“I think he’s a puppet.”
“For who?” Chris asked.
“For their real ringleader. I saw the guy’s face, but I don’t know his name,” Veronica said. She held a hand up as she scanned around another corner and motioned for them to follow again. “It was the guy that broke into my apartment and tortured me.”
“God, I’m sorry,” Chris said. “I’m sorry for all this shit.”
He took his arm away from Robin and stood on his own now.
“You don’t need help?” Robin asked, reaching out in case he stumbled.
Chris shook his head.
“Sure?”
“I think I’ll be fine,” he said, though he massaged his temple with one hand. He stared at Veronica. “The guy who...the guy who tortured you is responsible for this?”
“That would be my bet.”
They crept through another corridor of the maintenance hallway, still eerily empty.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chris asked.
“They threatened my family. If I went to the police or said anything to you, they’d take me down.” She stopped in the hall and pulled her sleeve up to reveal her upper arm. “Crap.”
“What is it?” Robin asked.
Veronica pointed to a small bump pushing up her skin. “They implanted something in me that day in the apartment. I think it’s a biometric chip or something. They use it to track me.” She glanced at Chris. “You have that scalpel Robin gave you?”
“Veronica...”
She ignored him and looked at Robin. “I’m generally good with a knife, but I’m used to cutting canvas and shaping clay. Do you mind?”
“If it’s just a subcutaneous implantation, I can probably remove it,” Robin said. “You think it needs to be out now?”
Veronica nodded. “We don’t want them to follow us when we escape, so yes. I think it needs out now.”
Robin took the scalpel from Chris. Her fingers twitched slightly. Her nerves were still frayed from the earlier skirmish, but she steadied the blade against Veronica’s skin. “You ready?”
“Cut the damn thing out.”
Robin pressed the knife edge along the skin, and a thin trickle of blood followed. Veronica winced but made no sound. Her fingers still trembling, Robin cut away the tissue around the hard granuloma encapsulating the tiny chip. From Sharp’s bed, she tore a strip of the white cotton sheet.
Sharp coughed, his eyes half opened. “You can never get away from them.”
“You’re awake?” Robin asked, incredulous.
Again he coughed, and blood trickled out of his mouth. His eyes fluttered open before closing again.
Robin turned her attention back to Veronica, tied the strip of sheet around her arm, and tightened it. “It’s not perfect. So you’re going to need to apply some extra pressure until we can get you stitched up right. Okay?”
Gritting her teeth, Veronica nodded.
“They won’t give up,” Sharp said, his words slurred, eyes still closed.
“What the hell are you talking about? Who is ‘they’?” Chris asked.
A loud crash echoed from around the corner where the hall formed a T-intersection. A rush of footsteps followed, and voices cried out.
“They’re after us,” Robin said, hoisting the pistol. She put her finger over the trigger and leveled the handgun toward where the sounds emanated. But she couldn’t imagine pulling the trigger. She’d never felt the weight of a gun in her hand, never expected it to be so heavy. And the thought of firing it into someone’s chest frightened her. She grabbed Chris’s shoulder with a free hand. “How are you feeling?”
The voices and footsteps grew louder.
“Better,” he said, in a low voice. “My vision’s fine, but my head’s pounding.”
Robin held up the pistol, offering it to him handle first. “Can you take this?”
He nodded as if understanding her reservations about the firearm. After examining it, he brought it up. His arms shook slightly as he aimed at the intersection. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead.
Sharp started coughing again, and Robin put a hand over his mouth. His eyelids quivered and his face turned red, but she kept him quiet as Veronica and Chris pressed themselves against the wall and behind a set of vertical pipes.
Three people rushed by. Robin held her breath, awaiting the blasts and screams.
But there was no sound.
The runners sprinted by, not bothering to glance down the hall.
Robin exhaled. “They didn’t see us?”
Chris stared at the intersection as the footsteps quieted. “I guess not. I can’t believe they missed us.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Veronica said. “I think we take one last left, and at the end of the hall is the door they brought me through.”
She led them as Robin and Chris pushed the senator’s rolling bed. Robin cringed each time one of the wheels from the bed squeaked, sending a piercing screech resounding down the passageway.
“I think this is it,” Veronica said. She cracked the door open. “Looks like we’re clear.”
“Before we move out there, what’s the game plan?”
Veronica’s brow creased in wrinkles, her hand steady against the door. “I think there’s an elevator out there.”
“Wait a second. We need to go down?”
“No. We need to go up,” Veronica said. “We’re in the basement.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, they’ve been nice enough to let me stay around here for a couple weeks.” She scowled. “Took me down and locked me up, right across the hall there.”
They heard more shoes clacking against the tiled floor and withdrew into the maintenance corridor. Chris backed away and pointed the pistol at the front door.
“They’re riled up,” he said. “It’s too crazy out there. How’s Sharp?”
Robin pressed her fingers to his wrist. His pulse felt weak. She peeled open one of his eyelids. He had fallen unconscious again, but the light caused his pupil to dilate.
“Do you think we could lift him? Or would that be too dangerous?” Chris asked.
“He’s not in great shape, but I think we should be able to move him,” Robin said. “It’ll probably cause him some pain, but he’ll live.”
