Chapter 4 - LIGHTS OUT IN ZONE FOUR9
The blackness was instantaneous and suffocating.
Becca screamed—a sharp, piercing sound that cut through the silence of the room. I lunged across the dark space, my hands flailing until I grabbed her upper arms, pulling her tightly against my chest.
"I'm here! Becca, I've got you!" I yelled over her sobs.
"Emergency backup power should engage in three seconds," Agent Reeves’ voice came out of the dark, completely cool, though I heard the unmistakable sound of a leather holster unsnapping.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Nothing happened. No heavy diesel generators roared to life. No red emergency lighting flickered along the baseboards. The darkness remained total, dark enough that I couldn't see my own hand held an inch from my face.
"Miller," Reeves barked, her voice dropping an octave into a tone of sharp command. "Why didn't the auxiliary power kick in?"
"I... I don't know, ma'am," Miller’s panicked voice answered from somewhere near the door. "The field office has three redundant power lines and a subterranean generator. The main grid must have been manually cut from the external substation."
"A tactical blackout," Reeves said, her breath hitching slightly for the first time. "They aren't just watching us. They’re inside the perimeter."
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it ringing in my ears. "Inside? In an FBI building?"
"This is a satellite field office, Zoe, not the Pentagon," Reeves spat out, her steps heavy as she moved toward the door. "Miller, draw your sidearm. Lock down this room from the outside. If anyone opens this door who isn't me, you fire."
"Wait!" I yelled, reaching out blindly into the dark. "Don't leave us in here!"
"You are safer in a locked, windowless room than anywhere else right now," Reeves said coldly. "Keep quiet. Don't make a sound."
The heavy steel door creaked open, throwing a brief sliver of moonlight from the corridor onto the floor, before clicking shut again. The sound of a heavy deadbolt sliding into place echoed like a gunshot in the pitch-black room.
Then silence fell.
Becca was trembling violently against me, her hands clutching the fabric of my sweatshirt so hard her nails bit through into my skin.
"Zoe," she wept softly into my neck. "Mom’s here, isn't she? She came for us."
"She won't get us," I whispered back, though my own mind was spinning in sheer terror. "Agent Reeves and her people have guns. They know what they’re doing."
Do they? a cold voice inside my head mocked. Mom spent six years fooling the federal government under their own noses. She brought down the power grid of a federal building in less than ten minutes.
We sat in the suffocating darkness for what felt like hours, though it could only have been three or four minutes. Every sound was magnified tenfold—the distant whistle of the wind outside, the dripping of rain from our wet clothes onto the linoleum floor, the rhythmic, frightened gasps of my sister’s breathing.
Then came the first gunshots.
They didn't sound like the thunderous booms in movies. They were sharp, suppressed pop-pop-pops that echoed muffled down the concrete corridor from somewhere near the main lobby.
"Zoe!" Becca gasped, her body stiffening.
"Shh!" I pressed my palm over her mouth, listening intently.
More suppressed pops followed, accompanied by the heavy, dull thud of bodies hitting the floor. There were no shouts, no commands to surrender, no sirens. Just a calculated, methodical sweep.
Whoever was out there wasn't arguing. They were executing.
Footsteps approached down the hallway. Slow. Unhurried. The heavy crunch of tactical boots over shattered glass.
I held my breath, dragging Becca down under the laminate table with me. We squeezed into the footwell beneath the dark table, pulling our legs up tightly. I pressed my back against the cold wall, praying that the dark would swallow us whole.
The footsteps stopped right outside our door.
A beat of absolute silence passed.
Then, a metallic scraping sound echoed through the lock mechanism. Someone was picking the deadbolt.
Click.
The lock gave way.
The heavy steel door slowly swung open, revealing the corridor beyond. The hallway was lit only by the faint, eerie glow of emergency fire exit signs far down the hall. Standing in the doorway was a tall silhouette draped in a dark tactical jacket.
The silhouette clicked on a high-powered tactical flashlight.
The blinding beam of white light cut through the room like a blade, sweeping across the empty chairs, the table, and finally settling on the floor.
I held my breath, my lungs burning, forcing Becca’s head down into my lap so she wouldn't look up. The light lingered on the edge of the table, inches from where my wet sneakers sat tucked beneath my thighs.
"Zoe?" a voice called out softly.
It wasn't my mother’s voice.
It was a man's voice—deep, raspy, and thoroughly exhausted.
"Zoe, Becca... are you in here?"
My breath hitched. The flashlight beam dropped to the floor, illuminating a pair of scuffed leather work boots—boots I had seen sitting by our front door every night for my entire life.
"Dad?" I choked out, my voice cracking.
I crawled out from beneath the table, blinding light filling my vision. Standing in the doorway, holding a tactical light in one hand and a suppressed semi-automatic pistol in the other, was my father.
His face was a horrific tapestry of bruises—a jagged gash stitched along his cheekbone, his left eye swollen half-shut. His coat was stained with dark mud and dried blood, but his posture was upright, his gaze sharp and terrifyingly clear.
"Dad!" Becca screamed, scrambling out from under the table and hurling herself toward him.
"Stay back!" Dad snapped, stepping back half a pace and holding a hand up, though his eyes filled with sudden, overwhelming tears. "Don't touch me yet. I'm covered in broken glass."
He dropped to one knee, lowering the gun to his side, and pulled Becca into a tight, fierce embrace with his free arm. I stood there, frozen, staring at the gun in his hand, then at his battered face.
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"You... you escaped?" I stammered. "Agent Reeves said—"
"Agent Reeves is dead," Dad said flatly, pulling back from Becca and looking directly into my eyes. "She’s been on the cartel’s payroll for three years, Zoe. She was the leak."
