CHAPTER 18
HELENA
◆
The table came down with us.
Plates shattered. Gabriel’s body covered mine, bare chest against my back, one hand shielding my head as another bullet punched through the kitchen wall.
“Crawl,” he said.
We moved behind the stone island. Gabriel dragged his trousers up with one hand and reached for the weapon beneath his discarded jacket.
I pulled on his shirt because it was closest. The buttons would not cooperate with my shaking fingers.
Outside, the orchard erupted with gunfire.
Mara’s team answered from the drive.
“Two shooters east ridge,” Gabriel said into his radio. “One breach team south. Sofia?”
“Vehicle one, moving,” Mara replied. “We are clear of the house. Drone case secure.”
Relief hit me.
Then the pantry door exploded inward.
A man in black tactical clothing entered through the service hall. Gabriel fired once. The man dropped behind the counter and returned fire.
Stone chips cut my cheek.
Gabriel shoved a handgun across the floor to me. “Can you use it?”
“My father taught me at a range.”
“Stay low. Do not fire unless you see the target.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
The attacker moved toward the side window. I saw one shoulder between cabinet and wall.
I fired.
The shot struck the cabinet beside him. He flinched into view. Gabriel’s second round hit his vest and drove him backward.
“Missed,” I said.
“You changed his position. That was the job.”
The praise settled my hands.
More engines roared beyond the orchard. A dark utility truck broke through the south fence. Three men jumped from the bed.
Gabriel looked toward the mudroom. “We need the irrigation lane.”
“What is that?”
“The estate truck is parked behind the pump house. Ditch walls block the east ridge.”
“And the breach team?”
“We go through them.”
He said it like a route, not a fantasy.
We moved from the kitchen to the mudroom. The door opened onto a narrow covered path between the house and pump shed. Bullets struck roof tile overhead.
Gabriel went first.
I followed because he had stopped saying behind me and started making room beside him.
A man came around the pump house. Gabriel slammed him into the wall.
They fought at arm’s length, too close for the gun. I saw the second attacker before Gabriel did.
He raised a knife.
I fired at the ground near his foot.
He jumped back. Gabriel turned, caught the knife wrist, and drove his head into the man’s face. The first attacker recovered and swung a rifle.
I grabbed the pump lever and pulled.
A high-pressure irrigation line burst open. Water struck both attackers broadside, knocking them into the ditch.
Gabriel stared at me through the spray.
“What?” I shouted.
“I am reconsidering every security plan that excludes you.”
“Good.”
We reached the estate truck. It was twenty years old, green paint faded to gray, manual transmission.
Gabriel opened the driver’s door.
“No,” I said. “You shoot. I drive.”
“Can you?”
“My father believed automatic transmissions weakened character.”
“That explains you.”
I started the engine.
The truck lurched onto the irrigation lane as rounds struck the tailgate. Gabriel leaned through the passenger window and returned controlled fire toward the tires of the pursuing utility vehicle.
The orchard blurred on both sides.
“Left at the broken windmill,” he said.
“There are two.”
“The more broken one.”
“Excellent directions.”
A helicopter rose beyond the trees.
Not federal markings. Black underside, no tail number.
“They brought air support,” I said.
“Not for arrest.”
The lane ended at a drainage channel. A narrow concrete bridge crossed it.
The pursuing vehicle gained behind us.
Gabriel looked at the bridge, then at the irrigation control box beside the lane.
“Stop for five seconds.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Helena.”
“You get three.”
I braked beside the box. He jumped out, fired into the emergency release, and climbed back in as a floodgate opened upstream.
Water roared into the channel beneath the bridge.
I accelerated across.
The pursuing utility hit the bridge as water lifted debris against its tires. It skidded, struck the rail, and tipped into the channel.
“Effective,” I said.
“It worked.”
“Still my line.”
A burst of gunfire came from the helicopter.
The windshield starred.
Gabriel jerked against the seat.
For one second, I thought he had ducked.
Then blood spread beneath his right hand.
“No.”
“Drive.”
“You’re hit.”
“Lower ribs. Through or graze, I cannot tell. Drive.”
The old scar.
I pressed the accelerator. The truck bounced onto a public farm road, joining two delivery vans and a tractor. The helicopter pulled up rather than fire at witnesses.
Gabriel’s face had gone gray.
“Pressure,” he said.
“Where?”
He took my left hand and placed it over the wound beneath his ribs.
Hot blood flooded between my fingers.
I kept one hand on the wheel and pressed with the other.
“You are not allowed to die,” I said.
“Controlling.”
“I learned from you.”
His laugh ended in a grimace.
“Mara,” I called through the radio. “Gabriel is shot. We are east of the estate on a public road. Green truck, cracked windshield.”
“Clinic route is compromised,” she answered. “Agent Nobre has a private physician at Saint Oria convent, twelve miles south. Turn at marker forty-two.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Too exposed.”
“You are bleeding into my hand.”
“Vale will monitor medical sites.”
“It is a convent.”
“He monitors God when useful.”
“Then God can file a complaint.”
I turned south.
The helicopter circled at a distance. Two dark sedans appeared in the mirror.
Gabriel reached for his weapon.
“No.”
“I can still shoot.”
“You can barely insult me.”
“Your driving is very—” He stopped, breath catching.
“Finish that sentence and I will hit every pothole.”
His fingers closed around the red-glass key at my chest. Blood from his palm covered the casing.
The gold contact extended by itself.
A thin red light traveled through the glass.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
The key pulsed once against my skin.
The truck’s dead radio screen came alive.
A map unfolded across it in red lines—roads, court buildings, data centers. At the center, beneath the Federal Constitutional Tribunal, a circular chamber blinked.
E11.
Gabriel stared through pain. “The key is using the vehicle display.”
“Blood activated it?”
“Conductivity. Heat. Maybe the casing required a live biometric contact.”
The map zoomed.
A countdown appeared.
31:44:09.
Less than thirty-two hours.
“Vale moved the vote again,” I said.
The dark sedans closed behind us.
I turned onto a narrow lane lined with eucalyptus. The convent bell tower appeared over the trees.
One sedan pulled alongside. The passenger window lowered.
Gabriel lifted his weapon despite the blood.
I swerved first.
The truck struck the sedan’s rear quarter. Metal screamed. The car spun into the ditch.
The second vehicle stayed behind.
“You weaponized a farm truck,” Gabriel said.
“You are welcome.”
The convent gate stood open. Agent Camila waited beside an ambulance with two officers.
I drove through. The gate closed behind us as Camila’s team raised rifles toward the road.
The second sedan passed without stopping.
I braked beside the ambulance.
Gabriel tried to open his door and nearly fell.
I climbed across the seat, put his arm over my shoulders, and took his weight.
“You cannot carry me,” he said.
“Watch me.”
Together with Camila, I got him onto the stretcher. A doctor cut away his shirt. The bullet had entered beside the old scar and exited through his back, missing the lung by a margin no one wanted to praise yet.
Gabriel caught my wrist before they rolled him inside.
“The key.”
“It’s with me.”
“Do not let them sedate you.”
“They are treating you.”
“Do not leave.”
The demand held none of his usual authority. Only fear.
I bent and kissed him in front of the officers, the doctor, and every saint painted on the convent wall.
“I am right here.”
His grip loosened.
They took him into the clinic.
Blood covered my hand, my borrowed shirt, and the red glass. On the black radio screen in the truck, the map remained lit.
A second location began blinking beneath the tribunal.
BEATRIZ SALLES—PRIVATE CHAMBERS.
Then a message appeared in my father’s handwriting.
THE DOOR OPENS FOR BOTH BLOODLINES.