Chapter 12 - Fire in the Cypress
The shockwave knocked the lanterns from the rafters, plunging the cabin into darkness illuminated only by the strobe of incoming automatic weapons fire. Tracers ripped through the cypress walls, shredding furniture and shattering jars of moonshine into fiery plumes.
""Move! Now!"" Jax roared at Silas.
Silas grabbed Lily, lifting the hidden trapdoor in the floorboards and disappearing into the murky darkness below. Lily looked back through the smoke, crying out for the first time: ""Daddy!""
""Run with Silas, baby! I'll be right behind you!""
Jax stepped into the center hallway, raising the 12-gauge drum shotgun. Two armored operatives swept through the ruined front entryway, their rifle-mounted flashlights cutting through the thick smoke. Jax didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger, unleashing an avalanche of 12-gauge buckshot down the narrow corridor.
The roar inside the enclosed space was deafening. The lead mercenary was lifted off his feet and thrown back out onto the deck. The second scrambled for cover behind a heavy iron stove, returning fire with controlled three-round bursts that chewed through the doorframe beside Jax’s ear.
Jax grabbed an incendiary flare from the weapon table, struck the base against the wall, and hurled it through the front window directly onto the gasoline canisters stacked on the front porch.
""Clear the swamp!"" Jax screamed, diving headfirst into the floor tunnel just as the front half of the stilt cabin detonated in a towering fireball.
The explosion blasted outward, sending burning timber raining down across the dark waters of the cypress swamp. The mercenary line was thrown into chaotic retreat as the fire spread rapidly through the dead brush, illuminating the black water in dancing sheets of orange and gold.
Jax dropped into the waist-deep muck beneath the stilts, his ears ringing violently. He waded through the submerged escape canal, emerging at the concealed south dock where Silas was frantically priming the engine of a flat-bottom airboat.
Lily was huddled in the bow, her arms wrapped around Barnaby.
""Get in!"" Silas shouted, pulling the starter cord.
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The airboat’s massive rear propeller sputtered, coughed, and spun into a blurred frenzy. But as the boat drifted out into open water, Jax’s radio crackled to life on the cartel frequency.
""Jax,"" a cold, aristocratic voice smooth as silk purred over the speaker. ""You fight well for a broken biker. But while you play hero in the swamp, my men have already taken your old clubhouse. If you want this nightmare to end, bring my daughter to the Iron Nomad sanctuary. Or I start executing your brothers every fifteen minutes.""
