by Tracy Deebs
I glance at Ezra, but he’s farther away from the bar than I am. I do the only thing I can think of. I grab one of the books lying open on the floor next to my head, and I throw it as hard as I can.
It slams into the back wall of the penthouse, and gunfire explodes yet again.
I wait for the bullets to stop—for them to reload, I assume—then poke my head out just enough to see the guy closing in on the bar again. But this time there’s nothing I can do to stop him from finding Harper.
Turns out I don’t have to do anything, though, because the moment he gets within range, Harper reaches out and stabs something into his leg as hard as she can. As he howls, she pulls it out and stabs him again. Then again and again.
He falls to the ground, screaming and clutching his leg. He’s making enough noise to wake the dead, and it’s all the distraction I need. Grabbing a decorative glass orb that landed a few feet from me when it was shot off its shelf, I pop up from behind the chair. Then I use every ounce of strength I have to fire the thing straight into the back of the head of the nearest bad guy.
He drops like a rock, his forehead striking the floor as he falls.
At the same time, Harper grabs a crystal decanter from behind the bar and brings it down on the head of the guy she stabbed. Then she does it again. The girl obviously has some serious anger issues—not that I blame her. I’m feeling pretty pissed myself.
The third guy races toward me, gun raised as he fumbles ammunition into it, and that’s when Seth strikes. He leaps up from behind the couch, grabs the only lamp still standing—a huge gray-and-white marble monstrosity—and swings for the fences.
He connects, the lamp slamming into the man’s shoulder with a sickening crunch. He drops the gun as he falls to the floor. This time Seth brings the lamp down on his head.
I don’t wait around to see any more. Instead, I’m up and running, dragging Alika behind me, and shouting, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” as I race for the front door.
The others are right with us. But before we can get there, I hear the elevator opening, followed by shouting in some language I don’t recognize. That’s all it takes to make me change course and race for the stairs, Alika’s hand still clutched in mine.
The others follow suit, and we hit the stairs just as two more men burst into the apartment, guns raised. We drop hard, crawling up the stairs as bullets rain down around us. And can I just say, screw Ezra and his damn open apartment with his damn open staircase. Because seriously, this is freaking ridiculous.
Another searing pain strikes my arm, and this time it hurts so bad that both of my arms crumple and my face smacks into the stairs.
“Come on, Owen! Come on!” Alika says as she half drags me to the top of the stairs.
We make it to the top just as the two men hit the bottom of the stairs, and then it’s a full-on race to the master bedroom.
Ezra slams the door shut and locks it as I race toward the closet.
“Other closet!” he shouts. “All the way in the back!” He pauses just long enough to slide a huge chest of drawers in front of the door, then follows us into the closet.
I call the elevator, and as we wait for it to come—if it’s a private elevator, why the hell isn’t it here already?—bullets fly against the bedroom door. They’re followed by a loud crashing noise as the chest topples over and hits the floor.
Ezra slams the closet door closed and locks it just as the elevator door finally—finally—slides open. We jam into it, and I press the only button I can, P, followed by the CLOSE DOOR button over and over again.
The elevator door starts to slide shut just as the closet door bursts open. The last thing I hear as we start racing down, down, down is the sound of bullets striking the metal doors.
27
Harper
(5p3ct3r)
“Oh God! You’re bleeding!”
“I’m fine,” the Lone Ranger says, though the blood pouring out of his arm tells a different story.
“You’re bleeding,” I repeat. “That’s not fine.”
“I’m aware. But I’m also alive and walking, so the fact that I’m bleeding is the least of our problems right now.”
“What was that?” Mad Max murmurs, sounding as shell-shocked as I feel.
“That was Jacento striking back at us,” Silver Spoon says. “And winning.” He’s currently cradling Buffy’s hands in his, and I realize that she’s bleeding too. Both her arms and one hand are all cut up, like she rolled in glass. Which isn’t totally outside the realm of possibility with what just happened up there.
Before I can comment, though, the elevator opens into the parking garage, and we all pile out.
Silver Spoon dashes over to a locker on the wall and programs in a number, and a key slides out. “Come on, let’s get out of here before they make it down to finish off the job.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the police?” Mad Max asks.
“Shouldn’t they already be here?” the Lone Ranger follows up. “What’s the point of having a forty-million-dollar penthouse if they don’t even call the cops when somebody shows up to shoot the place to hell and back?”
Despite our questions, we all follow Silver Spoon as he runs to a black Lexus GX and unlocks it.
“They had silencers,” I answer as I wait for the Lone Ranger to slide in and then climb in next to him. “On the guns. The gunshots were loud to us because silencers don’t actually silence guns, but if the penthouse is anywhere near soundproofed—”
“It is,” Silver Spoon interjects.
“Then there’s no way anyone but us heard what went on up there. If they came in carrying a pizza after you told the front desk you were calling for takeout, no one would even think something was wrong.” I shrug out of my hoodie, then turn to the Lone Ranger. “Did you cut yourself on all the glass, or did you get shot?”
“I’m pretty sure I got shot.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” I wrap the hoodie around his biceps to try to stanch the bleeding.
“Hey, at least I can cross it off my bucket list.”
