CHAPTER 290: CHAPTER - 290

Chapter - 290

The world returned in a wave of crushing, silent pressure. Rick’s first sensation was the ringing in his ears, a high-pitched, solid-state whine that drowned out all other sound. His second was the taste of burnt chemicals, ozone, and concrete dust. His third was the weight of a dozen boxes and a very pissed-off cop on top of him.

"Ugh... get... off... me..." Sharon’s voice was a muffled groan beneath him.

He pushed a smoking, melted flatscreen TV off his back and rolled, coughing. The air in the container was a thick, black, unbreathable soup of smoke and pulverized debris. Her flashlight, cracked but miraculously functional, flickered on, cutting a weak, hazy beam through the oppressive darkness.

They were in a heap, buried in the wreckage of Nadia’s treasure trove. The metal shelves had collapsed. Designer suits, boxes of electronics, and scattered, priceless gems were mixed with the shattered remains of the Rolex display.

Rick’s eyes, adjusting to the hellscape, immediately went to the front of the container.

Or where the front of the container used to be.

It was gone. The heavy, reinforced steel doors had been blasted clean off their hinges, ripped from the frame as if they were paper. They were looking out a smoking, circular maw, a perfect cartoon hole, at the raging gasoline fire they had just blown themselves straight through. They were out.

"We’re alive," Sharon whispered, her voice a hoarse, disbelieving rasp. She coughed, spitting dust. "We’re actually alive."

"Don’t celebrate yet," Rick growled, his voice rough. He fumbled for his own phone, but it was just a shattered, useless brick in his pocket. The 9-iron he’d used as a detonator was gone, probably embedded in the container ceiling. He was on his feet in a second, his ears still ringing, but his mind already calculating. The laptop was gone. The bastards were gone. The System Quest clock was still ticking in his head, a relentless hammer. 6 Days, 0 Hours, 12 Minutes...

He started moving toward the smoking exit, ignoring the agony in his bruised ribs. "They’re on foot. They can’t have gotten far."

"Rick! Wait!" Sharon’s voice was sharp. She wasn’t moving. Her flashlight beam was pointed at the back of the container, at the heavy, three-ton safe. "Sparrow!"

Rick turned, annoyed. "What about him? He’s a pancake. Forget it."

"No! He’s under it! Look!"

Rick aimed his own borrowed light. She was right. The force of the blast had been unimaginable. It had lifted the entire multi-ton safe, flipped it, and slammed it down, right where Crimson Sparrow had been cowering. He wasn’t vaporized. He was pinned.

Only his head and one arm were visible, sticking out from under the massive steel block. His face was an unrecognizable mask of blood and soot, but as they watched, his chest gave a small, wet, gurgling heave. He was, impossibly, still alive.

Rick stared for one cold, calculating second. "He’s a dead man, Sharon. We have maybe two minutes before those guys are in a car and gone for good. I’m going after them."

He grabbed a bent-but-functional golf club—a 5-iron this time—from the wreckage, hefting it like a weapon. He turned to leave.

"No!" Sharon yelled, scrambling to her feet. She ran to the safe and put her hands on it, pushing with all her might. It didn’t budge. It was like trying to push a building. "Rick! Help me! This thing is crushing him! He’s alive, damn it!"

Rick scoffed, a harsh, ugly sound. "And? He’s a witness who is now our problem. He’s a loose end, and frankly, this is a clean way to tie it. They are the mission. We’re leaving."

He took two steps toward the exit.

"Rick!" Sharon’s voice was different. Not pleading. It was cold.

He stopped and turned. She had her pistol out again. This time, it wasn’t in a low-ready position. This time, it was aimed squarely at his chest.

"You are not leaving this man to die," she said, her voice shaking with a mixture of rage and adrenaline. "I am a cop. We save people. Even the pathetic, shitty ones. We are getting him out."

Rick stared at the barrel of the gun. He looked at her face, streaked with blood and soot, her eyes blazing with a righteous, stupid fury. A part of him, the cold, pragmatic part, was amused.

"You’re going to shoot me, Sharon? Your only way out of this shipyard? To save him?" He kicked Sparrow’s visible arm. It was limp. "He’s a gurgling piece of human garbage who helped con people and got his partner kidnapped. He’s better off dead."

"And you’re the one who beat him half to death before the bomb went off!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "I’m not letting you add ’accessory to murder by negligence’ to your rap sheet. We move the safe. Now."

They were at an impasse. A Mexican standoff in a smoking ruin. Rick, with his golf club. Sharon, with her pistol. And a half-dead musician bleeding out under a safe. The whole situation was so absurd, Rick almost laughed.

He stared at her, the seconds ticking by. 5 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes. He was furious. He could just walk past her. She wouldn’t shoot him. He knew she wouldn’t. But she was a cop. A dead body here, a witness... she was right, it was a complication. A mountain of paperwork and questions he didn’t have time for. Saving this idiot was, infuriatingly, the faster, cleaner option.

"Fine!" he roared, throwing the golf club to the ground. "You want to play hero? Fine! But we have sixty seconds! If we can’t get him out, I’m leaving, and you can either shoot me in the back or follow me!"

He stalked over to the safe. "It weighs three tons, Sharon! We can’t move it!"

"We don’t have to move it! We just have to lift it! Just an inch!" She was already scanning the wreckage.

