Chapter 10 - Fallen Guard
It was Marcus. A single, clean bullet hole punctured the center of his forehead, the blood dried into a dark crust across the vinyl dashboard. The keys were missing, and the radio unit had been ripped violently from the console, leaving a mess of severed copper wires hanging like intestines.
Sarah gasped, clapping her hands over Leo’s face to shield his vision, but the boy had already seen. He shrank back into his mother’s coat, whimpering.
""They knew the rally points,"" Mark growled, slamming his fist into the truck’s fender. ""Marcus was my clean exit. If they found him, the safehouse in Oakhaven is already compromised.""
""Then we have nowhere to go,"" Sarah said, defeat creeping into her voice like poison. ""They have our home, our friends, and our faces. Mark, we can't survive the night in these wet clothes.""
Mark searched Marcus’s pockets, retrieving a half-empty box of road flares, a box of matches wrapped in plastic, and a rusted tire iron. No weapons. Vanguard was stripping the board clean.
May you like
Suddenly, the dashboard radio speaker, dangling by two loose leads, sputtered to life with high-frequency feedback. A crisp, educated voice spoke through the crackle:
""I told you the family reunion would be cut short, Mark. Step away from the truck, or the sniper on the ridge takes the woman first.""
