136 Eye Of The Inferno

"Caesar… Is that you?" Carol whimpered, looking up at the carnival mask. Who else could it be? She received a nod from the man.

"There's a bomb attached to me!" She exclaimed. "It's going to detonate in forty seconds! Why did you have to come to me now? You'll die with me needlessly!"

"I know," was the calm reply.

Carol was spiraling into panic and couldn't even think straight. Why would the man come to rescue her, knowing death was inevitable? It was clearly a suicide run!

"First, we need to get away from this gas station," the masked Victor told her.

Before Carol could react, he snipped the chains that held her to the pipeline. Then he picked her up like a doll and heaved her on the shoulders.

"What are you doing…" the young woman murmured. "The bomb-"

Whoosh! Victor cleared the gas station in one horizontal leap and covered over a hundred feet across the road. He skidded to a stop at the edge of the main road, overlooking the valley below.