Adrian said.
"My safehouses are logged in Julian's master file."
"Sterling controls the docks and the airports."
He looked at her sideways.
"Where does an architect go when her world collapses?"
Emma looked out at the dark Chicago River below the bridge.
"My grandfather's old timber mill," she said quietly.
"On the south branch of the canal."
"Abandoned since 1994."
"Not on any digital registry."
May you like
Adrian hit the gas, banking the heavy car toward the forgotten industrial arteries of the city.
"Lead the way, Miss Hayes."
