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GLANCING AT THEO, I hauled my butt into gear. We burst out into the bedroom and grabbed our weapons. Hiking our boots on, we dashed out into the hall. People were running from right to left, headed for the elevator and the upper floors.
I couldn’t tell what was happening. Was it a fire alarm, or had something else happened? Maybe New Dawn had let loose one of its nuclear weapons. But how could that be? I was under the impression that they needed the digital key that had just been removed from my shoulder to activate the bombs. Hopefully, this was just a drill, and we could clear it up with a quick trip to the command center.
But as we ran down the hall, an announcement came over the PA system.
“This is not a drill,” the computerized voice said. “Hostile forces have infiltrated the base.”
I turned a corner and immediately heard a bullet whiz by my head. Ducking back under cover, I pulled out my piece. Theo hurried up behind me, and I put out a hand to stop him. He complied easily, hugging the wall to my right.
We were boxed in. I had never followed the hallway past our quarters, but it was looking like that was the only escape. The elevators lay beyond the enemy, and we couldn’t reach them without knowing what we were dealing with.
Another few shots dug themselves into the wall opposite us. I waved my gun back the way we’d come. Theo didn’t wait for an invitation but followed my directions, jogging backward so that he could keep his eyes trained on the advancing horde.
I leaned out from under cover and fired a few shots. I couldn’t aim properly because I didn’t have any armor. I wasn’t going to open myself up to injury by stepping into the line of fire, but I wanted our enemies to know we were armed.
In response to my volley, another dozen shots rang out. That gave me some good intel. We weren’t dealing with a spray-and-pray situation. Whoever was firing on us was using targeted strikes with a semi-automatic. That meant they were well trained, not mere thugs or hired hands.
I hurried back the way Theo was going, providing cover as he hightailed it down the hall. We passed our bunk and took a left. There was nothing but crew quarters and dozens of tiny rooms with no exits. We couldn’t duck into any of those if we wanted to survive.
I fired into the distance as we ran, making sure anyone who was pursuing us knew not to get too close. By the time I ducked past the next corner, I narrowly missed getting hit in the back. They were closing in, and we didn’t even know who they were.
“What’s going on?” another Dark Sparrow operative asked, joining up with us in the hallway.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Is there a way out this way?”
“There’s another elevator at the end of the hall,” the new girl replied.
“Let’s go,” Theo suggested, leading the way until we reached the second elevator shaft.
I pushed the button to call the car, but before we could climb inside, gunfire shot through the air, piercing the metal doors in front of me. I ducked, swinging my gun around to return fire. There was no cover, and nothing between us and the enemy but empty air.
The woman beside us fell, her chest opening up as a bullet caught her between the ribs. Blood mushroomed into the air, nearly vaporized by the speed of the attack. She tumbled to the ground, her gun sliding away.
Behind us, the elevator doors slid open, allowing us to crowd inside. There was very little space between the door and the wall, but I flattened myself into the corner and prayed for deliverance. I could hear boots rushing toward us, and the steady punctuation of ammunition against the wall beside me.
Theo was holed up opposite, snaking his hand around to fire at the oncoming force. I joined him in the effort, and together, the two of us managed to hold off the enemy until the elevator doors shut us in.
“They’re not going to let us get very far,” I announced.
“Go down,” Theo instructed. “They’ll expect us to go up.”
“No,” I said, pushing the button for the floor right above. “We have to reach the surface.”
“We should head for the hangar,” he suggested.
“What about Lukas?” I demanded.
“We’ll meet up with him as soon as we get away,” Theo said.
It was frustrating to be on two different sides of the same team. I could see things clearly, or so I thought. But then again, Theo had just as much experience as I did. We were operating in the dark with practically no intel about how far the bad guys had come and where they were located inside the base.
Had they taken over the command center? Were our people staged somewhere else, holding them off? Were they in the hangar bay, or had they gone straight to Med Lab to get the implants? We didn’t know, and so that made it very hard to plot our next move.
“They’ll expect us to go up!” Theo shouted.
“We have to reconnect with Lukas!” I shot back.
