Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [131]
“Window,” I pointed out. Smallish, but the only obvious way outside. It was also a way inside, but I wasn’t prepared to worry about that yet. One thing at a time. “Two vents.”
“I can’t fit through those,” he said, and in saying that, he said plenty. He looked at me evenly.
“I’m not sure I can, either …,” I began, but I was already doing the mental calculations.
“You can. You have to. Give me your gun, and go for it.”
“What?” Damn. I was getting good at asking stupid, timestalling questions when I already knew the answers. “You want to stay holed up in here alone?” I whispered it fiercely, despite the ruckus of the men trying to force aside the cabinets. Lucky for us, the barriers had almost interlocked in their falling—and it’d take something pretty significant to move them … at least it’d take real work to move them quickly. Still, we didn’t have long. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes for them to figure out they could get at us from another angle. Or, God help us, it wouldn’t be much trouble to phone someone for explosives. They could take out half the floor if they wanted us that badly, and I had a feeling we were pretty badly wanted.
“I’ll hold them off. You go over to four fifty-one and take everything you can.”
“And then what?” I demanded. “I can jump out a window. As far as I know, you can’t!”
“I’ll figure out something. Go! We don’t have all night.”
I jammed a hand into my Useful Things Bag and pulled out the .22, which was all I had on me since I tend not to rely on these things. He looked at it like I’d handed him a straw and a spitball, rolled his eyes, and shooed me over to the vent while he took up a defensive position to the left of the door.
Wasting more time wouldn’t get us anywhere. I crammed myself between the big office desk and the wall, and used my weight to shove it under the larger of the two vents. It was only larger by a marginal value, but it’d have to be larger enough to hold my big ass, so that’s what I went for. Forget the screwdriver; we were well past discretion here. I punched my hand through the slim metal grille and ripped the whole thing out of the wall, then without even looking—without even hanging out, calculating my width of ass versus the opening now before me, or anything that might await inside that filthy space—I lunged up and over and squeezed myself up into the metal chute.
I did some quick, thoughtful fiddling and realized with relief that I’d entered facing the right direction, because there was no fucking way I was turning around.
Down in 443, things were hot in a bad way. Behind me as I wriggled I heard all the commotion as the men in the hall rallied, smashed, and shoved. I could also hear someone squawking into a mouthpiece or a walkie-talkie. I caught the words “exterior window” and “demo team” and I didn’t like any of it. Backup never bodes well.
There was nothing I could do but squirm faster and try to trust Adrian, who was surely one of the most competent mere mortals I’d met in years. He had a (small, girlie) gun, he had his wits, and he had … I don’t know. Maybe a silver bikini under his commando-wear, for all I knew.
I counted, dividing by two and guessing at which office would be the right one. My first pick was clearly wrong; I almost let myself down into an empty room that was in the process of being remodeled.
So I went with my next hunch and elbowed my way out of the vent, then caught it before it could hit the ground with a clatter. I’d have to be quiet. The action in the hall was escalating. More people had been called in, and people were shooting again—though I couldn’t tell what or whom they were trying to hit.
A set of burly, dark shadows went hustling past the office door with its frosted-glass window inset. No one even glanced inside. Everyone was focused on the maniac holed up in room 443.
I wished that maniac well and dropped myself down quietly … onto a rolly-wheeled office chair that nearly sent me skating smack into a wall, but didn’t quite.
Recovering with