Z. Rex Read Free Page B

steps and railings leading down to the ground. He stuffed the phone into his pocket, ran into his dad’s bedroom. It felt like his heart was crawling up his throat. Where was the key to the balcony doors? He fell upon the bedside table, yanked open the drawer and emptied it on the bed—just as the balcony exploded inward with a boom that nearly burst his eardrums. He threw himself down behind the bed as brick-shrapnel, glass and wood splinters slashed through the room. Moaning with fear, he yanked the blanket over his head like a shield to deflect the worst of the debris. This whole place is being demolished, he realized. And me with it, if I don’t get out. NOW.
    The deadly rain subsided and Adam got back to his feet, shaking and staring. The whole rear wall had been wrenched away, the debris scattered across the street. The fire escape was a twisted relic left dangling like a broken paper chain. What earthquake had the power to do this?
    Then, as the pale morning sun stared in at Adam like a startled eye, a chill jumped through him. That same smoky haze he’d spied before was rippling dead ahead, as if the air itself were flexing its muscles. Scraping, scrabbling sounds soon followed, the sound of something hard and heavy-duty gouging out the brickwork downstairs. The gunfire had stopped. Had the men run away or were they—
    Suddenly, with a splintering crash, the bedroom floor started to give way beneath Adam’s feet as more of the story below was bashed away. Dad’s large pine dresser scraped across the sloping floorboards and went into free fall, thundering onto the asphalt twenty-two yards below. Adam ran for the door but too late. The floor tilted sharply and he lost his balance, tumbling headlong with the furniture toward the gaping hole in the wall and the sheer drop beyond.

3
    SURVIVAL
    A dam clawed at the wooden flooring, trying desperately to cling on. But a moment later, he found himself launched into empty space.
    The realization screamed at him— A fall from this height could kill me.
    In the same split second, Adam grabbed for the twisted remains of the fire escape. His fingers caught and closed around a rail. He gasped, body jerking in midair as he just barely stopped his fall.
    The fire escape had been totaled, the last stretch of ladder completely torn away.
    The same deafening roar as before bellowed out, this time from inside the building. Something was tearing through the ground floor, trashing everything. . . .
    Adam’s fingers were already numb from holding his weight dead in the air. Terrified, he reached for the next rung down, caught hold of it and tried to swing himself across so he’d be closer to the ground. But the rung slipped from his grip and he dropped down the last several meters to the pavement. The impact shook through his body but he staggered up, too scared to linger, and ran to where his mountain bike stood chained. As the sound of more gunfire zinged through the air at the front of the building, Adam tore at the chain’s combination lock with trembling fingers until the catch jumped open. Then he chucked the chain away and swung himself onto the Iron Horse’s saddle.
    As he started to pedal away, he saw another black Cadillac speeding toward him along the long, dusty road that bisected the rugged plains this side of the complex. He waved frantically, relief flooding through him. Whoever it was, maybe they could get him away from here.
    The Caddy skidded in a wide circle in front of him as the driver expertly pulled a hand brake turn. As it stopped, a tall, blond man leaped out from the backseat. “That’s Adlar’s kid!” he hollered. “Must’ve got past Bateman.”
    Another man, bald and burly, scrambled out from the passenger side. “They kind of have their hands full, wouldn’t you say?” The bald man smiled coldly. “So you’re Adam Adlar, right?”
    “Right,” Adam answered with a fresh stab of unease. “Did—did my dad send you?”
    “Sure,” sneered