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Holy crap.
"This is ridiculous," Victor says through clenched teeth, his wounded hand dripping blood everywhere. He pushes the door open behind him and slips through, slamming it shut behind him. The lock engages long before I can even think about throwing myself at it. Then Riot and Tex are behind the desk with me, taking cover while the return fire at the guards that responded to Victor's alarm.
"You okay?" asks Tex, gripping my hand and squeezing it while he fires with the other.
"Bruised, but I will be. Victor's getting away!"
"Can't be helped. We got other shit to worry about. How many fucking men does Kane have?" Riot's drawn his gun and fires back. Someone out there screams. Since I can't help, I'm making myself as small as possible and praying his desk is bulletproof.
Suddenly, there's panicked screaming from outside the room, and the bullets stop burying themselves into the wall behind us. I risk peeking.
A body dressed in leather runs past the broken window so fast I barely believe I saw him. Someone else screams, and then he passes by again. A bunch of guns go off at once, followed by grunts and pained yells. Thumps of bodies dropping on the floor. The light catches Ghost's muscled shape holding a knife covered in dark red blood, and then there's one more strangled cry before everything turns quiet.
Ghost glares through the hole in the wall, his sharp eyes looking for us. He's bleeding from multiple cuts and something has torn a stripe out of his jacket, but he doesn't look seriously hurt. We stand up together.
"Good timing," says Riot.
"Jessica," Ghost says hoarsely. Despite being as hard and gray as slate, his eyes soften with worry. "You're okay?"
"Yeah. But Victor got away."
"Doesn't fucking matter. Anything in here that can open that door? We can get Kane later, but if that missile gets launched, the club and the neighborhood around it is rubble."
He's right. I pull open drawers in Victor's desk, looking for a key card or a code or something. Anything that might help or be an override or something. Tex opens the laptop on the desk, but it's stuck on the lock screen. "I'm no hacker," he declares.
Something catches my eye on the floor. It's bloody and gross, but it might be exactly what we're looking for. I pick it up with just my fingertips and grimace as I hold it out for them to see. "Think this will help?"
Riot chuckles. "That breaks our no cutting off fingers plan, but technically you started it. Ghost's wearing off on you, but it might work." He takes Victor's chopped-off thumb from me and wipes it off on the expensive suit jacket still flung over the chair. "We still need a code, though."
The laptop screen flickers, and the lock screen is replaced with six digits, black on white, just like on the screens down at Sparkie’s Megastore. Smiling with all this carnage feels a littleunhinged, to be honest, but I do anyway. I look up at the security camera.
"Thanks, Mom!"
God, it feels good to say that.
38
JESSICA
The door openswith the finger and the code. It's gross and messy, but when the lock disengages, I couldn't care less. Only Ghost holding me back keeps me from rushing inside to find Mom. And to get away from all the bodies left behind in the stairwell. I’m so,soglad that Ghost's on my side.
"Easy. Don't wanna go through all that only to have you get hurt on the fucking finish line. We go first."
"Okay." Even so, I keep trying to look past them to spot her.
God, I don't even know what she looks like. My memory is of a woman with long hair like mine, but more honey blonde instead of mousey brown. She was beautiful, my mind tells me, but that’s probably just because she's my mother. Every kid thinks that, right? Still, everything is fuzzy. I'm positive I'll recognize her if I see her, but if I were to draw her from memory, I couldn't do it. I hate that, and I hate Victor for having taken me away from her for so long.
I'd expected that we'd find a lab like in a movie, with big data screens all over the place, halogen lights in the ceilings, largedashboards with dials, knobs and blinking lights, but if there is such a place in here, it's not where we first come out. Just more doors and a hallway. I'm so sick of hallways.
There are a couple of guards, but apparently they weren't expecting anyone to manage to sneak past the security. The guys make quick work of them. It should probably worry me how desensitized I'm getting to it, and I suspect I'm going to have a major breakdown later, but right now, there's just no time. We have a mother to rescue and a city to save.
Riot and Tex try doors while Ghost stays close to me. His face is stone, but he's got an arm around my waist, holding me so hard it makes my bruises ache, like he's afraid I'll run off if he doesn't. I don't complain. My track record isn’t super great. The feeling of him at my side is worth the ache, so I just ignore my bruises and put my arm around his waist, hoping he won't have to use the gun in his free hand.
"In here!" Tex calls, waving for us to follow.
By the time Ghost and I come in, he's sliding open the windows in the steel doors and peeking inside. I get chills when I'm reminded of the attack on the clubhouse earlier. God, was that really still today? It feels like a million years ago.
"It's Cooper." Riot's opening one of the doors. "He's still alive."