Rick saw it, too. The bent 9-iron he’d used to start the fire. It was a solid piece of steel, and the shaft, while curved, was intact. He grabbed it, jammed the head under the heavy lip of the safe, and placed a small, shattered piece of a wooden crate under it to act as a fulcrum.

"This is it," he grunted, putting his full weight on the makeshift lever. "On three. I lift, you pull. One... two... THREE!"

Rick roared, throwing every ounce of his strength, every bit of his rage, into the bar. The steel shaft groaned, bending under the immense pressure, but it held. The edge of the safe lifted, just barely. An inch. Maybe two.

"NOW, SHARON! PULL!"

Sharon, her hands slippery with her own blood and his, grabbed Sparrow under the armpits and yanked. It was a mess of dead weight, broken limbs, and wet, tearing sounds, but with a final, desperate heave, she dragged his mangled body free.

Rick let the safe crash back down with a THUD that shook the floor.

They both collapsed, breathing heavily. Sparrow was a wreck. Both his legs were bent at angles that legs should not bend. He was bleeding from the head wound, his chest, everywhere. But he was, against all odds, still breathing. A low, wet, rattling sound.

"He’s not going to make it," Rick said, his voice flat. He was already on his feet, heading for the door.

"He is if we get him help," Sharon said, her voice trembling as she ripped a strip of cloth from a nearby designer suit to try and make a tourniquet.

Rick, furious at the delay, at the sheer, stupid waste of time, pulled his own phone out. It was cracked, but it still lit up. He jabbed at the screen. "This is your call, Sharon. You just wasted our only lead."

He dialed 911. "Ambulance," he barked into the phone. "Portstown Shipyard. Main container block. Man crushed under heavy machinery. Gunshot wound to the head. He’s dying. Hurry up." He hung up without waiting for a reply.

"There," he snapped. "My good deed for the decade is done. They’ll be here in five minutes. Let’s go."

"We can’t just leave!" Sharon protested, her hands slick with blood. "The ambulance... the police... I have to make a statement! I’m an officer!"

"And I’m on a clock!" Rick yelled. "You’re the cop. You stay. You handle the formalities. You tell them your story—lost hiker, magical explosion, whatever. I’ve got a laptop to find."

He turned and strode out of the container, into the cool night air, leaving her alone with the dying man.

He didn’t get two steps before the System chimed in his head, a sound that was now becoming deeply, deeply annoying.

[Ding!]

[System Notification: An impressive display of... something. You didn’t let him die. Weird, but okay. New opportunity available!]

[Quest: The Awkward Alliance]

[Objective: You need to find the targets, but they’re gone. You have no leads. The System can provide one. But the System requires... ’inter-personal synergy’ to unlock its advanced tracking features.]

[Task: Plant a passionate, convincing, 5-second kiss on Lieutenant Sharon Vintner.]

[Reward: 2-hour ’Live Location’ feed of ’Sparrow One’ and ’Sparrow Two’.]

[Penalty for Failure: Permanent loss of the ’System Quest’ feature. (The System will be too embarrassed to work with you.)]

Rick stopped dead in his tracks. He stood in the gravel, his back to the container, and just... processed. He read the prompt. He re-read it. He closed his eyes, counted to three, and opened them again. The quest was still there.

"You have got to be kidding me," he muttered under his breath.

He looked back into the container. Sharon was a vision from hell. She was covered in soot, her hair was singed, her face was smeared with Sparrow’s blood, and she was yelling at him.

"Did you hear me, Rick?! I said I’m not letting you just walk away! We’re in this together, you son of a—"

"Sharon."

His voice was strange, cutting her off. She paused. "What?! I’m busy saving a life you almost took!"

"I need to... uh... do something," he said, walking slowly back toward her. "For the mission. To find them."

"What? What are you talking about?" she said, scrambling to her feet, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Do what? Use your ’gut instinct’ again? Because you’re all out of birthday clues!"

"Sort of," Rick said. He was standing in front of her now, the heat from the fire outside washing over them. "Just... don’t shoot me."

"Don’t shoot you? What the hell does that—"

He didn’t let her finish. He grabbed her by the jacket, yanking her forward with a force that made her stumble. Before she could curse, before she could raise her hands, before she could even process what was happening, he mashed his lips against hers.

It was not romantic. It was a catastrophe.

It was all teeth, soot, adrenaline, and the metallic taste of Crimson Sparrow’s blood. Her eyes flew open, wide with sheer, unadulterated, brain-short-circuiting shock. She was so completely, profoundly stunned that she just stood there, frozen, her bloody hands hovering uselessly in the air.

Rick counted in his head. One... two... three... four...

[Quest Complete! Live Location Feed Activated.]

...five.

He let go. Sharon stumbled back, her hand flying to her mouth. She just stared at him, her entire mind a blue screen of death.

Rick, his face a mask of pure, professional focus, tapped his ear as if listening to an earpiece he didn’t have.

"Got ’em," he said, his voice crisp. "They’re heading north on the I-95. Moving fast. They’re already at the city limits. I have to go."

He turned and sprinted, leaping over the burning wreckage at the container’s entrance and disappearing into the night.

Sharon just stood there, her brain slowly, painfully, rebooting. She watched him go. She looked at her bloody hands. She looked at the dying musician on the floor. She touched her lips, which were now smeared with soot and God knows what else.

The sound of distant, approaching sirens finally broke her trance. She stared into the darkness where Rick had vanished.

"I... I hate him," she whispered, her voice trembling with a feeling she couldn’t even begin to identify. "I actually, genuinely, hate that man."