Chapter 9 - The Chase in the Rafters
"Jax!" Clara screams from the operating table, her voice hysterical. "He has the secondary dose! If he gets to the roof radio, he’ll signal his private helicopter! He'll take the children's blood data with him!"
Jax rushes to Clara’s side. With two swift strikes of his heavy steel pocket knife—pulled from his riding pants belt—he slashes through the thick leather restraints at her wrists and ankles.
"Can you walk?" Jax asks, helping her sit up.
Clara sways dangerously, her legs weak from days of forced sedation, but she grips Jax’s bare forearm with a desperate, terrifying strength. "I can crawl if I have to! Go! Protect my children! Don't let him leave this house alive!"
Jax nods once. He turns and rushes through the narrow service portal, taking the metal spiral staircase three steps at a time.
The spiral stairs lead up into the estate’s Victorian roof observatory—a grand, glass-domed tower sitting thirty feet above the main roofline of the manor. The cold mountain wind howls viciously up here, rattling the iron frame of the glass dome, driving white sheets of snow against the panes.
As Jax bursts through the access hatch onto the wooden floorboards of the observatory, a sharp, searing pain explodes across the left side of his face.
FLASH-BANG.
Dr. Vance stands framed against the storm outside, holding a small, silver snub-nosed revolver he had retrieved from a hidden desk drawer. The gunshot echoes deafeningly within the glass dome, shattering a overhead windowpane and sending a spray of sharp glass down around them.
The bullet grazed Jax’s cheekbone, leaving a deep, bloody welt that instantly pours red down into his dark beard.
Jax doesn't drop. The pain barely registers through the thick fog of adrenaline surging through his veins. He takes another step forward, his shadow towering over the silver-haired doctor under the wild, swirling moonlight.
Vance’s hands finally shake. The cultured, calm facade of the brilliant surgeon completely disintegrates as he looks into Jax’s bleeding, unyielding face. He aims the revolver straight at Jax’s chest, his finger tightening frantically on the trigger for a second shot.
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"Stay back, you animal!" Vance screams, his voice cracking with pure panic over the sound of the storm. "I am a man of science! I am building the future of humanity! You are nothing! A nameless wanderer! A ghost!"
"You're right," Jax growls, taking another heavy, relentless step forward, ignoring the revolver pointed at his heart. "I am a ghost. And I came back for what you took from me."
