Chapter 9 - THE SINS OF THE PAST
"Keep moving right now!" the father roared, shattering the absolute stealth they had desperately maintained. There was no point in hiding anymore. The intruder wasn't just in the house; he had hijacked the central network. The dark-haired woman scooped the boy into her arms, sprinting toward the reinforced garage door while the father fiercely stood his ground, poker raised.
A dark shadow detached itself from the gloom of the massive dining room. The man in the tactical mask stepped into the pale moonlight, his weapon raised with chilling precision. "Fifty seconds," the distorted voice mocked from the overhead speakers, completely out of sync with the silent killer approaching them. The man in the mask wasn't the mastermind either.
"Who the hell are you?!" the father screamed, throwing the heavy iron poker with all his might. The intruder easily deflected it, but the desperate distraction bought them two crucial seconds. The father brutally tackled the armed man, driving his shoulder into the attacker’s chest. They crashed through the glass dining table in a violent explosion of jagged shards.
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The dark-haired woman frantically punched the security code into the garage keypad. ERROR. The system flashed an unforgiving red. She tried again, her hands shaking violently. ERROR. SYSTEM LOCKDOWN. They were hopelessly trapped in the corridor. She spun around, watching the father take a brutal strike to the jaw. The intruder stood over him, raising the suppressed pistol.
Suddenly, the mother’s phone in the boy’s hand emitted a piercing, high-pitched frequency that echoed through the marble hallway. The smart speakers feedbacked with a deafening, agonizing screech. The intruder flinched violently, instinctively covering his ears. Taking the narrow opening, the dark-haired woman grabbed a shattered table leg and drove it fiercely into the intruder's exposed thigh.
