Chapter 6 - A Ghost in the Concrete
The smell of rust and decaying leaves surrounded them as Mark dragged his feet through ankle-deep water. The subterranean tunnel seemed endless, echoing with the steady drip of rainwater from grates thirty feet above.
Lily was delirious. The wound on her ankle had turned a dark, angry purple from the polluted water of the canal. She clung to his sodden suit coat, muttering fractured words about her mother and the pretty lady with the iron chain.
""Stay with me, Lily-bug,"" Mark whispered, his throat raw. ""Just a little longer. Daddy's got you.""
He knew the sewer layout from his early days working municipal engineering projects before he entered finance. Two miles west lay an abandoned pumping station beneath the old freight yards. It had dry floors, shelter, and an access ladder leading into a homeless encampment where no cameras ever watched.
He climbed the rusted iron rungs one-handed, his shoulder muscles burning until he pushed open an iron manhole cover. He emerged inside the hollow shell of a decommissioned power substation.
Mark collapsed onto a dry pile of discarded tarps, gently laying Lily down. He stripped off his soaked jacket, wrapping her small, shivering body inside the relatively dry interior lining. Her forehead was like an oven.
""Water..."" she whispered, her lips cracked and pale.
""I'll get some, baby. I promise.""
Mark searched the corners of the substation and found an abandoned water heater with a functioning drain valve. He cracked it open, collecting rusty but drinkable water in a discarded tin can. He brought it to her lips, coaxing her to swallow small sips.
As she drifted into a restless slumber, Mark examined his remaining resources. A gun with four bullets. A pocketknife. And a small, waterlogged piece of cardstock he found inside his inner vest pocket.
It was an old photograph. The one Victoria had forbidden him from keeping in the house—a picture of his first wife, Sarah, smiling on a porch swing holding newborn Lily.
Mark stared at Sarah’s face in the gloom. He had promised to protect their child with his life. He had failed by inviting a viper into their home.
A floorboard creaked above him.
May you like
Mark leaped to his feet, raising the pistol into the darkness. A shadow emerged from behind the dormant electrical transformers.
""Put the gun down, Mark,"" a woman's voice commanded from the shadows. ""Before you shoot someone who actually knows how to save your daughter's leg.""
