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“Here goes nothing,” Sophie murmured as she pocketed one explosive sphere and made her way to the front of the lab carrying another. Just then, Braden fell against the sliding door, his face contorting in agony. He had been shot through the leg.
“Fuck!” he cursed, then his pain turned to fury when he saw Sophie approaching him. “Stay the hell back!”
They heard a rush of footsteps when another bullet struck Braden in the shoulder causing him to finally collapse on his ass. “Sophie, stay back,” he groaned.
Frames of movement degenerated into slow motion. The scene felt surreal. Sophie stepped over Braden’s fallen form while ignoring Stephen’s scream of horror, which was muffled by the roaring in her ears. She threw the explosive sphere, her action stunning the approaching gunmen whose eyes shifted from her to the volley that was sailing toward them.
Sophie hit the detonator.
* * *
The truck bombhad decimated the guardhouse and barrier gate as cars and pedestrians started streaming out from Divergent Research Zone in all directions. Derek managed to squeeze their SUV through the entrance before the exodus overwhelmed it.
“There’s been an attack!” someone shouted at them. “Get away!”
The dissonance of gunfire was coming from the building that housed Silver Fire Research.
“Hold on, Angel,” Derek muttered as he maneuvered the SUV along the corner, stopping short of the firefight taking place before them. One of the Divergent Guards, who was hunkered down behind a vehicle, recognized them.
“Damn it, McCord, get out of here!”
“We are not leaving,” Jack stated resolutely as he and Derek exited the car and met behind the vehicle. Derek pulled off his tie and rolled up his sleeves before slipping on the flak jacket. He proceeded to stuff his pockets with loaded magazines. Finally, he tucked one semi-automatic pistol behind his slacks, taking another to use. He stared at his leather Oxfords and sighed—not exactly tactical-friendly footwear.
Crouch-walking toward the security guards behind the vehicles, they requested a status update.
“We’ve got a couple of shooters at the entrance to Silver Fire Research holding us at bay, and we’ve already lost a couple of our guards,” Beckley, the head of Divergent Security, told them. “We are not prepared for an assault like this.”
“So what’s the plan?” Derek asked abruptly.
“The plan is to wait for the SWAT to arrive,” Beckley said.
Derek stared at Jack. They understood each other. Jack would cover; Derek would go in.
“That’ll be too late for Dr. Leroux,” Derek replied. “I’m going in. Try and help Jack lay cover, and I’d appreciate it if I don’t get hit by friendly fire.”
“Are you insane? I’m not letting you go in there!” Beckley sputtered.
“Try and stop me,” Derek shot back as he sprinted along the side of the building. He had already determined the position of the shooters. There were two of them. He knew Jack was also aware of their location.
A few steps before he hit the wall, a bullet struck within an inch of his foot. Immediately, a shot was fired behind him; Jack had taken out that shooter. Derek slammed against the wall. He signaled Jack for updated shooter information, but his friend shook his head.
He was going to have to draw the guy out. Taking a peek through the entrance, the burn of a bullet singed his temple. Without hesitation, Derek dropped to the floor on his side and squeezed off a shot, hitting his assailant in the abdomen. As the man hollered for help, Derek quickly scrambled to his feet and shot the man in the head.
Another gunman skidded in front of him before scuttling back behind a corner. Derek heard the shuffling of footsteps from the entrance.
“Big of you to join me,” Derek told Jack blandly without turning around.
“As if I’m letting you have all the fun,” his friend replied mockingly.
They grabbed the weapons from the fallen gunmen, shouldered the assault rifles and cautiously headed down the hallway. The entrance to Silver Fire Research split into two passages and converged at the end with the length of the lab between them. From the crackle of gunfire, the attackers seemed to be congregated by the left corridor.
Shouting in a foreign language punctuated the exchange of firepower, then there was a lull, before Connelly yelled at someone to stand back. Then another barrage of shooting and another lull. Someone had shouted Connelly’s name. Connelly was down. But when Derek heard Stephen screaming, “Sophie, baby no!” He had heard enough. Derek’s chest constricted to actual physical pain as he tore around the right corner, Jack at his heels. Before he could reach the edge of the lab, a huge explosion rocked the hallway fronting the lab. A cloud of dust billowed past him.
“Sophie!” Derek roared, running down the length of the lab and almost losing his mind when he saw her lying face down on the floor. “Angel, no, no, no.” As much as Derek wanted to flip her over quickly, he did it carefully, making sure to keep her neck stable. His throat caught when he saw blood streaming down from a head wound.
“Holy shit!” Jack swore behind him. “Derek, we need to move her into the lab.”
Derek barely heard his friend but looked briefly at the tangle of limbs, body parts and debris before them. There was also some medley of voices. Not all the assailants had died in the explosion.
