Page 99 of Avenging Angel

“Physics,” Bennett replies. “Even with one of your little dart guns, a bullet travels much faster. Are you willing to risk Brit’s life, or Daisy’s, on such a gamble? Like I said, you have a choice: lose one life, or many. What’s it going to be?”

Bennett opens the hatch and already has one foot inside when Brit shouts, “One life!” and then fires.

It takes Eva a millisecond to react and see that Brit missed the shot, jumping in front of the girl just as Bennett pulls the trigger. Both Angel and Owen shoot, but Bennett uses the door of the hatch as a shield before closing it.

I run and drop to my knees by Eva, taking her hand in mine as I watch the life force slowly drain from her body. Brit is crying hysterically next to me as Owen rushes over and removes her from the situation.

“Get Brit out of here, now!” I yell.

Owen looks at me with a pleading gaze but sees the determination in my face. I’m not going to let Eva die alone. He slings Brit over his shoulder and heads for the second hatch. “You better be right behind me, Daisy.”

“I’ll do my best,” I tell him.

Eva coughs and sputters. “Tell Kenneth I kept my promise. Tell him…that I…found his daughter.”

I tuck a loose curl behind her ear. “I will. You have my word.”

The room begins to glow as Uri stands behind me in all his angelic glory. Eva’s eyes turn glassy as a smile forms on her face. “Am I finally going home?”

“Yes, and the Father is waiting for you with open arms,” he tells her.

When her hand goes limp in mine, I begin crying ugly tears.

Angel urges me to go. “Daisy, we’re out of time! We have to go!”

He drags me toward a hatch as I wail out a mournful bellow. “We can’t just leave her!”

Uri looks at me and says, “Eva is already home, Daisy, and her sacrifice was not in vain. But if you don’t leave now, yours will be. Take the first hatch. It will get you where you need to go.”

Angel doesn’t waste time, pulling me into the tunnel—which is actually a long, metal shaft—and securing the hatch. Like the stairwell, it lights up based on detected motion, and the steps are spaced in a way that makes climbing them easy. They aren’t steep, but they seem to go on forever.

Only seconds pass after Angel secures the door when a series of bombs detonate with enough force to make the ground shake beneath our feet. The metal tube shudders around us, every blast reverberating through the walls as we run as fast as we can up the incline.

“We aren’t going to make it!”

“We’ll make it! Uri wouldn’t have sent us this way if we couldn’t!” Angel exclaims as another explosion sends a violent tremor through the tunnel.

I immediately begin praying, but not on my knees this time because I’m too busy huffing and puffing as we race upward while the metal groans and rattles around us. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Keep everyone else safe and far enough away from danger! And if you get us out of this situation, I promise to….”

A sharp metallic crack echoes from below as the hatch at the bottom of the tunnel breaks free. I look over my shoulder and nearly stumble when I see water surge through the opening as it swallows the lower steps. It’s rising at a faster rate than our human bodies can manage.

“I promise I’ll make time to learn how to swim!”

The roar behind us grows louder as the water rushes up the tube, slamming against the metal walls hard enough to make them vibrate beneath my hand. It’s close enough now that I can feel the cold spray hitting the backs of my legs when Angel reaches for my hand and gives me the added boost of strength I need.

“We’re almost there! Don’t give up yet!”

The ground finally stops rumbling, and a few seconds later, the deafening rush behind us begins to ease. I dare to look back and praise God when I see that the water level has stabilized several steps below us. When I see the water begin to drain, I shove a fist into the air. “Thank you, Jesus!”

Angel slows down and bends over to catch his breath. “As thrilled as I am for the answered prayer, I won’t feel safe until our feet are on solid ground. We have to keep moving.”

I trudge up the last hundred or so steps, my energy nearly depleted. Angel must be in the same boat because he has trouble opening the hatch at the top on his own. We work together, and eventually we’re breathing blessedly fresh air.

We climb out and take a moment to stare nearly half a mile to our west where the facility had been. It’s now a pile of rubble at the bottom of the loch.

“Eva died saving Brit, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I can’t even bring her home to her family.”

“No, but you can still give them closure. This isn’t something that we’re going to allow to be swept under the rug, Daisy. It will make headline news. Grace will see to that because it’s her job as a journalist to share the truth. Once it does, you can sit down with Eva’s parents and let them know that their daughter made the ultimate sacrifice and tell them with certainty that she’s in Heaven.”