“To the bikes!” Boone yelled.
We sprinted across the muddy lot. We were fifty yards from our motorcycles when the trap was sprung.
A blinding spotlight suddenly flared from atop one of the rusted loading cranes, illuminating us in a harsh, inescapable beam.
Before I could even shout a warning, the deafening roar of automatic gunfire ripped through the air.
Heavy caliber bullets chewed the muddy ground around our feet, shattering the windows of a nearby rusted sedan.
“Cover!” I roared, shoving Jenna violently to the dirt behind a concrete barrier.
Boone fired two blind shots toward the crane, but the return fire was overwhelming. A bullet ricocheted off a steel pipe, and Boone let out a roar of pain, collapsing to one knee.
“Boone!” Miller screamed, dragging the massive man behind a stack of wooden pallets. Blood was pouring from a deep graze on Boone’s heavy thigh.
I pressed my back against the cold concrete, my breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. I peered around the edge.
Three of Thorne’s heavily armed mercenaries were positioned on the catwalks above us, pinning us down with a relentless blanket of suppressive fire.
My motorcycle was thirty yards away. The front tire had been blown entirely off the rim by a stray bullet.
We were completely outgunned, trapped behind a slab of concrete, with a wounded man bleeding into the mud.
And in the distance, I watched the tail lights of the North Star semi-truck turn onto the main highway, accelerating rapidly into the darkness.
Maya was in that truck.
I closed my eyes, the agonizing memory of my own sister’s empty bedroom flashing through my mind. I hadn't been fast enough to save her. I had spent fifteen years drowning in the guilt of that failure.
I opened my eyes, the fear completely gone, replaced by a terrifying, absolute resolve.
I looked at a massive, yellow industrial forklift parked on the loading dock directly across the firing lane.
“Miller!” I shouted over the deafening gunfire. “When I move, you give me exactly three seconds of covering fire!”
Miller looked at the forklift, then at the open expanse of mud. “Elias, that’s suicide! You’ll be cut in half!”
I looked down at Jenna, who was curled in the mud, crying Maya's name.
“Three seconds,” I ordered, cocking my heavy .45 pistol.
I tightened the bloody rag around my arm, locked my eyes on the forklift, and prepared to step out into the slaughter.
The gunfire from the catwalk echoed off the rusted shipping containers like rolling thunder. Mud splattered against my face as bullets chewed the ground inches from my boots.
“Now!” I roared.
Miller leaned around the wooden pallets and dumped the rest of his magazine toward the crane in a deafening burst. Boone, ignoring the blood pouring from his leg, hoisted his heavy revolver and joined the covering fire.
The mercenaries on the catwalk ducked for cover.
I bolted.
I sprinted across the open, rain-slicked mud, my heavy boots sliding in the muck. The thirty yards to the loading dock felt like ten miles. I could hear the sharp zip of bullets cutting through the air around my ears as the mercenaries recovered and reacquired their target.
A round slammed into the metal doorframe of a container right beside my head, spraying me with hot rust, but I didn’t stop.
I reached the massive industrial forklift, threw myself into the driver’s seat, and ducked below the reinforced steel roll cage. The keys were still dangling in the ignition.
I twisted the key. The heavy diesel engine roared to life with a violent, black puff of smoke.
I slammed the forklift into gear, dropped my foot on the accelerator, and drove the machine straight out of cover.
Bullets rained down heavily against the forklift’s steel roof, pinging loudly, but the armored glass held. I drove the heavy machine directly toward the rusted support beams of the loading crane where the shooters were pinned.
I raised the heavy steel forks to maximum height and rammed the forklift full-speed into the crane's primary structural support.
The impact was bone-shattering. The forklift shuddered violently, but the rusted iron support beam snapped like a dry twig.
The entire catwalk groaned loudly, tilted sideways, and collapsed in a massive cascade of twisting metal and screaming men. The shooters plummeted twenty feet into the muddy scrap pile below, completely neutralized by the fall.