Dead Waters - Anton Strout [91]
I reached for the door with one hand while unhooking my bat from its holster with the other.
Connor stopped the hand I was reaching with and used his other to point at the strip of yellow NYU caution tape across the door. It was split where the door met its frame.
“Guess they probably aren’t expecting company,” he whispered.
I pulled out my bat, extending it. “Too bad for them,” I said.
My blood was up after what we had found earlier. On a silent count of three, Connor kicked the door in. I ran in first, bat at the ready. We were in a dark, cluttered space filled with stored bits of classrooms past. The only light in the room came from far off in the middle of it through a maze of desks, chairs, and old-style chalkboards. Three of Professor Redfield’s favorite students—Elyse, Darryl, and Heavy Mike—were sitting around a circle of desks, each with a laptop open in front of them. All three heads popped up from their screens and turned our way.
“Freeze!” I shouted, waving my bat as I started working my way through the jumbled accumulation in the room.
The girl with the short shock of blond hair, Elyse, slammed her laptop shut. “Crap,” she said, jumping up. She looked across the circle of desks at the tall guy with the gauged ears sitting across from her. “Darryl, I told you we should have booby-trapped the door.”
Darryl stood up as well, cradling his laptop in his arms, still typing at it with one hand. Between him and the girl was the chunkier guy, Mike, who was already cramming books and notebooks into a large duffel bag.
“What part of ‘freeze’ did they not teach you at this institute of higher learning?” I shouted.
Connor and the Inspectre began picking their way through the jumble of furniture, but the going was slow. We’d never catch them at this rate. I leapt up and took to the tops of the desks in front of me and ran across them as fast as I could, hoping my precarious path held up under my feet as I went.
Heavy Mike kept stuffing his bag, looking over to the tall one. “Is it ready?” he called out.
“Almost,” Darryl said, still typing away at the keyboard. “Get the hell out of here.”
Heavy Mike didn’t need to be told twice. He snatched up his bag, threw it over his shoulder, and disappeared into the shadows that stretched out behind him. The sounds of stuff falling over left and right rang out as he ran off. I looked around the room, searching for the blond girl again, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Then I spied her shock of blond hair lowered down inside the center of circled desks. She was knelt down in the middle of them with a sizable curved blade in her hand, and she was not alone. The other freshman from Eccentric Circles, Trent, was tied in place on the floor with several computer cables draped across his body. The open ends of them were frayed with the other ends running up to several of the laptops.
“Go for the tall one,” I shouted over to Connor. My partner course-corrected through all the storage, heading for Darryl. I leapt down into the open circle in the middle of the desks, swinging my bat to disarm Elyse. I wasn’t one for going full force with human foes, which threw my timing off, and Elyse ducked under my swings, nicking the prone freshman with her knife before lunging at me. It slammed into my satchel with the scrape of metal on metal ringing out—it hit against my Ghostbusters lunch box.
“Nice lunge,” I said, pissed, but thankful I had avoided a wound.
“Thanks,” she said with a wicked smile and a wild panic in her eyes. “The college provides excellent facilities that come in handy beyond the acting program. Helps to keep me a triple threat.”
“It’s not going to do you very much good with a broken arm,” I said, swinging to disarm her.
Elyse feinted back and dodged the blow. “Darryl!” she called out. “Ready?”
“I think so,” he said, “but the footage isn’t cued up.”
“Then use the office piece,” she said, taking a moment to look down at the bound boy on the floor. “Anything!”
I glanced down as well. The