The elevator ground to a halt before we got any further. I glanced up at the ceiling, knowing that was the only way out. Theo was right there with me, crouching to give me a leg up before I even had to ask.
I stepped onto his interlaced palms, lifting off the ground and driving toward the ceiling. There was a grate that popped off, allowing me to climb up onto the roof. I wrapped my legs around the cables and draped my torso back into the car to help Theo up. He pushed off the floor, using his momentum to carry him most of the way. I only had to bear his weight for a second before he was right there beside me.
I thought I heard the door being split, the enemy below tearing it open like a tin can. Theo pointed up, and I agreed with a nod. I grabbed hold of the cables, hauling myself upward before time ran out.
Theo followed close behind. Together, we made quick work of the climb, reaching the next floor before the bad guys managed to catch us. I was trapped in the middle of the shaft, unable to reach the door. And the sides were sealed shut, designed to withstand a decent amount of pressure.
I kept going, not wanting to risk the time it would take to consider our options. We were lucky if we had a few seconds before New Dawn breached the car below and began firing up at us. I held on tight, wishing I had gloves. Sweat was beginning to form on my palms and my forehead, a dangerous addition to our current situation.
Just as I was about to continue on to the next floor, I caught sight of a thin slit of light coming from the doors beside me. There was no time to discover whether it was a friend or a foe who was peeling it open.
I pulled my gun out, holding on to the cable with just one hand. Theo mimicked me from below, and we had less than a second to decide whether to open fire. If the doors opened and it was New Dawn on the other side, we would be dangling in the middle of a shooting range. But if it was Dark Sparrow who was trying to rescue us, we risked killing a friend if we opened fire too quickly.
“Sunrise!” Theo shouted.
I glanced down at him, wondering where he’d heard that phrase and whether it would help us out of our dilemma. There was an answering call from the other side, something that must have identified the culprit as New Dawn.
Theo answered with a squeeze of the trigger, alerting me to do the same. The cable shook in my hand, wobbling under the recoil. I heard shouting and saw a body fall past us. Wasting no time, I swung myself up onto the floor, sailing through the open door into the midst of another firefight.
I had no time to get my bearings. Covering Theo as he leapt to my side, I fired at everyone who took a shot at me. One corpse after another piled up around us, proving that we were well matched against a troop of New Dawn soldiers.
I spotted another contingent of strangers rushing toward us and grabbed Theo by the sleeve. Tugging him toward the right, I pulled him down the hall before reinforcements could reach us.
Bursting into an all-out sprint, we reached another branch of the hallway and slid around the corner. We were lost. Neither Theo nor I knew where we were going. There was another elevator, one that went directly to the command center. But I didn’t know how to reach it.
I cursed myself for not doing a more thorough job of reconnaissance while I’d had a chance. I’d been there for days and hadn’t been proactive about learning my way around. I was a woman who wouldn’t take her shoes off until she’d looked in every closet of every safehouse I’d ever been in. How had I been so stupid as to not learn the ins and outs of a place that could become such a death trap?
We turned another corner and ran into a group of Dark Sparrow soldiers. We could tell because they were wearing the insignias. I put my hands up, not wanting to fire on friendlies. They waved us close, and we advanced as a group, searching for more enemy troops.
“Where’s Lukas?” I demanded, hoping that someone was equipped with a communication device.
“Call him,” Theo suggested.
It slipped my mind that we had ordinary cell phones on us. There had been no time to make a call, but for the moment, we had some cover. I dialed up but got only a busy signal. I wasn’t surprised. Of course, Lukas was on the phone with someone else. Possibly the CIA or MI6, or any one of a number of other intelligence organizations that might be interested in our fight.
“Central command.” One of the Dark Sparrow operatives waved a radio at us.
I grabbed it, switching the dial to the agreed frequency. “Lukas?”
“Clark,” Lukas’s voice returned. “Where are you?
“Second level, I think,” I answered.
“Can you get up to the command center?” he questioned.
“Is Z with you?” I asked, ignoring his request for a moment.
“No, she’s not,” Lukas declared.
