Chapter 2 - The Shadows Behind the Glass
The silence inside the gray sedan felt heavier than the thousands of gallons of water pressing against the gas station's concrete foundation outside. I froze, my breath catching in my throat as I stared at the dark, menacing silhouette of the black SUV idling fifty feet behind us. The windows of the vehicle were heavily tinted, completely obscuring whoever—or whatever—was sitting inside.
“Daniel,” I whispered, my voice trembling violently as I gripped the door handle. “Who is that? Do you know them?”
Daniel didn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror. His right hand slowly slid down toward the center console, his fingers ghosting over a heavy metal flashlight before resting on something else entirely—something cold and metallic that he kept concealed beneath a greasy shop rag.
“Keep your head down,” he muttered under his breath, his jaw tight. “I told you, kid. Not everyone out here tonight is trying to help people evacuate.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the black SUV’s high beams suddenly flashed on, slicing through the torrential rain and illuminating the interior of our car like an interrogation room. At the exact same second, the passenger door of the SUV swung open, and a tall figure in a heavy yellow raincoat stepped out into the mud, holding a bulky, long-barreled object that glinted menacingly in the headlights.
“Get down!” Daniel barked, shoving my head down hard toward the floorboards just as a deafening CRACK echoed across the empty parking lot.
Glass exploded inward. The rear window of Daniel’s sedan shattered into a million glittering pieces, raining tiny shards over my back and hair. Someone was shooting at us.
“Hold on!” Daniel roared.
He slammed the gear shift into reverse, stamped hard on the gas pedal, and the sedan leaped backward with a screech of burning rubber. We slammed into a wooden ice storage bin behind the gas station, splintering it into kindling, before Daniel violently jerked the wheel, shifted into drive, and tore out of the lot through a muddy drainage ditch.
The black SUV roared in pursuit, its engine screaming as it bounced over the curb, trying to cut us off. Water sprayed twenty feet into the air as we fishtailed onto Highway 13, the rain blurring every light into streaks of blinding white and red.
“Are you insane? What did they want?” I screamed over the deafening roar of the engine and the howling wind, pulling glass shards out of my jacket.
“They didn’t want your money, kid,” Daniel shouted, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles as he navigated a treacherous, water-logged curve at fifty miles per hour. “That SUV has been tailing maintenance trucks around Cedar Rapids all night. Someone is systematically cutting power grids and communications towers before the floodwaters even crest, and they spotted us near the municipal water plant back on 4th Street.”
My blood ran cold. The municipal water plant—the very place my father’s company managed security software for.
“My dad,” I gasped, the horrible realization dawning on me like a physical blow. “My dad works with the city grid. He helped install the automated flood-gate overrides downtown.”
Daniel glanced sideways at me, his eyes grim. “Then your family isn’t just running from a flood. Someone’s hunting people who know how the city’s manual overrides work—people who can stop whatever scheme these bastards are pulling while the city is distracted by the disaster.”
We drove in terrified silence for twenty miles, racing northward through winding county roads until the asphalt gave way to packed gravel. The storm was finally beginning to lose its manic intensity, downgraded from a blinding deluge to a steady, depressing drizzle as the first pale streaks of dawn began to bleed through the heavy, bruised clouds on the horizon.
Daniel pulled the battered sedan off the main road, hiding it beneath the dense, dripping canopy of an old oak grove near the edge of a state park. He killed the engine, letting out a long, shuddering breath, and turned to look at me.
“We’re safe for the moment,” he said, rubbing his face with tired hands. “Check your phone. We need to find out if the cellular towers up on the ridge are back online.”
My hands were shaking so badly I dropped the device twice before finally managing to unlock it. The moment the home screen loaded, the phone went absolutely berserk. Vibrations buzzed continuously for thirty seconds straight.
Missed Call: Mom (14)
Missed Call: Dad (28)
Missed Call: Home Landline (10)
And right at the top, glowing like a neon warning sign, was the text message from my father that made my stomach violently churn:
“Please tell me you didn’t get in that car.”
I stared at the screen, a cold dread washing over me. How did Dad know I was in a car? How could he possibly know I hadn't walked to the high school shelter like Mom commanded?
Before I could dial his number back, my phone buzzed again. An incoming call from Dad.
I hit accept, bringing the phone slowly to my ear. “Dad? Dad, where are you? Are you guys okay? We got shot at—some guy in an SUV chased us—”
“Stop! Listen to me right now,” my father’s voice interrupted, sounding frantic, breathless, and terrified in a way I had never, ever heard before. “Where is Daniel? Is he with you?”
“He’s right here,” I said, looking over at Daniel, who was watching me intently. “Dad, what is going on? Why did you leave me? And who the hell was chasing us?”
May you like
There was a long, agonizing pause on the other end of the line, broken only by the sound of heavy static and weeping in the background. When my father spoke again, his voice was a broken whisper.
“We didn’t leave you behind to be mean, sweetheart. We left you because the men in that black SUV were already parked at the end of our driveway when Dad kicked your door open. They were watching the house.”
