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“Scrapper?”
Ella's got the door, and she's obviously itching to slam it shut. I make sure I'm standing in the way.
“Scrapper!”
36
REAPER
“Jesus, Mila, keep your fucking panties on, I'm coming!” Scrapper yells as Faith aims the camera at him. He bursts out of the smoke cloud just as a bullet zooms by, pulling a stream of smoke after it, missing his head by inches.
They slam the door shut as soon as he's through, and me and Mack draw a sigh of relief. Faith captures in great detail how Mila throws herself at him and the following makeout session while she beats him on the chest for scaring her.
Mack keeps the phone with Faith's stream in his left hand and his gun in the right. “When we catch up to them, I'm gonna fucking kill him.”
“Not if I get to him first. Come on, third floor.”
We're not taking the damn elevator, but the stairs are right next to it. Before we take them, I wave to the guys behind us. Preacher, Crash and Blade, with a nasty looking knife in each hand, are closest. “Monitor Faith's FixerUppers account, okay? The one where she's been sending the videos of us tearing shit down. They're streaming. Spread out. The building's fucking infested, but the offices on the third floor's where we're heading.”
The guys nod and start barking orders. Some pull out phones to use the stream for as much guidance as they can get. Even as we start running up the stairs, gunshots pop around the building. The Eagles have engaged the mercs, and we're gonna show them exactly how we deal with fuckers that come for our women.
Mack and I lead the way, followed by a healthy chunk of the Screaming Eagles. I hope the mercs are prepared, because there's a shitload of angry members with a lot of loaded fucking hardware coming their way.
Second floor, third, and then we're peeking through the doors from the stairwell. A couple of guys are there, and then, two gunshots later, they're not. Hopefully Channel 7 isn't too attached to the glass in their doors. If so, they can bill us later. We won’t pay it, but they’re welcome to try.
Mack and I clear our chambers as we push the doors open. Both mercs lie still, even after I kick one of them in the side. Mack rolls the other one over with his foot. “Good shooting. Let's go.”
Of all the things to help us, there's a visitor's map by the elevator. Doesn't take long to find the studio, the hallway to the left of it, and then offices they ran to. “This way.”
We run down the hallway, guns ready. Blade and Alpha are on our heels, with Ripper and Animal bringing up the rear.
The hallways are a fucking maze, built for human rats. Why does anyone take a job in a place like this? I'm cool with the work they do here—Channel 7's one of the more balanced news stations in this city, but there's gotta be a better way to store your employees than in a big box like this one. Give me open road any day of the fucking week.
“Fuck!” Mack rounds a corner of the maze, then ducks right back in, throwing his arm out so I don't follow him. A barrage of gunshots puts a cluster of holes in the wall across from where he was. “They were fucking waiting.”
Shit. We shoulda brought some grenades or something. Things were a little rushed.
“What do we do? I wanna go all John Woo and go flying in slow-mo across the hallway, but I'm not sure I can take them all at once.”
Mack chuckles. It's gone silent around the corner, which probably means they're waiting for us to appear again. I look around. The hallway's lined with office doors. One of them has a corkboard outside it with a calendar push pinned to it, with a few spares down in the corner. In case anyone wants to leave the owner a message, I guess. I grab all the pins, making a handful of them.
“What the fuck? Office supply caltrops?” whispers Blade. He's got his knives ready, but this is a ranged situation.
“Nah, just distraction. Gunners? Ready?”
Mack, Alpha, Ripper and Animal nod. Blade grins. “Betcha I get one first.”
“No bet.” I toss the push pins down the hall, and as they rattle against the wall, I lean out, leading with my gun. There's three of them, partially covered by more hallway corners, but they've leaned out at the sound. Two shots go off, at the sound of the pins, and then one of the mercs drops backwards with a knife sticking out of his throat. Already moving my hand, I pull the trigger twice. So does everyone else. The other two goons that were waiting for us spin backwards. No idea if any of the hits were mine, but as long as they lie still, it doesn't fucking matter.
We've got a girl to save.
Advancing quickly, but cautiously, we get to the end. Blade retrieves his knife with a sickening scraping sound while the rest of us orient ourselves. Down the hallway, there's still a hint of extinguisher dust in the air, and behind it is the door to the studio, shredded with only a couple of bits still swinging from the hinges. But we knew that already. That doesn't scare me. What does is what comes next around the corner.
Like it's on cue, an explosion sounds, both from Mack's phone, and from up ahead.
37
MILA
