Armed and Dangerous (The IMA) (27 page)

There was a vending machine down the hall but it was out of order. I thought I
had
smelled something food-like on the way up, though. Surely they wouldn't keep all these business people locked up in a building with no food. Not with parking being what it was. Not if they didn't want a mutiny on their hands. Too bad I hadn't asked about a cafe.

Michael had said to stay in the waiting room. He would be angry if he came out and found me missing.

On the other hand, he did have a lot to sort out. He needed a new ID, money, and weapons. I had at least fifteen or twenty minutes. This beat waiting around in the lobby for him like a dog under the eye of the hateful receptionist.

He had been
so
hurtfully, cruelly dismissive, to the point where I wondered if all that talk about letting me have my choice had just been another attempt to sleep with me. He was a good liar. A good person? Not so much.

I didn't want him to think that I was just going to roll over and do everything he told me to do — no more than I did already. I didn't want to be that kind of girl. But I was beginning to understand that not every girl has a choice in the matter, not entirely. It was a revelation.

It was depressing.

The elevator doors opened with a beep. I walked with my head down, trying to look as if I belonged. With my shorts, boots, and baggy sweatshirt, I felt like a desert explorer. Hardly appropriate.

The upside to being in the city was that there were people outside wearing far stranger ensembles. I guess the city folk were used to weirdos. I didn't even have to put the theory to the test; the corridor was empty. I could hear voices coming from the depths of the various closed doors, though, which reinforced my suspicion that this was really the skyscraper equivalent of an office park.

Two voices separated from the buzz, sharpening in focus. I found myself listening without meaning to. Habit, I suppose. One I hadn't acquired until meeting Michael.

Maybe one of the men would bring up the cafe and I could follow them. If they sounded nice, I might even ask them for directions.

“ —
have to be around here somewhere.”

“
This building has thirty-two stories.” The second voice was impatient, frustrated. “Can you imagine how many rooms this place has?”

I silently agreed. This place was a nightmare. Not as bad as the mind-bogglingly claustrophobic underground base that the IMA had in Oregon. At least here there were windows, and the doors were wood — not steel.

Maybe they're looking for the cafe.

I started to move out of my hiding place, to ask if they had any idea where it could be — because I could
smell
that coffee and it was reminding me that I hadn't slept well for several days now — when I heard the other man say, “Move upstairs, then. They couldn't have gotten far.”

They?

As in, Michael and I?

No, it couldn't be. We just got here.

“According to this, they haven't moved. Find out which of the offices are open in that section of the building. I'll search upstairs. Call me as soon as you figure it out.”

Shit.
Shit
. That did not sound good at all.

I dove back into the elevator and slammed the button for the eleventh floor. The voices grew louder as they rounded the corner. “You take the stairs, I'll take the —
hey
, could you hold the door, please?”

Oh, yeah, sure. How about no?

I pressed “door close.” I heard a curse as the door slammed shut seconds before he reached it. “The fuck—”

He would have done worse if he knew who you are.

I hoped he hadn't seen me, then.

Does he have a gun?

It occurred to me that the man might be watching the elevator to see where I got off. He'd sounded pissed for the door bit, regardless of what suspicions he may have entertained. Just in case, I stuck my foot in the door to keep the sensors from closing it, and palmed the buttons for all thirty-two floors. The elevator would stop at each one.

The receptionist looked up briefly when she heard the door open. Then back down again when she realized it was only me. I rapped on the frosted window until she opened up and said, shortly, “what?”

“Let me in.” I was short of breath.

“
You don't have clearance.”

“
It's an emergency,” I said.

“
Please. I need to speak to Michael.”

“
I can't let you in. If it is truly an emergency, I can page him. What's the message?”

“
Tell him
they're
here. They him that they've followed us. He'll know what that means.” She stared at me, still holding the phone. “What are you waiting for? Tell him! Now! Right now!”

She gave me a startled look. Hung up the phone. I thought she was going to let me in, too, but then I heard a door open and close further on down the hall. Muffled, urgent conversation. The reception door swung open.

“Are you sure?” Michael had both backpacks and a tight expression. The receptionist was at his heels.

“
Yes.”

His eyes narrowed. “What were you doing downstairs? I told you to wait here. In the
waiting
room.”

“
If I had waited, you wouldn't know we were being followed in the first place.”

He stepped out of the door frame. “I don't understand it. I made damn sure not to leave a paper trail. Cash only, everything strictly low-tech. There was no way they could have — ”

A series of changes passed over his face, each in quick succession to the other, and he looked at me in a way I didn't like. “You had an encounter with the Sniper, didn't you? Before?”

“
Encounter? He attacked me at school — but I didn't tell him anything. And that was weeks ago.”

“
Did you bring anything with you that you had on when you saw him last?”

I stared at him blankly.

“Jewelry. Clothing. Anything like that. Anything he could have come into contact with if he touched you.”

If he
touched
me?
“He didn't — ”

Wait, why was I defending myself to Michael? After the way he had treated me? I shook my head emphatically. “No. He didn't do anything like that. Touch me, I mean. Just my — ”

We both looked at my backpack at the same time.