“Good point.” I try to grin at him to show him it’s okay. “I mean, what kind of boring person doesn’t have getting shot on their bucket list?”
Snow White is peering worriedly at him from the front seat. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital. Now!”
“We can’t,” Silver Spoon tells her as he backs out of the parking spot and races toward the garage exit. “They have to report gunshot wounds to the police.”
“Fine!” Snow White shoots back. “Let them report it. We need to call the police anyway.”
“And tell them what?” the Lone Ranger asks through gritted teeth. “That we’re the six people who broke into Jacento today, caused major accidents on two different freeways, and wreaked havoc with the BART trains? I’m pretty sure that doesn’t end too well for us.”
“We’re just going to have to explain,” Mad Max says. “Show them the evidence and—”
“Don’t you get it? There is no evidence,” Silver Spoon barks.
“What do you mean, no evidence?” Buffy cries. “We have—”
“Nothing,” he interrupts. “We have nothing.”
“Oh no.” The Lone Ranger looks like he’s going to be sick as the truth sinks in.
“Ezra’s right,” I tell them. “Unless someone had a chance to upload something to the cloud when they got back to the apartment, everything we managed to get from those damn servers is in the apartment. Or it was, considering we left it in the hands of two guys from Jacento. It’s probably destroyed by now.”
As I explain, I urge the Lone Ranger to hold his arm over his head, then help him hold it in place, as he’s weak from loss of blood and being shot. Right away the bleeding turns from steady to sluggish.
“Oh my God,” Buffy moans. “Oh my God, ohmyGod, OHMYGOD! You mean we did all this for nothing?”
“Less than nothing,” Silver Spoon answers, jaw working tightly.
“Considering you’re hurt, Owen’s shot, we’re on Jacento’s radar, and we lost everything anyway.”
“And your apartment was just shot to hell,” Mad Max reminds him, like any of us could forget. “What are you going to tell your parents?”
Before Silver Spoon can answer—and seriously, what’s he going to say?—a fire truck rushes past us. Seconds later, two more come barreling after it. Suddenly I’ve got a really bad feeling in my stomach.
Turning around to look out the back window, I watch as, sure enough, they stop in front of Silver Spoon’s building. “What are the odds someone in the building had a random fire the same time hit men decided to break into your condo and try to kill us?” I ask as he turns the corner and the fire trucks vanish from view.
“Pretty much zero,” the Lone Ranger answers grimly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“You think they set the penthouse on fire?” Mad Max asks. “To cover their tracks?”
Silver Spoon groans as he slams his hands down on the steering wheel. “My mom loves that damn penthouse. She’s going to be so pissed. And I know that’s the least of our worries right now, but come on!” He hits the steering wheel again.
He makes another turn, and it suddenly occurs to me that we’re not racing randomly through the streets. It’s obvious that he has a destination in mind.
I’m not the only one who notices, because Buffy asks, “Where are we going?”
“To a drugstore to get some stuff to clean you and Owen up. And then to the Majestic. My family keeps a suite at every hotel we own.”
“There’s a CVS!” Mad Max says suddenly.
“It’s where I’m heading,” Silver Spoon swings over to the curb way too fast.
“But how are we going to pay?” Buffy asks. “All our stuff—”
“I’ve got my wallet,” the Lone Ranger says, his voice fainter than it was a little while ago. “I had it in my hand when the shooting started.”
“Thank God!” Snow White climbs out of the front seat, then opens the passenger door and leans in. “Which pocket?”
“The right front one. But why are you the one going in?” He doesn’t look pleased.
“Because Ezra’s driving, and I’m the only other one in the car not covered in blood. So, looks like I’m nominated.”
She’s right. Mad Max has been in the back trying to help Buffy, so he’s got almost as much blood on him as I have on me. Not to mention he’s shirtless, since he obviously had the same idea about stanching the blood flow as I did. And both Buffy and the Lone Ranger look like they’ve been through a war, and lost, so… she’s pretty much our only choice.
“I don’t want you going in alone.”
She smiles sweetly at him. “Well then, next time don’t get yourself shot.” Before he can say anything else, she slams the door in his face.
“Dude,” Mad Max tells him from his spot in back, “sexism is so last century.”
“I wasn’t being sexist. I was being concerned! We’re being hunted, and she’s in there alone.”
“She’ll be fine,” Silver Spoon says as he pulls back into traffic, but he doesn’t sound any happier about Snow White going in alone than the Lone Ranger does. Still, it’s a no-stopping zone in front of the CVS, so we’ve got to circle the block as we wait for her to come back out or risk attracting police attention. And since we’ve spent most of the day trying to avoid just that… circle, it is.
“What are we going to do?” Buffy asks, voice high and panicked, as we drive around the block. “What are we going to do?”
“I already told you—” Silver Spoon starts.
“No, I mean after we get cleaned up. What are we going to do? They’ve got our IDs, our computers, our clothes. They know where we live—”
“They’ve always known where we live,” the Lone Ranger reminds her.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t always want to kill us! So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” he admits.
