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Plaster rained down on them as a hail of bullets tore through the roof above. Sebastian grabbed Leon’s arm and dragged him down to the landing below as he spoke. “They must have gotten into the hangar and stolen some of our ships. There’s no way they would have gotten their own ships all the way from the border without our guns taking them out.”
“Then we need ships of our own to defend against them.” Leon knocked his knuckles against the banister as the beginnings of a plan whirred through his mind. “We have to get into the hangar.”
“No.” Sebastian grabbed Leon’s hand, yanked it from its fidgeting, and forced Leon to face him. White plaster coated his hair and eyebrows. “We have to get as far away from here as possible. We can’t defend against chaos. We can’t rally insane troops. We have to remove ourselves from the situation and hope everyone else can too.”
The sniper from the roof grabbed at Sebastian. “We can’t—”
“Not you too!” Sebastian ducked the arm and knocked the man away from him. “I don’t care—”
“And the doors,” the man said desperately. “They were shooting at the roof and the doors! We can’t get out that way. They’ll blow us to bits.”
That pulled Sebastian up short. His face went blank as his mind turned, and Leon knew where it was going. When Sebastian spoke next, even he didn’t sound convinced. “Then we’ll take a window…”
Leon shook his head. “They’ll see us, and they’ll shoot us. This building has a wide perimeter.”
“Ugh, and we thought that made it safer.” Sebastian groaned and rubbed the heel of the hand not holding his gun into his forehead. When he dropped his hand down, he smeared the white powder of the plaster into a paste with his sweat. “They’re trying to trap us in here with just that stuff and ourselves. Bastards.”
“Then they’re idiots.” Leon cut the air with a swipe of his hand and started down the stairs again. If the ships were targeting the exits, then making it to the hangar was out, but there had to be more they could do. People they could evacuate at least. “This is the capitol building of a city that’s been at war for decades. They really think there’s no escape routes?”
The sniper followed after him quickly. “Are there?”
“There are tunnels, but the tunnels are down, and so is the gas,” Sebastian growled, but he followed and didn’t try to pull Leon back again.
“So then, why don’t we stay up here?” The sniper stopped and looked between Leon and Sebastian. “If they’re not going to invade the building and they’ve poisoned the downstairs, then why go anywhere?”
Leon clenched his fist. “There are men down there—”
“Who we can’t help,” Sebastian snapped. “We’ll just make it worse. We’ll be fuel for the fire.”
Leon turned away from him and planted his free hand on the banister.
Sebastian was right.
Everything he knew about this weapon told him that there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet; not here. Nothing he could do… He gritted his teeth. It had been years since he’d felt so powerless, and he hated it. All the energy that had animated him when the attack began gnawed under his skin.
It had to be better to go forward. It had to be better to push through than to stay still and cower.
He felt Sebastian’s hand on his shoulder, but before the other man could say anything, breaking glass sounded from the floors above them, followed by small explosions and long hisses.
Sebastian’s hand on his shoulder convulsed and tightened, and Leon heard him swear under his breath. “Fuck.”
They looked up and saw bright yellow gas seeping into the stairwell from the crack under the door to the hall. It spilled onto the landing and began to fall down the stairs toward them.
The sniper took a few steps back and almost tripped down the stairs but caught himself on the handrail. “That doesn’t look good.”
Sebastian swallowed with his eyes trained on the softly falling gas and his fingers still digging into Leon’s shoulder with a death grip. “It’s not.”
He didn’t let go of Leon, holstered his gun, grabbed the sniper’s wrist, and pulled them both down one more landing.
Then they stopped.
The level just below them—the ground level—lay blanketed in a haze of yellow. The screams and the gunfire had grown less frequent and only punctuated the constant drone of whimpers and sobs every once in a while with a sudden shock. A sickly-sweet smell tickled at the edges of Leon’s nostrils, and he sneezed and rubbed his nose.
Sebastian gave him a wild, fearful look. Then he looked at the sniper, who had his nose wrinkled up as well. He spun around to face them both, grabbing their shoulders and pulling them in close.
“Look at me. Both of you. Really look.”
Leon obeyed, staring into Sebastian’s urgent eyes with an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach.
