CHAPTER 6: Extraction
CHAPTER 6: Extraction
I walked right up to Sarah. The distance between us felt like a mile, but my hands were completely steady. “Are you ready?” I asked her quietly, kneeling down on the cold marble floor.
She nodded, a fierce, burning light in her eyes. “Do it. Take it apart.”
I didn't reach for the heavy oak door. I didn't try to pry it open or waste my strength against the hydraulic system. Instead, I pulled my keychain from my pocket. Attached to it was a heavy-duty, stainless steel multi-tool I carried for adjusting her hardware on long trips. I flipped out the 4mm hex wrench.
“What are you doing down there?” Eleanor demanded, her voice losing its mocking tone and replacing it with a sharp spike of genuine apprehension. She couldn't see my hands through the thick, solid wood lower portion of the door blocking her view of the floor. “Julian! Stop touching that!”
I didn't answer her. I located the four heavy titanium bolts that secured Sarah’s custom-molded silicone socket to the trapped pylon.
“Hold onto my shoulder,” I told Sarah. She gripped my jacket tightly, balancing her entire weight on her right leg, her jaw clenched against the shifting pressure.
With quick, practiced motions, I inserted the hex wrench into the first bolt and cracked it loose.
Snap.
The sound of the tight metal releasing echoed sharply against the marble. I spun it out and dropped it. It clattered loudly, a small silver cylinder rolling away.
“Hey! Stop breaking the club’s property!” Richard Vance yelled from the crowd, trying to regain his posture of authority. “Security, get this man away from the door!”
I ignored him entirely. I moved to the second bolt. Snap. I spun it out.
“I said, what are you doing?” Eleanor yelled, banging the flat of her palm against the glass panel now. The composure was slipping; the polished socialite was beginning to look like a cornered animal. “Security! Where the hell is security?”
I cracked the third bolt. Then the fourth.
“Lift up,” I told Sarah.
She pushed off my shoulder with incredible core strength. With a sharp, wet sound of suction releasing, her custom silicone socket separated completely from the titanium pylon.
Sarah was free. She leaned heavily against me, and I quickly pulled a folding, high-strength carbon cane from the inside pocket of my coat—an emergency backup we always carried to large events. I snapped it open with a metallic whip-crack and handed it to her.
She took it, steadying herself, standing tall and defiant on her right leg, the cane supporting her left side.
Eleanor was suddenly staring through the glass at an empty socket. The heavy wooden door was still biting down viciously on the titanium pipe and the mechanical foot, but Sarah was no longer attached to it. She was standing five feet away, looking down at her stepmother.
“There,” Eleanor said, trying frantically to regain her composure, though her voice shook slightly at the edges. “Now take your broken wife and get out of my son’s wedding. You’ve left your garbage stuck in my door.”
May you like
I stood up slowly, dusting off the knees of my cheap suit pants. I looked at the crowd. I looked at Harrison, who looked like he was about to vomit. Then I looked straight through the glass into Eleanor’s pale eyes.
“You see, Eleanor,” I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that carried perfectly through the silent room. “The thing about aerospace-grade titanium is that it’s incredibly strong. But it’s hollow.”
