Chapter 17 - Forty Seconds

"Emergency stop!" Lena shouted.

Shaw lunged for the control box. Pike hit him with the butt of his gun, sending him to the concrete. Cole tackled Pike, and they crashed into a stack of empty transport trays.

Lena climbed onto the rail beside the moving conveyor. Heat rolled toward her face. Maya stood in the narrow loading chamber, pressing both hands against the steel mesh.

"Lena!" she screamed. "I can't get out!"

"Look at me. Stay away from the belt."

"It's pulling my shirt!"

Lena tore open the maintenance cover. Wires shook behind the metal, and warning lights blinked. She wasn't going to gamble Maya's life on a switch she didn't understand.

"Shaw! Tell me how to stop it!"

He lifted himself on one elbow. Blood ran down his neck. "Red bar. Floor level. Behind the guard rail."

Lena dropped to her knees. The bar was wedged beneath a stack of trays. She shoved them aside with both hands and pulled. Nothing happened.

"It's locked!"

"Kick the release," Shaw rasped.

She kicked the steel latch. The bar gave way. The conveyor stopped with a violent jolt. Maya fell against the mesh, coughing.

Across the room Cole wrestled Pike's gun free and slid it away. Ivy, somehow on her feet, slammed a rolling cart across the hallway, blocking the guards who had arrived from the front.

Lena opened the loading gate and caught Maya as she stumbled out. Her sleeves were scorched and her hands blistered, but she was alive.

"Nora?" Maya gasped.

A door slammed upstairs. Vale was dragging Nora toward the parking lot.

"Go," Shaw told Lena. "I'll hold the door."

"You're hurt."

"I've been hurt for a year." He looked at Maya. "Tell your sister I'm sorry."

Cole called emergency services as he ran after Lena. Behind them, Shaw pushed the heavy fire door shut. The lock clicked just as Pike's freed accomplices reached it.

They heard two shots from the other side.

At the parking lot, Vale climbed into an ambulance with Nora in the passenger seat. He started the engine and rammed through the gate. Lena ran until her lungs burned, but she couldn't catch it.

Cole's truck roared up beside her. "Get in!"

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