Connor cried, screaming.
“Jordan!”
* * *
Chapter 25
Move!” Thor roared, shoving Barley.
The big lieutenant staggered, shocked, but he recovered quickly, holding his rifle as he had held it during a thousand training missions, running forward. Thor followed him a dozen steps before he turned back to see the beast wrecking the top level of the vault, ravaging the upper edge as it had learned to do, in order to defeat the portal.
Leviathan slammed the fire door outward, screaming. Thor grabbed Barley and shoved him into a connecting corridor, close behind him. “Run!” Thor shouted. “This is not the place to make a stand! We must exhaust it first!”
Barley's response was instantaneous as he leaped into a run that stretched out quickly, covering a wide yard of ground with each stride and Thor ran after him, keeping up easily.
Leviathan pounded against the portal behind them, slamming the vault outward. The steel walkway beneath their feet was torn from place at the impact and then Thor felt the stride of the beast, pursuing, vengeful to end the conflict. As they reached another bisecting corridor, Thor sensed the quick strides nearing and he grabbed Barley by the collar, angling him roughly into a connecting hallway. Behind them the corridor exploded in flame.
Thor dove into the entrance of the corridor, escaping the lava that filled the expanse. He landed hard but recovered quickly, rising with his battle-ax close.
“Yes, beast!” he roared back. “Use your flame! Use your strength!”
Another hate-filled blast vulcanized the tunnel.
Until … silence.
* * *
“Jordan!” Connor screamed. “Where are you?”
The answering cry was even more distant, vanishing in the smoke-black darkness. And then Frank was beside Connor, clutching. The scientist was confused, not understanding what had happened. Connor grabbed him by the upper arms, crushing.
“We've lost Jordan!” he shouted.
Connor moved into the smoke, shouting, searching wildly. And Beth was at his side, close, staying within sight, shouting as frantically as him. But they heard only the rumbling of flame, the ventilation system straining to remove the choking congestion from this maze of corridors.
Losing control, Connor turned back to Beth. “Where would he go, Beth? Where would he go?”
Her dark eyes blazed, angry. “I don't know, Connor! I don't know what a child would do!”
Connor realized he was panicking. And with savage cold will he dropped to one knee, taking a deep breath of whatever fresh air remained in the junction. Then he looked up, staring through tear-blinded eyes. From his vantage point, less than four feet off the ground, he could see only one section of light—an oval-shaped opening framed in a smoke-red haze. It was an avenue of bright escape from the smoke that billowed in the convergence of hallways.
The path a child would take – a path of light!
Immediately he raised his arm. “There! That's where he’d go! He'd go where he saw light!”
Then Frank was beside them. His eyes flared as he saw Connor's arm. “Connor! Hold up, hold up, you're hurt!” Without expression Connor glared down, felt his hand coated in blood, blood dripping heavily, like a river, from hand and arm.
“You can fix it later, Frank.”
“Connor, wait, wait.” Frank grabbed him and Connor spun back with a dangerous glare. “Listen, man,” the scientist said, raising his hands, “you've got to listen to me for a second! You're not in pain right now because of the adrenaline in your system. But the pain's going to come and it's going to come hard if we can't stop that bleeding! Then you're not going to be worth anything to anyone! Not even Jordan!”
Taking a deep breath, Connor nodded. “All right, then, Frank, fix it!” He turned his face to scan the smoke. “But fix it quick!”
Frank instantly tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket. He pressed the folded bandage over the wound and then wrapped strips of cloth tightly, tying the ends to apply constant pressure to both sides of the wound without cutting off blood supply to the arm. Instantly the bandage was blood-red, wet.
“That'll stop the bleeding unless it hit an artery,” Frank gasped, breathless. “But I don't think it did. The blood wasn't bright enough. Still, though, you're going to have pain.”
Connor frowned, shook his head.
“Pain isn't part of this anymore.”
Then Connor was running forward. Fast. He didn't look back to see if anyone was following. He was on the walkway almost instantly, moving with a speed that amazed him to go down one corridor and then another, keeping low to see more clearly with arms outstretched, searching by feel. And he moved quickly, knowing more and more as he moved that Jordan could have already reached another passageway and angled even deeper into the cavern, creating a deadly guessing game.