“Think you can handle him, Veronica?”
She nodded and stretched out her limbs. As she did, the makeshift sheet bandage around her arm revealed a growing crimson stain. “I think I can manage.”
With relative ease, she hoisted Sharp over her shoulder. A loud groan escaped his lips.
“You still got those comm cards?” Chris asked.
Veronica nodded and handed them to him. She held her pistol out for Robin to take. At first, Robin refused, shaking her head. She had ridded herself of her weapon and pawned it off on Chris, but that effort seemed wasted now.
“You’ve got to take it,” Veronica said.
Robin chewed her bottom lip as she accepted the gun and turned it over in her hands. Fine. Despite her protests to the contrary back in the lab, she was used to saving lives, not taking them. The thought of ending someone’s life, when she actually considered it, sickened her.
“Okay,” he said. “So I was knocked out when they brought me here, and Robin was too. You know where you’re leading us?”
Veronica shrugged, the gesture appearing difficult with the senator draped over her shoulder. “It was maybe a couple of weeks ago since they imprisoned me in this hellhole.”
Chris’s eyes widened. “God, I didn’t know they had you that long.”
“I, for one, am not interested in sticking around any longer,” Robin said. Each second they delayed and discussed their options was another second they could be escaping and distancing themselves from these people. She wanted to move, to go anywhere away from here. “So can we make a plan and get going?”
“If I remember everything right and we make it to where the elevators are, there’s a set of stairs leading up to
, I think, the parking lot,” Veronica said.
“And we’re just supposed to run up to cars until we find one that responds to one of the comm cards?” Robin asked. She began to feel hopeless, wondering if they’d make it out alive or if this all was just a fool’s errand.
“Exactly,” Veronica said. “That is, of course, if the comm cards actually open a car.”
“Worst-case scenario, we have our hostage,” Chris said.
He took another glance out the door, and more rushed footsteps could be heard. But they weren’t coming from outside.
“Hey,” a voice said, calling from behind them in the maintenance hall. “The Feds are on their way. Stop standing around and start following the cleanup protocol. I was told we still have hostages in the—”
The voice belonged to a tall man dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved collared shirt. His mouth dropped open as he evidently realized who he was now talking to. He whipped out his pistol. “You all need to stop right there.”
“Move!” Chris said, ushering out Robin and Veronica with the senator over her back.
The man fired. Bullets slammed against the metal door as Chris slipped through.
“This way,” Veronica said, charging down the hall.
A door opened behind them, and another two cronies stepped out. “What the hell?”
Robin sprinted beside Veronica. Twisting her body with the senator slung over her shoulder, Veronica ducked low to avoid the shots as Robin fired off three rounds. Two bullets cracked the floor tile and another cut through a ceiling light. Adrenaline crushed her reluctance to defend herself and her allies, and pulling the trigger became less about conscious thought and more about a desperate determination to live.
The thugs jumped behind a door and returned fire.
Gunfire echoed down the hall as they rounded the corner. Veronica’s feet slipped out from under her with the senator’s weight dragging her down. Robin gasped before leaping to help her up. Chris grabbed Veronica’s arm to steady her, and more shouts chased them down. The hall opened up into a lobby. Shining metal elevator doors greeted them at one end. A red exit holosign projected above one set of doors leading to a stairwell.
“Those,” Veronica said.
She threw her shoulder into the door. The senator yelled in pain as his head hit the door frame, but she pushed on. Robin followed, and Chris fired off several more shots. As he leapt into the stairwell, more bullets plunged into the door.
“There are more of them,” Chris said. “And I can’t get a shot on anyone. I feel like I’m firing blind.”
They rushed up the stairs.
“The best you can do is slow them down,” Veronica said between breaths. “If that guy was right, if the Feds are raiding this place, we just have to stay alive until they arrive.”
Robin found herself wishing they’d waited back in that room, back where they had injected Sharp with his treatment, back where they could hole up and stay hidden. But she knew that was foolish. There was no way they could’ve known anyone planned to rescue them. Besides, the same man that had at first mistaken them for being on his side had also been ordered to help eliminate the hostages.
Hell, if they had stayed, even the police or the FBI or whoever was coming might not have found them.
“One of you with a gun needs to lead,” Veronica said.
Robin shook the worries and thoughts from her mind. She needed to focus. “Got it.” She slid up past Veronica, peeked out the thin glass window to the parking garage, and kicked open the door. “Clear.”
They ran between the cars lined up in rows between concrete pillars, and Chris slipped the comm cards from his pocket with one hand. “It doesn’t look like we’re getting anything yet.”
They sprinted along the aisles until several sudden blasts sounded outside the parking structure. Robin dove behind a car. Chris and Veronica followed.
But no one else appeared in the garage with them.
“What the hell?” Chris said. He peeked around the car then over the concrete wall of the parking garage.
Robin joined him. A road in front of the building led to the highway. Otherwise, trees surrounded them on all sides. Just beyond the tree line, a figure crouched as two others fired at him. The pair of gunmen took cover behind a dumpster. Another two bodies lay sprawled on the lawn between the building and the trees. Neither moved. A red stain soaked the shirt of one, and the other’s face remained buried in the grass.