I turned off the radio and tossed it back to its owner. My mind whirled. This kind of thing was well beyond Z’s expertise. As a behind-the-scenes gal, she was better suited to information gathering and tech support than she was to an all-out war. I had so few people in my life that I cared about at that point, I couldn’t stand the thought of her dying.
“I have to find her,” I told Theo.
He shook his head. “We should go to the hangar.”
“Negative,” one of the other Dark Sparrow operatives said. “Our orders are to sweep the hallways.
“You sweep the hallways,” I announced. “I’m going to find Z.”
“Clark!” Theo shouted as I hurried back the way we’d come.
“Get to Lukas!” I commanded. “We’ll meet you there.”
I could hear the reluctance in his sigh from all the way down the hall. He was doing his best to bring us both out of the situation intact. But I couldn’t walk away from my former foster sister. I couldn’t leave her to face the enemy alone.
I jogged back to where we’d left a plethora of dead bodies. There wasn’t any gunfire to indicate that anyone was alive, but I hugged the wall all the same. I had no idea where I was going to start looking for Z. Had she returned to her own quarters, back down on the crew level? Had she gone to Med Lab maybe looking for me? It was as good a place to start as any, and though my knowledge of the base was spotty, I did know where the medical center was.
I hightailed it down the hallway, taking a left and then a right, on a path to the core of the base. Just as I was about to come up on the medical center, I felt the presence of an enemy combatant. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I crouched instinctively, just seconds before a hail of bullets was released on my location.
I was about to poke out and fire back when I heard my name called.
“Clark?” Ryan shouted, his voice full of glee.
“Ryan?” I demanded, not sure how to take his appearance on the scene.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Ryan taunted.
“He’s here,” I lied. For some reason, the warning lights going off in my mind told me not to reveal the fact that I was alone.
“Let me hear him!” Ryan shouted back.
“Ryan, what are you doing?” I asked. “Is Z with you?”
“She’s here!” Ryan confirmed.
“Clark, help!” Z shouted. And then I knew. He wasn’t pretending to be our friend any longer. He had gone full force to the other side and was doubling down.
“If you hurt her...” I began, shaking an empty fist at him.
There was no way I could reach the pair without opening myself up to gunfire. I couldn’t judge the distance precisely, but I knew there was enough space between us for Ryan to get off a few rounds before I reached him.
With no other choice, I flung myself out into the open, hands above my head. Halfway down the hall, at the door to the medical center, I saw them. Ryan had Z at gunpoint, his once attractive smile turned up in a devilish grin.
“Take me instead,” I instructed, tossing my gun away.
I moved forward, careful to go slowly so that he wouldn’t think I was rushing him. The closer I could get, the better positioned I would be to fight if it became necessary. But there was a whole lot of space between us. Ryan could easily drop me if he wanted to. I held my breath, taking one step after the other, praying that it wouldn’t come to that.
“Why not?” Ryan decided, giving Z a shove.
We passed each other in the hallway, both still in danger of Ryan’s bullets. “Take a left, then a right, then another left and you’ll meet up with Theo’s troops,” I told Z as we passed.
Her eyes were wide and frightened, her elbows shaking as she held her hands above her head. I nodded to her, promising her that she had the strength she needed to find the good guys. She tightened her lips, nodding to me in return.
At least I knew that she was no longer in danger. But now I had bigger concerns. I was all alone with a man who knew me inside and out. I wasn’t going to be able to get the upper hand without a lot of clandestine maneuvering.
I had a plan, and with any luck, I was going to put it into action and save everyone who mattered. All I had to do was get Ryan to relax. The best way to accomplish my goal seemed to be by playing to his ego. So I put a frightened look on my face and acted dumb.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered, pretending to be frightened.
Ryan reached out when I was close enough and spun me around. Now I was his captive instead of Z, and the clock began ticking. It would take a miracle to get me out of that situation alive, and I hoped that what I had planned would do the trick.
I thought about Theo and the moments we had shared so recently. I would give anything to get back to him, but first, I had to take care of some nasty business. It was never fun to kill people, but some of them had it coming.
