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His pistol skittered across the concrete floor

"Help roaned, desperate, panicked

No tiap between the steel arch and concrete as little more than a foot wide Gray vaulted over the collapsed pile of beams and sprinted for the exit

As he reached the slit of sunlight, Nicolas screamed at him "You’ve not won, you svoloch! Millions will still die!"

Gray had no time to question hi walls, concrete on one side, steel on the other The vault was a dozen yards thick He scooted as fast as he could Still the pressure began to squeeze his chest, trying to hold him for the final crush

He took one last breath and exhaled all his air, collapsing his chest He shoved the last few feet and fell out of the crack with a great gasp of air, landing on his hands and knees

Like being born a second ti off to the side of the hangar She slipped into the crack as he vacated it

Gray turned "Elena! No! You’ll never ed for her But she had already slid deep into the crack, deeper than he could folloith his larger for farther and farther away

Gray prayed she’d make it safely to the other side, but it was still certain death Only then did he note the long srowled voice spoke behind him

"Where’s Elena?" Kowalski asked

Gray watched her vanish out of the crack He shook his head

Kowalski stared up and down the side of the hangar "She left me up there After she dropped that anchor on that bastard Said she was co down here to help"

Gray turned away "I think that’s where she’s headed"

Nicolas lay on his back, his legs weighted under a half ton of steel bea toward him He turned his head Elena came up to him

His eyes winced with a pain deeper than any broken bones "Oh,here?"

She sank next to hih her shirt

"Lubov moya…," he said with a mix of pain and protectiveness He lifted an arently as the last of the sunlight squeezed away

A corind of steel on concrete sounded with a note of finality as the Shelter sealed A fewcrash echoed as the far side of the Sarcophagus collapsed The concussion charges had worked as planned, but the Shelter was already closed tight around it, sparing those outside

He wasn’t so lucky

Nicolas stared up at the lighted archway The inner steel surfaces were all lined by a thick coat of polycarbonate, all the better to reflect radiation and hold it inside

Not that it e secured to his jacket pocket The surface had been white when he’d put it on this o and reached another arm to cradle Elena better

"Why?" he asked

There were many questions buried in that one word Why had Elena betrayed hi else made sense But also why did she colaze to her eyes

Dead

And so was he

The living dead

He knehat end awaited hi such deaths It would be as agonizing as it was hu slipped frorabbed this last gift from her

His pistol

She must have collected it froood-bye and to offer him a way to escape with her

He nestled into her and kissed her cold lips one last ti her, he raised the gun to his lips

And took his escape

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