Chapter 56 - The Ascent of Emma Ward
Emma climbed with every ounce of strength remaining in her exhausted muscles. The rungs groaned and bent beneath her weight, flakes of rust falling into her hair and eyes. Below her, the firefight sounded like thunder trapped inside an iron barrel—the high-pitched snaps of carbines, the deeper, rhythmic reports of Vincent’s handgun, and the terrifying ricochet of lead whining off wet brick.
*One rung. Two rungs.* She counted in her head, ignoring the tearing pain in her palms and the freezing chill of the water dripping from her soaked clothes.
She could not allow him to die down here. Not after he had stood before the entire city to defend her from Victoria Sterling. Not after he had walked into the lion’s den to dismantle the network that had poisoned Chicago for decades.
A sudden, catastrophic explosion rocked the shaft.
The vibration was so violent that the ladder tore three inches out of the upper brickwork with a sickening screech of snapping iron. Emma swung wildly into empty space, dangling by her left hand over the black void. A scream ripped from her throat as her feet kicked frantically against empty air.
Below, the water surged violently. The explosion had breached the retaining wall. The Chicago River was pouring into the freight tunnels.
"Vincent!" she screamed, her voice lost in the roaring vortex of water below.
Gritting her teeth, she lunged upward with her right hand, catching the next rung by her fingertips. The rusted metal bit into her flesh, tearing the skin, but she held on. With a violent heave of her core, she pulled her torso back against the wall, finding purchase with the toe of her shoe on a cracked brick.
She climbed faster now, driven by sheer terror. Ten rungs. Twenty rungs.
Her head bumped against solid iron.
She reached up, feeling the circular utility hatch above her. Just as Vincent had said, a heavy steel pipe wrench was lashed to the final rung with rotting twine. Emma snapped the twine with a desperate yank, freeing the heavy tool.
Bracing her shoulders against the iron rung behind her, she swung the heavy wrench upward with both hands, striking the rusted brass padlock securing the hatch.
*Clang!* The sound reverberated through her skull, but the lock held.
She swung again, putting every ounce of her despair and rage into the strike. *Clang!* A crack appeared along the tumbler.
Below her, the sound of gunfire had ceased completely. There was only the terrifying, deafening roar of rushing water, rising at a catastrophic speed up the vertical shaft. The spray was already hitting her shoes.
"Come on!" she screamed, swinging a third time.
With a sharp *snap*, the brass shackle sheared off. Emma dropped the wrench, shoved the heavy cast-iron circular plate upward with both shoulders, and hauled herself out of the shaft into the blinding fluorescent glare of a concrete electrical room.
She collapsed onto the dry, painted concrete, gasping for air, her lungs burning with the smell of ozone and hydraulic fluid.
Behind her, the opening of the hatch vomited a vertical plume of gray, churning river water.
Emma turned around, crawling toward the lip of the hole on her hands and knees. The water was boiling at the brim, drowning the shaft completely.
"No..." she whispered, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on her face. "No, no, no... Vincent!"
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There was no answer. Only the cold, relentless surge of the flooded river filling the subterranean crypt.
***
