Cade Alton was seeing red, and it had nothing to do with Alicia Day’s hair color. She caught her balance against the edge of the table and eyed the woman, watching how she held her firearm, how it was pointed right at Brandt’s face, how tight her grip was on the weapon, how her finger rested loosely against the trigger. Cade gritted her teeth and backed up quickly, careful to keep her boots from making a sound on the carpeted floor. Her hands found the metal folding chair at the end of the table, and she eased it closed, hefted it into both hands, and took two brisk steps forward. Gripping the chair tightly, she swung it with all her strength and slammed it into the woman’s back.
Alicia staggered forward with the force of the blow. At the same time, Brandt brought his arm up and slammed his fist against Alicia’s hands, knocking her weapon to the floor. It tumbled across the carpet and disappeared into the darkness under a table.
Alicia caught herself on the tables to either side of her before she fell. She righted herself with a grace that Cade had only ever seen in Remy. Before Cade could react, Alicia twisted and lashed out with a foot. Her booted foot struck Brandt across the face as he reached for his sidearm, and knocked him flat on his back. Once he was temporarily out of commission, Alicia faced Cade with a grimace.
“Well, if it isn’t the bitch who caused me so many fucking problems,” Alicia snarled.
“If it isn’t the bitch who just took a cheap fucking shot like a coward by kicking me in the back of the knee,” Cade retorted. She slid easily into a defensive position, struggling to not be the first to launch an attack against the woman.
“Too bad I didn’t take a fucking cheap shot in your damned skull,” Alicia said. She raced forward and swung her fist in an arc, aiming for the side of Cade’s head. Cade put her own arm up and blocked the strike. A pang of pain shot through her forearm as Alicia’s knuckles struck her skin. She would have a bruise there in the morning.
Cade didn’t take the time to worry about her arm, though. Instead, she stepped forward, meeting Alicia head-on. She twisted her arm around and grasped the woman’s wrist, hauled her forward, and slammed her own fist into the woman’s nose. Cartilage gave under her fingers, and a spurt of blood accompanied the punch. Alicia staggered backward as blood poured down her upper lip and chin. The grimace twisting her face was made worse by the blood.
Alicia didn’t bother saying anything. She didn’t even cry out in pain at the strike. She only retaliated.
In a move that Cade found frightening, if only because of its speed, Alicia leaped onto a chair and then onto a table. She took three quick steps and kicked out. Her boot struck Cade’s chest, sending her stumbling back and falling to the floor as the pain of the boot’s impact radiated through her sternum. The air rushed from her lungs, and her head bumped the carpet hard enough that, for a moment, she saw stars.
Thankfully, the knock on her head wasn’t quite enough to distract her from Alicia’s next attack. Even as she struggled to get air flowing back into her lungs, Alicia launched herself off the table at Cade. Cade rolled flat on her back and kicked out with both feet. Her boots connected with Alicia’s midsection, and she pushed up, flipping the woman over her head and slamming her heavily to the floor.
Alicia uttered a low groan as Cade rolled to the side and climbed to her hands and knees before regaining her feet. She steadied herself with a hand against a table and pulled her Glock from its holster. Alicia still lay on the floor, conscious but her chest heaving, as if Cade had returned the favor of knocking the air from her lungs. She took a slow step toward Alicia as the other woman let out another groan.
Cade bumped the woman’s leg with the toe of her boot. “Don’t fucking move,” she ordered breathlessly. “But I suppose that goes without saying.”
Alicia’s eyes slid open, and she glared at Cade hatefully. Then she struck out again, her foot hooking behind Cade’s knee and pulling. Cade’s leg was jerked out from under her, and she toppled backward. The back of her head struck the edge of a table, and she yelped as she tumbled to the floor, stunned. Her Glock skittered out of her hand.
Alicia came into her line of view moments later, stepping over her and picking the dropped weapon up from the floor. She studied it for a moment before aiming it down at Cade’s face. Cade blinked at her stupidly. Her brain felt hazy, and the back of her head hurt like hell. She couldn’t get her thoughts together, couldn’t force her limbs to cooperate with her brain, couldn’t tell herself to move. She groaned and squeezed her eyes closed as Alicia pulled the slide of the Glock back—unnecessary, really, because Cade had already chambered a round. It was obviously meant to intimidate. And, frankly, it was working.
Cade forced her eyes open and looked up the barrel of her own gun.
“Stop right the fuck there!” a voice yelled. “Drop the fucking gun, or I swear to God I’ll drop you.”
Alicia froze, her eyes narrowing, as she looked up at the owner of the voice. Even Cade managed to tilt her head back, and just like that, a grin split her lips. Brandt stood near the spot where Alicia had knocked him out just a few moments before. A slow trickle of blood oozed down the side of his head and shone in his dark hair. His hands gripped his M-4 Carbine tightly but confidently. And his eyes held a hardness that Cade had never before seen in them, a hardness speaking of a catalog of awful things he wanted to do to Alicia for daring to threaten Cade’s life. Alicia seemed to sense the danger she was in; she moved the Glock from Cade and aimed it instead at Brandt as the Marine spoke.