“That’s Jordan,” Chris said, pointing to the lone figure at the edge of the woods. “What the hell is he doing?”
“I always knew that guy loved you,” Veronica said. Chris shot her a skeptical look as she laid the senator against a car. “Probably coming in thinking he’d save you.”
Two more individuals joined the fray, firing at Jordan. They moved to flank him.
“I’ve got to help.”
“What are you going to do?” Veronica said. “None of us can shoot worth a damn, and we’re still outgunned.”
“I don’t know,” Chris said, standing. “You two stay here.” He handed Robin the two comm cards and dashed off.
“Chris!” Veronica stood but didn’t chase after him. She shook her head, her mouth open. “He has never listened to me.”
“I don’t want to sit here,” Robin said. She eyed Veronica’s wound. Blood soaked through the once-white fabric. “Will you still be okay with Sharp?”
“I can manage. You don’t plan on following Chris, do you?”
“He’s going to get himself killed.” She knew she hadn’t satisfactorily answered Veronica’s question, but the thought of letting Chris flounder in his attempt to help Jordan seemed unacceptable.
“Yeah.” Veronica remained silent for a moment as if in thought. “We can’t let the two of them die like this.”
Robin toyed with the comm cards. They wouldn’t be of much help if they sprinted after the two men without bringing anything substantial to the gunfight. “We need that car.” She started off again, sprinting between vehicles and trying their handles.
The echoes of gunfire outside the concrete parking structure made her task more urgent.
She tried several more. Shots rang out, and sweat trickled down her back. Veronica’s breaths became shallower and more frequent.
Robin gripped another door handle. One of the comm cards glowed green in her hand. Her heart beat faster, and the car revved on. The front door opened automatically. “We’ve got one.”
Perspiration matted Veronica’s hair as she lumbered toward the silver Infinity. Robin opened the back door and helped her lower Sharp into the back. His eyelids stayed closed, but his skin appeared a deeper red. The purple and blue splotches seemed to have spread.
“Can you drive?” Veronica said. She held her left arm. Blood trickled between the fingers of her right hand as she pressed the sodden cloth against her wound. “I’m hurting.”
Robin nodded and tried to put on a confident face as she slipped into the driver’s seat. It had been years since she’d manually driven a car. After slipping the vehicle into reverse, she pressed on the gas, and it jolted backward. She slammed on the brake and heard the thump of Sharp’s body hitting the rear passenger window.
“You’ve got this,” Veronica said. “Let’s pick the boys up and get the hell out of here.”
She pressed her foot into the pedal and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Tires squealed, and the car fish-tailed before catching hold. They rocketed down and out of the parking garage.
Six of the men and women with guns were now firing on Chris and Jordan. Chris huddled behind a fountain in front of the building as he took several potshots. Jordan hadn’t moved from the woods.
Robin drove to Chris first and kicked open the front passenger door. She ducked as a couple of bullets pierced the hood of the car, leaving puckered holes. “Get in!”
Chris jumped in and slammed the door shut. “Thanks.” Panting, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Another
bullet smashed against the passenger-side window. The glass cracked but withstood the impact.
They took off again. The gunmen on the lawn fired on the car. The windshield spider webbed, and more holes punched through the hood. She wondered how many bullets the luxury vehicle could swallow before it left them stranded and in the line of fire from their assailants.
With those worries residing in her head, she drove toward the sidewalk and lawn leading to the woods. A sickening scraping sound resounded through the cabin as the car jumped the curb. It whipped back and forth. She struggled to keep it straight on the slick grass.
The clamor of bullets across the car’s hood encouraged her to keep her head low. One of the gunmen who’d been advancing on Jordan swiveled in the middle of the lawn and fired on them. She aimed the car at him. He continued to fire, and she ducked lower, just enough to keep her eyes above the steering wheel. More cracks formed across the windshield, making it practically opaque and obscuring her vision.
At the last second, the gunman jumped, but Robin’s grip on the steering wheel slipped.
“Shit!” She tried to control the vehicle again but the car careened into the man, and he flew off to the left.
Bullets slammed into the side of the car. Each bump in the lawn jostled Robin, but she stared forward through the cracks, determined to reach Jordan.
The trees grew nearer. The gunfire continued. Robin leaned onto the brakes. But she flew up when the car hit another bump, and her foot fell off the pedal. She countersteered to regain control, but the car slid sideways. It slammed into a tree trunk. In the midst of shattering glass and crunching metal, momentum threw her body against the door. The front airbags deployed in a cloud of dust, but they provided inadequate protection as her head hit the driver-side window.
For a moment, Robin’s ears rang. She blinked as her eyes regained focus. Chris cracked his door open and exchanged salvos. After two shots, his gun clicked uselessly.
“I’m out,” he said. He shut the door. Gunfire crackled outside.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” Robin said. A tree pinned her door closed.
Only yards away, Jordan sprinted from his position and opened the rear passenger door. Panting, he scanned the group. “Is there anybody else in that building that needs to come with us?”
The Black Market DNA Series: Books 1-3 Page 49