“
Is that the one you use for school?” he asked in a dangerous voice. At my silence, he let out a frustrated growl. “You fucking idiot.
Fuck
me.”

“
How was I supposed to know? You didn't say anything. I figured you would have said something if it wasn't okay.”

I watched him unzip the pouches with a sinking heart. He went through the smaller side pockets. Pockets I hadn't gone through personally because they couldn't hold enough for me to consider them useful.

Michael sucked in a breath and let out another curse. He stormed away to one of the windows as the receptionist and I looked on. I saw him cock back his arm and hurl something small and metal outside. It winked briefly in the sun before plunging down eleven stories below.

“
We need to get out of here.”

One look at his face kept me from saying anything in response. I had screwed up. Big time.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse the floor beneath us rumbled, sending us both to our knees. With a series of “fucks” Michael yanked me out of the door and down the hall.

“
Earthquake?” I whimpered.

“
Bomb,” he snapped back.

I was sorry I had asked.

There was another explosion. The elevator doors dinged. I started towards them and Michael yanked me back as a fireball burst out of the open doors, blasting into the office across from them and setting that whole wall ablaze. The smoke alarms went off with a scream, dousing us in cold, foul-smelling water.

“
Stairs.” He shouted to be heard over the shrill alarm as we raced for the emergency stairwell.

Other people were coming out of their offices, too, some of them screaming and shouting, others crying or speaking desperately into their cell phones.

The alarm was shrill and loud in the echoey corridor. “What about your contact?” I asked. “Kent.” The blue-white lights rendered my peripheral vision fuzzy and blurred. I felt faint. “Is he okay?”

“
Keep running.”

“
Michael — ”

The door slammed open. People raced through, disregarding years' worth of fire drills as they shoved past us to run for their lives. Over the sound of panicked breathing, sobbing, and desperate calls for help, I heard one of the men from before.

“Michael!” I yelped.

“
Goddamn it. Not
now
.”

“
They're shooting at us!”

“
Of course they are.” He yanked me down. “Jesus
fucking
Christ.”

A bullet ricocheted off the stone with a loud crack, slamming into the body of a man nearby. He went down clutching at his neck, spurting blood on the floor and wall.

“Oh my God, someone's got a gun!” a woman's voice screamed, which set off a whole chain reaction of panic.

The gunmen had followed us here because of me. The two men were shooting at us because of me — because I hadn't been smart enough to check my own bag. All these lives were endangered because of
me
.

I felt bad, terrible. I felt worse for not feeling what I considered to be bad enough. Mostly, I just felt numb. That was the shock. I was sure the pain would come later.

Angelica's car was across the street. Out of the way of the emergency vehicles zooming towards us, with their sirens like a high-pitched death knell. She rolled down the window. “Get in. Get in —
hurry
.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Exposure

Michael:

Angelica dropped us off at a hotel. Nice one, view of the city and the piers. Looked expensive as hell.

She saw my look. “You have a reservation. Kent wired you some money before he — ” She cleared her throat. “He wired you some money from your Swiss accounts.”

“Great.”

She ushered Christina ahead. Then she took one of my hands in both of hers. “I am so sorry. You were like a son to him.” How would that even compare? I'd never had a father, and he'd never had a son. “Do not blame yourself.”

“At least it wasn't the cigarettes that killed him.”

“
Yes,” she said softly. “There is that.”

“
He'd have wanted to go out with a bang.”

“
I'm sorry,” she said. I pulled away. She let her hands fall to her sides. “Be careful.”

“
Yeah. You, too.”

I walked up the concrete ramp and into the opulent lobby, clutching the room key. Her face was blackened with soot from the explosion. I imagined I looked far worse.

“What floor?”

“
First.”

Well, that was something.

Christina:

Michael went straight for the drinks cabinet.

I protested. “You shouldn't be drinking right now.”

“I can't think of a better time,” he snapped. “Move.”

I stepped out of the way, watching helplessly as he downed two shots of scotch in a row as if they were water. Then he reached for a third. I thought of alcohol poisoning and knocked it out his hand. “Don't do that!”

The glass smashed. So did the expression on his face; it rendered his expression as jagged and deadly as a broken bottle. I backed away from him but he walked right past me to the bed and let his body collapse.

“
Michael, please. Don't do this.”

“
Fuck off,” was his muffled response.

“
I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'm so, so sorry.”

Michael threw his arm over his eyes and didn't respond. I saw his other hand clench into a fist, making the veins in his wrist pop out like steel cables beneath the skin. He blamed me for Kent's death — and maybe himself, too. You didn't act this self-destructive if you didn't also hate yourself.

I hesitated, torn between approaching him and leaving him alone. People were blowing up entire buildings trying to kill us, so it wasn't as if I had anywhere else to go.

He was human, even if he didn't act like it at times. Those fleeting glimpses of humanity just made his condition all the more pitiable. He was like one of those children psychologists found, abandoned and left in the woods, who had somehow managed to survive against all odds without language, without comfort, without love.

I put my hand on his arm. He shrugged me off. I got on the bed and put both hands on both his shoulders, leaning over him in such a way that it was impossible to ignore me.