CHAPTER 289: CHAPTER - 289

Chapter - 289

The CLANK of the padlock being hammered into the jammed door handle was a sound of absolute finality. It was followed by the WHOOSH of the gasoline igniting, a sudden, hungry roar that lit up the bottom cracks of the door with a flickering, hellish orange.

Then came the heat.

It wasn’t immediate, but it was fast. A dry, oppressive warmth that began to suck the moisture from the air. The container, a 40-foot steel box, was now a high-end, professionally curated oven. And they were the main course.

"Oh my God," Sharon whispered, her voice tight with a new kind of panic. She was on her knees, her hands still pressed against Crimson Sparrow’s chest, but the frantic, rhythmic compressions had stopped.

"He’s... he’s gurgling!" she said, her voice a mix of horror and disbelief. "He’s still breathing! Rick, help me! I have to apply pressure! He’s bleeding out!"

Rick was at the far end of the container, a caged animal. He ignored her, his flashlight beam playing over the solid, corrugated steel walls. He kicked at them, a pointless, frustrated act. "They locked us in!" he roared, his voice echoing in the metal box. "They took the key! They’re trapping us!"

He grabbed a box of brand-new 80-inch TVs and, with a grunt of pure rage, threw it. The cardboard exploded against the wall, the screen shattering. He was frantic, tearing apart Nadia’s treasure trove, his flashlight beam cutting madly through the dust. He was looking for something. Another door. A ventilation shaft. A weak seam. There was nothing. Just smooth, solid, inescapable steel.

"Rick, damn it, help me!" Sharon yelled, her hands now covered in the warm, sticky blood that was pooling on the floor. "We can’t just let him die!"

"What are you doing?" Rick snarled, stalking back toward her, his light pinning her like an animal. "He’s dead! You’re just giving a corpse a massage!"

"He’s not! He’s still..." Sharon stopped, her own words choking her. She was a cop. She knew what a gunshot wound to the head meant. She was just... following her training, a useless protocol for an impossible situation.

The air in the container was already changing. It was thick, stale, and hot. The smell of Sparrow’s blood mixed with the acrid, metallic tang of the rapidly heating steel.

And then the gurgling stopped.

Crimson Sparrow, the failed musician, the pathetic, cowardly accomplice, let out one last, long, wet sigh. His body shuddered, and then went completely still. The only sound left in the tomb was the low, angry crackle of the fire raging outside the door.

Sharon sat back on her heels, her hands trembling as she stared at the body. "He’s... gone."

"Congratulations, Lieutenant," Rick said, his voice dripping with venom. "You successfully chaperoned a man to his death. Now, are you going to help me, or are you going to sit there and wait for us to be next?"

Sharon surged to her feet, her face a mask of fury. "Help you do what, Rick? Kick the walls? You’re a one-man army, right? Go on, punch your way out! Use that ’Aura of Dread’ or whatever the hell it is you do!"

"And what’s your brilliant plan?" he shot back, his voice rising to a roar. "Are you going to arrest the fire? You’re a cop! Your gun is useless, your badge is useless, and your CPR is a goddamn joke!"

"At least I was trying to save a life!" she screamed, jabbing a bloody finger at him. "You’re just... breaking things! You’re the one who got us in here! This is your world, Rick! This is what happens! You poke the hornets’ nest, and the rest of us get stung to death!"

"And I’m the one who’s going to get us out!" Rick roared. He was so consumed with rage and adrenaline that he grabbed the nearest thing—a heavy box of designer suits—and threw it against the wall.

It hit a metal shelf with a CRASH, bursting open. But something else fell with it. Several plastic jugs and spray bottles, which had been hidden behind the clothes, clattered to the floor, rolling in every direction.

Rick’s beam found them.

He froze. His entire body went still. The frantic, animalistic panic vanished, replaced by a sudden, terrifying, laser-like focus.

"What?" Sharon asked, her anger momentarily forgotten as she saw his expression change.

Rick knelt, his light playing over the labels. Bleach. Ammonia-based glass cleaner. Drain cleaner. Lighter fluid.

"Nadia, you beautiful, brilliant, psychotic bitch," he whispered, a slow, cold smile spreading across his face.

"Rick, what are you doing?" Sharon said, her voice laced with new dread. He wasn’in panicking anymore, and that was somehow worse. "Are you... are you going to clean? We are baking in here!"

She was right. The steel walls were no longer warm; they were hot. The air was thin, and every breath was like inhaling wool.

"I’m not cleaning," Rick said, his voice calm. He stood up and began rummaging, not frantically, but with a chilling, methodical purpose. "I’m making a key."

He found what he was looking for: a large, sturdy, empty plastic crate that had once held a new television. He grabbed a roll of duct tape from a toolbox.

"We’re going to blow the door," he said simply.

Sharon just stared at him. "Blow the door? With what? Your bad attitude?"

"With this," he said, holding up the jug of bleach and the bottle of ammonia. "Nadia’s little chemistry set. You mix bleach and ammonia, you get chloramine gas. You mix it in a sealed, pressurized container, you get a bomb."

"That’s insane!" she shrieked. "That’ll just fill the container with poison gas! We’ll suffocate before we ever get out!"

"We’re going to suffocate anyway! Or flash-cook!" Rick yelled back. "This is a chance. It’s the only chance. Now, help me find a better fuel."

He was already tearing through other boxes. He found a high-end barbecue set, still in its packaging. And with it, two large cans of propane. His smile widened. This was getting better.

