And then they were outside, bursting into the swirling snow and darkness, free from the trap.
Gunshots chased them into the night, muzzle flashes bright in the darkness behind them. Bullets sliced through the air where they'd been a second before. Some pinged off the fuselage with metallic impacts, one embedding itself in the tail frame with a thunk they could feel through the airframe.
But they were accelerating, climbing, putting distance between themselves and the ambush with every passing second.
Jin Boyuan's heart was hammering so hard he thought it might burst from his chest. His hands shook uncontrollably as he stared out at the darkness, unable to quite process that they'd just survived what should have been certain death.
He turned to look at Zhou Yuxi, and her expression was carved from ice, cold, hard, absolutely focused.
"Who the hell were those people?" he managed to gasp out. "How did they know we'd be here? How did they find us?"
