Out of the Black - Lee Doty [105]
Looking down on the new arrivals, Anne's mind returns to the Harm she'd killed in the ER... she saw his face as he leaned casually in to take a bite from Dr. Wyler's ear.
There is a breathless moment- the inhale before the scream- when all eyes lock on the doorway and its surreal visitors.
"I assume we're not waiting for these guys." Anne says with a smirk.
The doctors and technicians take a collective step back from the door. On the gurney, Mendez slumbers through the terror congealing around him, wrapped in protective plastic film and insulating layers of sleep. To Anne's eye, he looks uncomfortably like a burrito on the counter of any Latin-themed restaurant. And the customers have arrived.
But they aren't looking for burrito... the entire demonic group is staring up at the mirrored glass behind which Anne and Hawthorne stand.
"Oh my God." Hawthorne hadn't struck Anne as overly religious, but that definitely sounded like a prayer.
Splinters fly into the small observation room and a booted foot follows the door inward briefly. BOOM! The rest of the invader shoulders the door out of the way, her weapon tracking toward Hawthorne and Anne as they stand by the observation window across the small room. Behind the hard looking woman with the poor door etiquette, Anne can make out two more figures with assault guns on the small landing outside the door.
If that had been a prayer, Anne didn't think that this was the answer the Fed had hoped for.
Hawthorne's gun is coming out. Already clear of the holster, it is extending toward the new threat at the door. 'Fool her once...' Anne thinks, remembering Hawthorne's passivity the last time someone with dubious intentions had the drop on her. She isn't as fast as Mendez, but even if she were, she wouldn't make it before the already-firing assault gun finds her.
Anne is moving.
With unreasonable speed and confidence, Anne lunges toward Hawthorne and the strong-looking window behind her. Anne's left arm goes around Hawthorne's back and her right hand sweeps up Hawthorne's right hand in mid-draw. Anne's finger slides over Hawthorne's into the pistol's trigger guard. She hears the pistol's unlock tone and realizes that she does in fact have a plan. Anne presses the gun away from the invaders at the doorway and toward the observation window.
Anne squeezes gently, conscious of Hawthorne's delicate bones, the gun fires a stream of five shots, crossing the observation window, blowing through, leaving behind a lattice of semi-opaque shards held together by safety film.
Still holding the increasingly confused Fed in a waltz-like death grip, Anne leaves the ground, now completely committed to her nutty plan. She leaps past the now-squeaking Fed, ducking her head and shoulders into a sideways roll that leaves her flying toward the damaged window backwards and parallel to the floor. Squeak now a scream, Hawthorne is waltz-wrenched off her feet and toward the window after Anne. Shells tear through the air around them, snapping into the wall on the far side of the room.
Pressure builds against Anne's back until the sound of crunching glass comes from behind, then around her. They pass through the window in a storm of glass and into the air perhaps six meters above the OR floor.
Then the world is floating glass and Hawthorne's expanding scream. Squinting against the cloud of glass, Anne cranes her neck right, looking for the ground. Unsuccessful, she looks back over Hawthorne's shoulder. There it is- maybe five meters down now and coming up fast.
Anne releases Hawthorne's gun-hand, and grabs her shoulder. Using it as a lever, she juggles Hawthorne, trying to move her into position above her, so she can catch her when they land. Hand over hand, Anne manhandles Hawthorne into position. Looking briefly at Hawthorne's terror-rigid face as it spins by, Anne realizes that if they both live through this somehow, Hawthorne will probably feel honor-bound to kill her for this.
Impact found Anne's feet wide for support, her knees