Chapter 3 - The Flames in the White Out
The snow was nearly four feet deep on the mountain trail.
Nathan drove his custom modified, heavy-duty 4x4 Land Cruiser—equipped with spiked snow tires, front winch, and high-intensity LED light bars—down the winding, treacherous mountain road. The headlights cut twin beams of gold through the blinding curtain of white.
The wind buffeted the heavy vehicle, threatening to push it off the narrow ledge into the ravine below. Any other man would have driven at five miles an hour, terrified of sliding into the abyss. Nathan drove like a man possessed, his foot heavy on the accelerator, navigating by memory and GPS.
Every second that ticked by on the dashboard clock was a second where his sister’s brain was dying from lack of oxygen.
Epidural hematoma, his medical brain analyzed relentlessly. A blow to the temple with a broken bottle. Laceration of the middle meningeal artery. Blood pooling between the dura mater and the skull. Pressure building. If not relieved within an hour of loss of consciousness... brain herniation. Death.
"Hang on, Sarah," Nathan growled through clenched teeth, his hands gripping the leather steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "Please, God, just let her breathe until I get there."
Fifteen minutes of terrifying, high-speed mountain driving brought him to the mouth of Old Logging Road.
As the Land Cruiser rounded the final bend near the riverbank, Nathan’s heart slammed into his throat.
Through the curtain of falling snow, a bright, sickening orange glow lit up the forest canopy.
The cabin was on fire.
Plumes of thick black smoke billowed into the freezing air, swept away by the gale-force winds. The roof of the single-story wooden structure was already engulfed in flames, the heat melting the snow in a twenty-foot radius around the porch.
"NO!" Nathan roared.
He slammed the Land Cruiser into park, grabbed his medical trauma bag and his pistol, and threw himself out of the vehicle into the snow.
The heat hit him like an oven door opening in the middle of an icebox. The sound of crackling timber and roaring flames drowned out the sound of the wind.
Nathan sprinted toward the front porch. The front door was wide open, swinging wildly on broken hinges.
He pulled his damp scarf up over his mouth and nose, ducking low as he burst through the doorway into the burning living room.
Smoke filled the upper half of the room, thick, acrid, and blinding. The air was scorching hot, searing his lungs with every breath.
"SARAH!" Nathan screamed into the smoke. "SARAH!"
Nothing.
He crawled along the hardwood floor, sweeping his hands through the debris. The floor was strewn with broken furniture, overturned trash, and shattered glass. In the center of the kitchen, surrounded by fallen, burning ceiling joists, he saw her.
Sarah was lying on her side near the refrigerator. A dark pool of blood had frozen against her blonde hair near her left temple, but her chest was still moving—barely. Her breaths were shallow, rattling gasps.
"Sarah!" Nathan reached her, grabbing her under her arms and pulling her back away from a falling wooden beam that exploded into sparks as it hit the floor.
He quickly placed two fingers against her carotid artery. Pulse: 110, thready. Pupils: unequal. Left pupil dilated.
"Classic middle meningeal bleed," Nathan muttered to himself, his adrenaline surging. "She’s herniating right now. I don't have time to carry her to the car. She’ll be brain-dead before I reach the estate."
Suddenly, a heavy, crunching crunch of boots on snow sounded behind him on the burning porch.
Nathan turned his head, his hand instantly darting inside his parka to grip the butt of his 9mm pistol.
Out of the smoke stepped a tall, gaunt man wearing a blood-stained leather jacket. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and crazed with alcohol and panic. He was holding a heavy, iron crowbar in his right hand.
Marcus Kane.
"Well, well, well," Marcus sneered, his voice raspy and cruel as he wiped soot from his face. "If it isn't the big, rich Dr. Pierce. Came down from your glass mountain to save your pathetic little sister?"
Nathan stood up slowly, stepping between Marcus and Sarah’s unconscious body. His face was completely devoid of fear, his green eyes glowing with a cold, terrifying vengeance.
"You left a five-year-old girl to freeze to death in a blizzard, Marcus," Nathan said, his voice lower and deadlier than the storm outside. "You locked two infants in a cold room and set fire to this house."
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Marcus laughed, a sickening, hysterical sound, raising the crowbar over his shoulder. "She ruined everything! She hid the kids! She tried to call the cops! And now you're going to die in this fire with her, Doc. The police will just think you both got trapped in the storm!"
Marcus lunged forward, swinging the heavy iron bar straight for Nathan’s head with all his strength.