“Well, we better figure it out! Are they going to go to our houses? Are they going to hurt our families?” She’s getting more hysterical with each word she says, her breathing growing more and more ragged. “We can’t even get home without our IDs. We have to warn them. We have to—”
I reach over the back of the seat and slap her. Not hard, but enough to get her attention. “Stop it!” I order as she and Mad Max stare at me in shock. “You’re panicking so much you’re hyperventilating, and that’s not going to help anyone, especially yourself, considering the amount of blood you’ve lost.”
“I think I have a right to panic! We’re totally screwed here!”
“Yeah, well, freaking out about it isn’t going to solve anything, so—”
“What if they go after my family?”
“I think we’re all in the same boat when it comes to our families,” Mad Max says in a soothing voice. “We need to calm down and try to figure this out—”
“We’re not all in the same boat! I have five brothers and sisters I have to take care of! My dad barely comes out of his room since my mom died, and I’m all they have. If something happens to me, they’ll be all alone. I can’t do that to them. And what if they go after them to get to me? They’re defenseless. They—”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Just that quickly, Mad Max becomes the voice of reason. “There’s no need to panic yet. It’s not like they’re going to get to San Antonio in the next hour. Once we get to the hotel, we’ll get you and Owen cleaned up, and then we’ll figure out the rest of this.”
“How? How are we going to figure it out? We’re completely screwed. How are we going to do anything?”
Before any of us can come up with an answer, Silver Spoon spots Snow White on the curb, and he pulls over to pick her up. She climbs into the car, arms loaded with bags.
“I pretty much bought out the first-aid department,” she says as she drops the bags on the car floor. “And I got some juice and candy bars for Owen and Issa,” she says, handing me two cold bottles of cranberry juice. I pass one to Mad Max for Buffy, then twist the cap off the other and hold it out for the Lone Ranger. “The sugar will help keep your body from going into shock,” Snow White continues. “And I even got a T-shirt for Seth.”
She pauses, brows raised, when she realizes how quiet we all are. “What’s going on?” she asks. “What’d I miss?”
I keep my mouth shut since I don’t have a clue where to start. But neither does anyone else, it seems, so we all just kind of stare blankly at her.
Finally, Silver Spoon says, “We’ll fill you in at the hotel. But can you do me a favor and reach into the glove compartment? There’s a leather portfolio beneath the car manual. Pull that out and open it to the back. There should be a key card to the Majestic in there.”
“I hate to be the one to bring up even more obstacles,” the Lone Ranger says, “but how are you going to get Issa and me through the lobby of the Majestic without causing a major crisis? I’m pretty sure they frown on blood on their Italian marble floors.”
“We can go from the parking garage straight to our suite, without going through the lobby,” he answers. “We try to build all our hotels like that when we can.”
I urge the Lone Ranger to take a sip of the cranberry juice, but he’s not interested. I’ve never been shot before, but I’m pretty sure the pain is worse than he’s letting on. Still, Snow White’s right. He has to drink something—not just for the sugar content, but to make up for all the blood he’s lost.
A couple of minutes later, Silver Spoon swings into the Majestic’s parking garage. And I have to say, usually parking garages all look alike, but at the Majestic, even the garage is swanky. It’s one more glimpse into how the other half lives, and it’s strange. I mean, who needs a fancy parking garage as long as your car is safe?
But that’s the last thing I need to worry about right now. Silver Spoon stops in front of the elevator and hands me the key card. “Get them upstairs. The suite’s on
the twenty-second floor, room 2207. I’ll be up as soon as I park.”
“We’re not leaving you alone!” the Lone Ranger argues. “What if we were followed?”
“If we were followed, then we’re screwed anyway. So go!” The look he shoots me in the rearview mirror says it’s my job to get them moving—and to take care of them. So with a quick glance over my shoulder to tap Mad Max for help, that’s what I do.
I climb out of the SUV and all but pull the Lone Ranger out while Mad Max does the same for Buffy. Snow White’s not budging from the front seat, but then, I didn’t expect her to. The girl’s got more backbone than I gave her credit for all those weeks ago.
The Lone Ranger’s listing a little by the time I get him to the elevator, and I drape his good arm over my shoulder so he can lean on me. He winces as I press against him, and it’s not until I feel wetness seeping through the side of my shirt that I realize. “Oh my God! You were shot twice!”
“I’m fine,” he grinds out.
“Shot twice is not fine,” Buffy hisses at him.
“Says the girl with the arms and hand cut to hell,” he hisses back.
“It’s really just one arm,” she tells him. “And my hand isn’t that bad.”
“Oh, because that makes it so much better.” He’s obviously still got some fight in him, but he’s pale, really pale, and it’s freaking me out a little. Bandaging his wounds is one thing, but what are we going to do if he needs stitches? Or a blood transfusion?
The elevator comes before I can sink into too much of a panic, thank God. And then we’re shooting up to the second floor, which is as high as the elevator goes. It bypasses the lobby, though, so I shouldn’t complain—except Silver Spoon totally forgot to mention the whole traversing what feels like a two-mile-long bridge to get to the next elevator.
We pass a bunch of people, all of whom look either horrified or concerned at the sight of us. None stop us, but a couple look like they’re planning on calling hotel security. I can’t blame them, I guess.