chapter 6

Chapter 6: Trapped by the Lease

​"Then let me die," Derrick whispered dangerously, his eyes dark and burning with raw fury as he stared down at me. "Because dying out there is still better than spending another day near you."

​His words hit me like a physical blow to the chest, but I didn't back down. I couldn't.

​Before he could turn away or grab his keys to pack up the shop, I stepped forward, blocking his path to the back exit. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but my voice remained ice-cold and steady—the voice of a ruthless commercial landlord, not a desperate ex-girlfriend.

​"You can't leave, Derrick," I said sharply.

​Derrick stopped, his broad shoulders tensing under his sweat-stained shirt. He slowly turned his head back toward me, a dark, cynical sneer twisting his mouth.

​"Try me," he muttered, taking a slow, menacing step closer. "You think because you bought this dirt-road block you can trap me here? I'll throw my tools in the back of my van tonight and drive so far out of this city you'll never see my face again."

​"You legally can't," I fired back, pulling a folded document from my tote bag and holding it out between us. "Check your lease agreement, paragraph twelve, section four. You signed a five-year commercial occupancy contract with the previous owner. When I bought the block this morning, I acquired every single existing lease intact."

​Derrick stared at the paper in my hand, his expression freezing.

​"A commercial lease isn't an apartment rental, Derrick," I pressed on, my eyes locked onto his. "You break that contract and walk away before your term is up, I won't just let you go. I will sue you for commercial breach of contract, freeze your business assets, and legally seize every piece of equipment, every wrench, and every vehicle currently parked on this lot."

​The silence in the garage became absolute. You could hear the distant hum of traffic outside, muffled by the heavy brick walls.

​Derrick’s face drained of color, replaced instantly by a dark, suffocating rage. The veins on his thick forearms bulged as he clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned stark white. He looked like a caged animal ready to tear through steel.

​"You... calculating bitch," Derrick whispered, his voice shaking with a quiet, lethal intensity. He closed the distance between us so fast I instinctively flinched, towering over me until I could feel the heat radiating off his body. "You bought the block just to trap me here? You set me up?"

​"I didn't set you up," I said, holding my ground even though my knees were trembling. "I secured your shop so Julian couldn't demolish it out from under you. You're staying right here, Derrick. Whether you hate me for it or not."

​"I don't need your protection!" he roared, slamming his fist against the metal shelf behind me, rattling the spare parts into a noisy heap. "I spent my whole life keeping my head above water without your rich-girl charity! Take your lease, take your money, and get the hell out of my sight before I forget you're a woman!"

​He shoved past me, his shoulder brushing mine with enough force to send me stumbling back a step. He marched out into the blinding afternoon sun, slamming the heavy side door of the garage behind him with a crash that echoed down the alleyway.

​I stood alone in the dim, grease-scented air of the shop, letting out a long, shaky breath.

​Hate me, I told myself, pressing a hand against my pounding chest. Scream at me, curse me, wish me dead. As long as you stay on this block, you'll be fifty feet away from my reinforced warehouse when the dead start walking. I'll take your hatred if it means keeping you breathing.

​I walked out of the front entrance of the shop, slipping away before Derrick could come back out and start another shouting match. I needed to get back to the northern valley bunker site. Vanguard Solutions was pouring the primary underground concrete slab today, and I needed to inspect the generator grid before dark.

​The sun was dipping low behind the city skyline as I drove my SUV north, cutting through the heavy evening traffic toward the quiet, forested hills.

​By the time I pulled past the tree line and onto the valley estate, the massive earth-moving tractors were shut down for the night. The heavy steel security hatch of the underground bunker sat open in the center of the clearing, surrounded by stacked crates of rebar and industrial cement bags.

​Sarah, the site manager, walked up to my car with a clipboard in hand, looking troubled.

​"Evelyn," she called out, shining a heavy flashlight beam toward the ground. "We ran into an unexpected snag during the deeper excavation on the eastern retaining wall."

​I stepped out of the car, pulling my jacket tight against the evening chill. "What kind of snag?"

​"We hit an underground water pocket or an old natural spring channel running straight beneath the lower storage bay," Sarah explained, tapping her pen against the blueprint. "If we pour the concrete foundation over this without rerouting the drainage, the pressure will crack the slab within six months. We need to dig a diversion trench immediately."

​"Can it wait until morning?" I asked, looking down into the dark opening of the hatch.

​"We could wait, but..." Sarah hesitated, her expression tightening. "While my crew was clearing the brush near the edge of our perimeter fence about twenty minutes ago, one of my guys found something weird."

​A cold spike of adrenaline pierced straight through my chest. Ninety days left. Nothing was supposed to breach this valley this early.

​"What did they find?" I asked, my voice dropping an octave.

​Sarah shined her flashlight toward the dense pine treeline fifty yards away.

​"An animal carcass," Sarah whispered, her voice uneasy. "Except it wasn't torn apart by wolves or coyotes. The flesh was... rotting off the bone in chunks, like it had some kind of aggressive necrosis, and the local stray dogs wouldn't even go near it. And that's not the worst part."

​She turned the clipboard toward me, pointing to a muddy footprint cast sitting on the edge of the desk.

​"One of my workers saw someone watching us from the ridge line ten minutes ago. When we went to check it out, we found fresh boot tracks. Someone is out there in the woods, Evelyn—and they're watching our perimeter."

​Before I could answer, a sharp, metallic clink echoed from deep inside the dark, open mouth of the underground bunker hatch behind us.

​Someone—or something—was already down in the dark, moving around beneath our feet.