Chapter 8 - The Rooftop Escape
Through the choking cloud of white drywall dust and acrid cordite smoke, the second wave of O'Connor gunmen swarmed through the shattered doorway.
Julian fired until his magazine clicked dry, dropping another assailant before diving behind the overturned hospital bed as return fire punched holes through the mattress. "Marcus, take her!" he roared over the din of gunfire.
Marcus grabbed Wren by the arm, hauling her toward the private service exit in the corner of the room that led directly to the emergency stairwell and the rooftop maintenance ladder.
"No! I'm not leaving him!" Wren screamed, struggling against Marcus's iron grip as Patch barked frantically, snapping at the air while refusing to abandon Julian's side.
"If you stay, he dies trying to save you!" Marcus yelled over the gunfire, shoving her through the stairwell door.
As the heavy metal door slammed shut behind them, locking automatically, Wren caught one last terrifying glimpse through the wired glass window: Julian, bleeding heavily through his bandages, standing his ground beside the fierce gray dog, emptying a spare clip into the smoke as the enemy closed in.
"Move, Miss Ashby! Keep climbing!" Marcus urged, pushing her up the rusted iron rungs of the ladder leading to the freezing rooftop helipad.
The wind on the roof was ferocious, howling across the concrete and whipping Wren's hair across her face. Sleet stung her skin like buckshot. But the sound of a twin-engine black helicopter idling on the pad, its rotor blades churning the snow into a blinding white vortex, offered a glimmer of desperate hope.
Marcus shoved her toward the open cabin door, where a pilot in a dark flight suit waited with the engine revving at maximum pitch.
Before Wren could climb inside, a heavy thud echoed from the stairwell hatch behind them. The metal door buckled under a violent kick.
Marcus spun around, raising his weapon just as the latch gave way. A gunman in tactical gear emerged from the stairwell, raising his rifle.
Crack!
Marcus fired first, catching the assailant in the shoulder, but the man managed to return fire. A round struck Marcus in the side, spinning him around and sending him crashing to the concrete deck.
"Marcus!" Wren screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.
"Get... get on the chopper, kid," Marcus gasped, clutching his bleeding side. "Tell the pilot... fly north."
Before the surviving gunman could recover and fire again, a dark, heavy shadow lunged out of the stairwell hatch like a missile.
Patch.
The scarred gray shepherd slammed into the chest of the gunman with eighty pounds of furious, trained momentum. The man went flying backward down the stairwell concrete steps, his rifle clattering uselessly against the metal railing. Patch stood at the top of the stairs, barking into the abyss, his torn ear pinned flat against his skull—an unstoppable guardian angel wrapped in gray fur.
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"Patch! Come on!" Wren sobbed, waving frantically toward the helicopter.
The dog didn't hesitate. He bounded across the icy roof, leaping into the cabin right behind Wren just as the pilot yanked the collective pitch lever. The helicopter surged upward into the dark, storm-tossed sky, leaving the hospital, the gunfire, and the wreckage of their past far behind.
