The edges of Kyle’s fingernails tapped at the glass. “Open the door, Quinn.”
Quinn backed up. “Bo’s on his way, Kyle. Get out of here while you still can.”
“Well, then,” he laughed. “There’s no time to lose, is there?”
He scissor-stepped back, and Quinn saw what he was holding—a gun. He fired a single shot at the door. Fingers spread, Quinn shielded her face as fragmented shards of glass peppered the room.
Quinn turned, sprinting in the other direction, her head swiveling from one corner of the room to the next. Seeing minimal options, she dove into a hallway at the far corner. Her hands were slippery, too clammy to keep hold of her gun. With haste, she smeared her palm along the checkered commercial carpeting like a gymnast coating her hands with chalk.
Kyle stepped inside, the heels of his shoes crunching against the glass.
“I have a gun,” she warned. “Don’t come any closer.”
“You don’t have shit.”
She extended her arm, firing a warning shot into an adjacent wall.
“Impressive,” he jeered. “Guess we have ourselves a good old-fashioned shootout. Although, we’ll need to speed things up. I am a bit short on time.”
“Where’s Marissa?”
“Can’t tell you. And the truth is, I’m sorry you found out. I hoped you wouldn’t.”
The interior lights in the room switched off, leaving nothing but the faint, distant glow of streetlamps outside. He was close, a few feet away, maybe closer. He’d round the corner any second now, take a shot. Maybe several shots. His .357 Magnum was a lot bulkier than her Glock 19, but she’d ejected and reloaded the magazine the night before. She was ready, and she had to act. Now.
The floor creaked, giving away his precise location. She rounded the corner and fired. Kyle shrieked and a resounding thud was heard as his shadow hurled to the ground.
The room went silent. Quinn questioned whether he was still alive. She’d taken a single shot in the dark. She’d be a fool to assume she was good enough to kill him on her first try.
Inside Evie’s office, Felicity’s phone lit up, followed by her anxious face peeking out between bent slats of mini-blinds hanging on the office window. Felicity’s head darted around, searching for Quinn. When she couldn’t seem to locate her, the blinds went down, and the door to the office opened.
Idiot. Why doesn’t she listen?
Felicity’s wiry hand reached out, plugging a cord into a socket on the wall. A blue and red neon fertilizer sign lit up like a sign in a beer joint. It wasn’t bright, but it was something.
“Quinn?” Felicity whispered. “You all right?”
Quinn debated. Say something or say nothing. Knowing she needed to preserve her exact location, she chose the latter.
“You there?” Felicity repeated. “Say something, Quinn. Are you hurt? Do you need help?”
Quinn started to raise a hand in the hopes of waving Felicity back into the office. Mid hand raise, she stopped. Her stomach felt weird. Wet. She glanced down, finally realizing what she’d missed moments before. She wasn’t the only one who’d discharged her weapon. He had too, the bullet from his pistol puncturing her lower abdomen. It was a curious feeling at first, like being stabbed with a syringe filled with hot liquid. And then the blood came, bleeding an oozing stream through the bottom of her shirt.
She’d bent to the ground and lifted up a few inches of her shirt when Kyle’s sudden movement rattled her. He was alive. Trepidation seized her body. In the neon glow, she watched him army-crawl toward her, one leg pushing him forward, the other injured and limp, dragging along the floor.
Gun erect, he fired a second shot, the bullet narrowly missing her face. She ducked behind a desk. Felicity re-closed the office door.
“I’m sure you’re wonderin’ why I plugged our old classmate full of holes and watched her die,” he said.
He’s trying to get to you. Keep it together. Don’t speak.
“Not gonna respond, huh?” he continued. “Not even if I’m the only one who will ever be able to tell you the last words Evie uttered before she died? Come on, now. You wanna know, don’t you?”
Stay where you are. Say nothing.
“Guess you could call her the woman who knew too much,” he joked. “Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.”
From the six-inch space between where the desk ended and the floor, Kyle’s head came into view. She smoothed her fingers over her neck. Touching her necklace now made her feel stronger somehow, like she wasn’t fighting him alone.
Just a little closer. Almost there.
When his head reached her desired target area, she released her coiled leg, thrusting it forward. The heel of her boot collided with his neck, snapping it back. The gun fell from his hands. In one, swift movement she rolled forward, her gun pressed firmly against his chest.
“You won’t shoot me,” he teased. “Wanna know why? You haven’t changed one bit. You’re the woman behind the woman. The polite, scared girl hiding beneath her mother’s skirt. You always were.”
While his fingers grappled to secure his gun, a single thought crossed Quinn’s mind: Not today I’m not.
Her final shot was a bulls-eye to the heart. Out of breath, and weak from a lack of blood, she rolled off of him, hands pressed against her throbbing wound. “What can I say? I guess I’m not the same girl you remember.”