“I’m going to give you one fucking chance,” Brandt said, his voice low and cold. He didn’t loosen his grip in the slightest on his weapon.
“One fucking chance to what?” Alicia bit out.
“One fucking chance to save your damned life,” Brandt snarled. Alicia tensed almost imperceptibly, but from her position on the floor, Cade couldn’t help but notice. As Brandt barked out his next statement, Cade slowly eased her hand underneath herself, slipping it down to the small of her back. “I want to know why the fuck you decided to do this.”
“Because somebody fucking had to!” Alicia replied. She tensed further, adjusting her grip on the weapon she’d pilfered from Cade. Cade held her breath as her fingers brushed the pommel of her survival knife. Almost there, she thought. Knife in a potential gunfight. Fucking brilliant. “You’ve got the cure! You’re supposed to save everybody!”
“Why didn’t you ask me like a sane person?” Brandt said, his voice rising in frustration. “Why didn’t you just fucking ask? You think I would have said no if you’d sat down and explained shit? Instead, you just come the fuck after me and kidnap Cade and endanger her life and mine and everybody else’s, and you fucking killed my friend, all because you decided to have a fucking psychotic break!”
“I’m not fucking psychotic!” Alicia yelled back viciously, glaring hatefully at Brandt. “Don’t you fucking dare call me that again!”
“Because of you, a good man is dead, Alicia! All because he dared to want to help a friend!” Brandt snarled. “So do not fucking tell me what I can and can’t call you! You’re fucking garbage if I want you to be!”
Alicia’s grip tightened on the Glock. Cade wasn’t sure if Brandt could see that from where he stood. She hoped he could. She inched her fingers farther down, wrapping them slowly around the hilt of the knife, and then just lay there, listening, as Brandt took several deep breaths and tried again.
“Alicia, you could still be of some use to people,” he said, his voice shaking slightly with his anger. “You could help people. You’ve got Michaluk in you too, and they were able to use you to develop the medications that helped the people here. There’s got to be some good still left in you.”
“I’m not going to be a guinea pig for those assholes!” Alicia shouted. “I’m not going through that shit again!”
She lifted the gun higher, as if adjusting her aim to point it more fully at Brandt’s head. Cade tensed as she saw the woman’s finger flex on the trigger.
It was now or never.
Cade rolled quickly away from Alicia, simultaneously ripping the knife free from its sheath on her belt. She swung it around as she moved, and buried the blade to its hilt in Alicia’s thigh.
Alicia cried out in pain and staggered backward. Her finger jerked reflexively on the trigger, and a bullet discharged with a bang into the wall just above Brandt’s head. He ducked instinctively, even as Cade scrambled to her feet and darted toward him.
Alicia didn’t wait to see what they would do next. As Cade faced her, the woman broke right, flung a door open, and dove inside at a fast limp. She slammed it shut behind her. Cade swore and staggered to the door, trying the knob and finding it locked.
“Fuck!” Cade exploded. She kicked the door in frustration and rattled the knob uselessly. “She’s going to get away!”
“Not from the fourth fucking floor she won’t,” Brandt pointed out. He pulled Cade away from the door and took her face in both his hands, looking her over carefully. She stared back at him and tried to appear confident and unperturbed, but the pain in her newly acquired bruises was beginning to set in. “Are you okay?” he asked seriously, touching a sore spot on her cheek.
“About as good as can be expected,” Cade admitted. “Now can we bust that bitch’s ass already?”
Brandt gave her a mock salute and knelt to look at the door’s lock. Then he rose, placed the barrel of his M-4 near the lock, and fired into it twice. The lock shattered under the onslaught of bullets, and Brandt put his foot to the door to kick it open. It swung open only a couple of inches before stopping short with a heavy whump. It took Cade a moment to realize that Alicia had thrown the security lock on the door. Brandt growled under his breath and put his weapon to the doorframe where the base of the lock was screwed into it. He nudged Cade farther back, much to her annoyance, closed his eyes, and turned his head away before squeezing the trigger two more times. The doorframe around the lock exploded with the impact, and with another hard kick, the door flew open and banged against the wall beyond.
A single gunshot snapped out. The bullet embedded itself into the wall behind Brandt, just barely missing his head. Wordlessly, reacting to the danger without even realizing it, Brandt lifted his rifle and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
There was a thud inside the room. And then silence.
“Please tell me you just ended this,” Cade murmured in the silence that followed. She eased toward the door, afraid she’d get shot if she stepped into the doorway. Standing in the doorway like he was didn’t seem to faze Brandt. She took that as a good sign, moving to stand beside him.
“I don’t know,” Brandt admitted. “Let’s find out, yeah? Then maybe we can get upstairs and give Ethan and Remy a hand. By now, they probably need it.”