Chapter 3 - Through the Shards
The moment I stepped off the metal skid of the helicopter, the night swallowed me.
The wind hit me like a physical wall, spinning me violently through the turbulent air while the fire below sent searing updrafts that smelled of burning plastic, melting copper, and scorched concrete. The helicopter hovered precariously against the smoke plume, holding me suspended by a single nylon-weave tether over a sheer five-hundred-foot drop.
I swung back and forth like a pendulum of death.
"Steady, Reyes! Hold her steady!" I muttered into my internal comms, locking my eyes entirely on the massive, glowing wall of the penthouse level.
The glass ahead of me was immense—three inches thick, reinforced with an internal wire mesh, glowing a dull, angry orange from the inferno raging just inches behind it. It looked impenetrable. It looked like a tomb wall.
Not today.
I pulled my legs up to my chest, curled my body into a tight ball, and angled my right shoulder and the heavy steel breaching ram forward.
Three... two... now.
I slammed into the glass like a human cannonball.
The impact was a concussive shockwave that sent agonizing white-hot pain shooting down my collarbone and through my ribs. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. The glass held. My heart skipped a beat as the brutal deceleration threatened to tear my shoulder out of its socket.
Then, with a sound like a localized artillery explosion, the laminate gave way.
The entire window panel imploded inward, showering the luxury penthouse suite below in a blinding cascade of glittering, razor-sharp diamonds. The sudden pressure differential sucked the vacuum of air out of the room, drawing a massive tongue of fire outward before the rushing winds forced it back inside.
I rolled through the jagged frame, tumbling across burning wool carpet, slamming hard against a heavy oak pillar before coming to a stop in a choking cloud of gray smoke and drywall dust.
Coughing violently behind my respirator, I scrambled to my feet, unclipped the tether, and swept my thermal scanner across the devastated floor.
The penthouse was a war zone. Priceless art pieces were melting against the walls; marble countertops had cracked under the extreme thermal shock; and the ceiling was actively raining burning embers.
Then, the scanner pinged.
huddled beneath a massive, half-burned grand piano near the far panoramic windows were three human figures.
I rushed forward, my combat boots crunching over broken glass and ash. As I drew closer, the smoke thinned momentarily, illuminated by a stray tendril of orange flame creeping up the wall.
My breath caught in my throat.
Underneath the piano sat Robert Vance, Helen Vance, and Brooke.
They were unrecognizable at first glance. Their designer clothes were torn, singed, and stained with black soot. My mother’s face was smeared with ash and tears, her fingernails dug so deeply into my father’s arm that blood was oozing through his sleeve. My father, the proud patriarch who had once banished me into the rain with a wave of his hand, looked shrunken, his posture broken, his eyes glazed over with the primal, animalistic terror of a man who had realized his wealth could not bribe the flames.
And Brooke... Brooke was staring blankly at the floor, gasping for air in shallow, panicked wheezes, her chest heaving as she clawed weakly at her throat. She was hyperventilating, suffocating on the thick carbon monoxide pooling near the floor.
I didn't hesitate. Six years of estrangement, betrayal, and pain vanished in the searing heat of the moment. They were civilians in extremis. They were human beings running out of time.
I dropped to one knee beside Brooke, my movements crisp, practiced, and utterly calm.
"Don't move," I ordered, my voice modulated and metallic through the tactical speaker of my respirator.
Without waiting for permission, I unclipped my auxiliary tactical oxygen mask from my belt—the high-capacity closed-circuit unit I used for deep-smoke extraction—and pressed it firmly over her face, strapping the elastic band around the back of her head.
"Breathe deep. Slow breaths. Let the regulator do the work," I commanded, my hands steady as I checked her pulse.
Brooke’s eyes rolled up to meet mine. Through the thick, tinted visor of my helmet, she couldn't see much, but as she inhaled the clean oxygen, her panic subsided just enough for her to focus on the man kneeling beside her.
Her gaze dropped from my eyes to the faint, jagged white crescent scar cutting right above my left eyebrow.
The exact scar I had carried since childhood. The one I got protecting her from a fall in the backyard when we were kids.
Brooke froze. Her entire body went rigid beneath my hands. The color drained completely from her already ashen face, leaving her looking like a ghost.
Beside her, my mother finally lifted her head, squinting through the smoke and haze at the tall, armored figure kneeling before her daughter.
She reached out a trembling, soot-stained hand, her fingers brushing against the sleeve of my heavy tactical Nomex jacket, feeling the embroidered name patch stitched across the chest.
She read the letters slowly, her lips trembling as the realization crashed down upon her like a tidal wave.
May you like
She whispered a single, broken word into the roaring void.
"Ethan?"
