Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [135]
And on the count of three we each grabbed a leg of the rocking, battered desk which was increasingly full of holes … and we withdrew with it. It scrabbled across the carpet with a nasty wail and whine, bumping unevenly behind us as we retreated to the stairwell.
When we were as close to the stairwell as we could reasonably get without dropping the desk and running, we held them off a few seconds longer while he and I each took a fistful of boom and bit the pins, pulling them out with our teeth.
Simultaneously we pitched them around the desk. I gave it a final shove, causing a tangle and a stumble on the other side—and then a whole lot of panic followed it once our small, bumpy offerings had been discovered.
Together we turned and ran.
The whole hallway went up behind us like a lode-bearing boss in a video game. Fire curled around the desk, which I saw out of the corner of my eye as I ran. The desk split into gold-veined fragments that went in every direction; the last I saw of it, huge slivers were wedged into the walls and up in the ceiling.
But I didn’t dwell on it. I had Adrian in front of me and I pushed him—because I could run faster than he could, even with a couple of holes in me, though the stress and effort were starting to drag me down. I’d lost blood. That’s never helpful.
Up we went anyway. We didn’t have a choice. People were coming up the stairwell below us, shouting and dodging and brandishing weapons. They were still a couple of floors down, but I didn’t like it and neither did Adrian.
He reached around my arm and swiped another grenade out of the bandolier, then pulled the pin and aimed down. A fortuitous bounce and a good throw sent the thing down a full floor and some change. When it went off I heard small bits of metal whistling in every direction.
Somewhere beneath us a fire had started. I suspected the fourth floor. I don’t know what they’d been stashing up there or what the Men in Black had been toting, but something smelled like chemicals and flame when the first grenades went off—and I didn’t think it was just the expected shrapnel.
We reached the hole we’d cut above the stairs and boosted each other up, over, and inside it without even checking to make sure it was free and clear. If it wasn’t, we were screwed anyway—so we went for it and hoped for the best.
The shaft was filling with smoke. I didn’t want to say anything or point it out as we fled on hands and knees in the dark, but I was pretty sure that the building was actually aflame. I wondered why I hadn’t heard any sprinkler systems right around the time I heard the fire alarm finally go off. Useless device. If their building was so hideously unprepared for invasion, firefights, and subsequent collateral damage, then it damn well deserved to burn to the ground.
Adrian coughed and my eyes were watering, but the roof was blessedly close and the fresh air tasted great. No one was up there waiting for us, which was a relief, but the guys who’d broken into 443 through the window had left their rappelling gear and a pair of very convenient ropes still hanging over the side.
We pulled them up slowly, because we didn’t need the attention from the guys who were milling about on the ground, speaking into cell phones and waving new support troops into position. They were still concentrating on that window. As if we were still hanging out in that room or something.
Eventually we were able to let ourselves down quietly on the far side of the building, where it almost smashed right up against another building in a very narrow alley. We dropped down into something wet and disgusting, but we had hit street level in almost perfect darkness and it was only a short, side-cramping run back to the car.
I looked over my shoulder to see the fire spread and gnaw hungrily, and I would’ve smiled if I hadn’t suddenly been so afraid.
We’d made it out, yes. But I was afraid for myself and Adrian; I was afraid for Ian and even Cal, a little bit, insomuch as Cal looked after Ian and that made him important whether I liked it or not. And I was afraid