But he needed a real oxidizer. Bleach and ammonia was a messy, uncertain reaction. He needed something stable. Something powerful.

His flashlight beam landed on the golf bag he had thrown earlier. It was a high-end Callaway bag. He stalked over to it, unzipped the large side pocket, and plunged his arm in. His fingers brushed past bags of tees, gloves, scorecards... and then he felt it. A small, heavy, 5-pound paper sack.

He pulled it out. The label was plain, from a high-end golfing supply store. ’Premium Lawn & Green Fertilizer’.

He read the ingredients. The first one: Ammonium Nitrate.

Rick started to laugh. It was a short, harsh, terrifying sound. "Oh, Nadia, you didn’t just have a chemistry set. You had a goddamn bomb kit."

Sharon, who had been a cop long enough to know what those two words meant together, felt her blood run cold. "Rick... ANFO. You’re talking about ANFO."

"Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil," Rick confirmed, his voice electric with a new, manic energy. "Except we’re using propane and lighter fluid for the fuel. It’s going to be dirty, but it’ll be big. Now, get to the back. And cover your face."

He didn’t wait for her. He worked with a terrifying, practiced speed. He ripped open the bag of fertilizer, dumping the small white prills into the sturdy plastic crate. He added the lighter fluid, soaking the pellets. He took the two propane canisters and duct-taped them, hard, to the outside of the crate, aiming the nozzles inward. This wasn’t about a perfect mix; it was about a violent, catastrophic, explosive reaction.

He dragged the heavy plastic crate to the front of the container, jamming it against the red-hot, groaning metal door.

"Rick, how are you going to set it off?" Sharon called, her voice muffled through the shirt she had pressed against her face. The air was already hazy with fumes. "We don’t have a fuse! We don’t have a detonator!"

Rick stood in front of his creation. He looked at the crude bomb. He was right. He needed a spark. A powerful, immediate source of ignition.

He pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen was cracked from the earlier fight.

"My phone," he said, his voice grim.

"What? How?"

"Lithium-ion," Rick said, walking back toward her. "The battery. If I can puncture it, it’ll go into thermal runaway. It’ll be a hot, violent, chemical fire. It should be enough to set off the propane, which will set off the ANFO."

It was a terrible, desperate, insane plan. It was the only plan they had.

The heat was unbearable. They were both drenched in sweat, their skin red. The steel walls were audibly groaning and popping from the heat of the fire outside.

"Get to the back," Rick ordered, his voice hoarse. "As far back as you can. Get behind that safe. Get down, and cover your head."

Sharon didn’t argue. She scrambled into the back, wedging herself into the narrow gap between the three-ton safe and the container wall, curling into a ball.

Rick stood over the bomb. He took the bent 9-iron he had thrown earlier, the metal of the shaft now uncomfortably hot to the touch. He laid his phone on the floor, right next to the fuse-point he’d made with the propane nozzles.

"Goodbye, System," he muttered, knowing full well the System was in his head, not the phone.

He took a deep, burning breath, aimed the sharp, broken end of the iron at the phone’s center, and yelled, "COVER YOUR EARS!"

He raised the club high and slammed it down with all his strength.

CRACK!

He didn’t wait to see what happened. He turned and sprinted, launching himself in a desperate dive, scrambling and sliding across the floor. He wedged himself behind the safe just as Sharon grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him down, covering his head with her own body.

He huddled in the pitch-black, his heart hammering, his ears plugged with his fingers.

A fizz.

A pop.

A brilliant, blinding white-hot flare of chemical fire lit up the container from the front, lasting only a microsecond.

One second.

Two.

The world ended.

A soundless, concussion-filled CRACK ripped the universe apart. It was a sound that was felt in their bones, in their teeth, in their souls. The entire 40-foot, multi-ton shipping container was lifted clean off the ground by the force of the explosion.

Rick and Sharon were slammed, even behind the safe, against the back wall with enough force to shatter bone. The shockwave was a physical, crushing blow. The shelves, the TVs, the gems, the gold—everything inside became a deadly projectile, all of it atomized in a fraction of a second.

The container slammed back down onto the concrete, shaking the entire shipyard.

Then, silence.

A deafening, ringing, absolute silence. The smell of ozone, burnt chemicals, and superheated steel filled their lungs.

Rick was the first to stir. He was on top of Sharon, under a pile of debris. He coughed, a dry, racking sound. His lungs burned. His ears were ringing so loudly he couldn’t tell if he was deaf.

He fumbled for his flashlight. It was gone. Shattered.

"Sharon...?" he coughed, his voice sounding distant and strange.

He heard a low groan beneath him. "Ugh... get... off... me..."

Her flashlight, cracked but functional, flicked on. The beam was weak, flickering, cutting through the thick, black smoke and dust that filled the air.

They were in a heap, buried in wreckage. Sparrow’s body was gone, likely vaporized. The safe was still there, a solid anchor in the chaos.

They looked toward the front of the container.

Or rather, where the front of the container used to be.

It was gone. The door, the steel frame, all of it. Blasted clean off its hinges, a twisted, burning piece of metal lying twenty feet away in the shipyard.

They were staring out at the cool, dark, night air, at the raging fire they had just blown themselves through, at freedom.

Rick and Sharon, covered in blood, dust, and soot, just stared,

stunned, at the smoking, perfectly circular hole they had just ripped in the world.