Hero for Hire (13 page)

The needle slid into my neck with barely a pinch. As she pumped the solution into my bloodstream, it burned like fire spreading through my tissue. This must be how it felt to die. A tear slid down my nose as my head dropped forward, but I didn’t say a word. I was done giving her the satisfaction she craved.

My vision went black around the edges, and I recognized the end. My life was done. I’d made nothing of it, hadn’t done enough of the things I wanted to, and only now, when it was too late, had discovered love for the first time. I was dying a failure.

Chapter 7

Doc and I weaved past abandoned cars on what was left of the Ventura Freeway in Gwyn’s Rover. The predawn glow did nothing to alleviate the silence that hung between us like the elephant in the room nobody talked about. Doc was pissed at me for not thinking clearly. I was pissed at him for not letting me do this on my own. Neither one of us had wanted to leave the boys alone, but Doc had insisted on having my back. I’d insisted I wouldn’t put any of the boys in danger again, so we’d left them at home.

“Quit being such a downer. It’s a rescue mission, not a suicide mission,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“As long as you keep your head,” Doc said, not taking the bait, but clearly not realizing the joke he’d made. He sat like a coiled spring ready to burst, every muscle tight and ticked off.

I laughed, swerving to avoid another wide crack in the pavement, before I dodged a long-abandoned semi.

“I plan on keeping my head and every other part of my anatomy, thank you very much,” I said.

Doc glared at me. “I hate when you get like this, but at least I know your head’s in the game.”

“I’m hurt, Doc. Really hurt. I can’t believe you don’t appreciate my cheeky, even lighthearted, approach to combat situations.”

“It’s downright annoying.”

“It helps me focus,” I said. I didn’t tell him that if I let myself think about the consequences of failure, I’d never get the job done.

Our exit loomed on the right. I took the exit too fast for the curve, squealing the tires a little as we came out of the bend. Doc shot me a dirty look, but I just grinned as we headed up the ramp. Needling him only made the job that much more fun.

“You enjoy facing death way too much,” Doc grumbled.

“Makes me feel more alive.”

This time, though, an unfamiliar weight filled my gut. I shifted in my seat trying to convince myself I’d just eaten too much for breakfast. I didn’t really believe it. Usually when we took on a job or went on a mission I looked forward to the thrill, craving that shot of pure adrenaline. But today felt different. This one was personal. I hadn’t felt it before, but I suspected that the unfamiliar queasiness in my gut was fear, or even worse, doubt.

I shoved it away as we neared the Paragon campus. Last time I was here, stealth had been the order of the day, but today I’d decided on the straightforward approach. I took the right turn into Paragon. We sped down the main parkway of the complex, passing a few plodding zombies along the way. I veered a bit to the right to clip one on the way in, sending it tumbling into the overgrown shrubbery next to the road. That was one less zombie we’d have to fight through on our way out.

“Show off,” Doc said. Rolling down the window he slid the barrel of a shotgun out into the morning air. He took a couple of shots as we sped by. I had to laugh. He loved the adrenaline, too.

“Element of surprise,” I said. Leaning into the steering wheel I let the tunnel vision begin. At the end of the tunnel was the objective. Everything else was just stuff I needed to plow through on my way to the prize. Gwyn.

Another zombie fell victim to my driving as I screeched around the corner and slammed on the brakes in front of Building Twenty-One. Zombies filled the overgrown plot that used to be a manicured lawn, in front of the building.

“What’s the plan?” Doc asked as he reloaded.

Our sudden, noisy arrival had drawn a lot of attention, and now the zombies all scrambled in our direction.

“Go in guns blazing,” I said.

Doc cocked a bushy eyebrow at me, but just shook his head. “You’re going to be the death of me yet,” he grumbled. He slung a bandolier of shotgun shells over one shoulder, homemade grenades over the other, and stuffed his pockets with pistol clips.

I loaded myself with ammo and weapons, too, before I jumped out of the car. We ran for the front door of Building Twenty-One, shooting anything that moved. Doc brought up the rear, finishing off whatever I missed. Zombie heads ruptured, spewing infectious gore, but I kept my focus on the door. At the top of the stairs, a particularly gruesome devil blocked my path. He didn’t seem fazed at all by his dead companions all over the lawn. He grunted at me when I approached, baring his blackened gums as he hissed his sewer breath in my face.

“Jeez, that is the nastiest smell ever,” I said, gagging on my breakfast as it worked its way back up my throat.

He took a Frankenstein step forward, but I planted my boot in his gut and shoved. Taking aim at his forehead, I put a bullet in it. Gwyn would probably scold me for killing all these potentially restorable people, but I didn’t care. She could scold me all she wanted as long as she was alive, healthy and back home.

“Anytime you want to let us in, go right ahead,” Doc said.

“Hey, don’t get your undies in a bundle there, Doc, I’m working on it.”

I tried the door, hoping but doubting it would be unlocked. When it didn’t open, I took aim at the lock and shot it out. I pulled the door open.

“Nice work,” Doc said, picking off another zombie. He tossed a grenade onto the lawn before backing into the foyer of the building.

“Yeah. Let’s go find Gwyn. We need to get the hell outta here.”

I barely registered the explosion of ordnance outside as I followed Doc in. Taking the lead, I sprinted down the hall into the guts of the first floor. My best guess for finding Gwyn was the second floor lab, so that’s where I headed first, locating the nearest stairwell and taking the stairs two at a time.

At the second floor landing, I cracked the door to get a lay of the land while I waited for Doc to catch up. Inside, the lab seemed empty. The small lobby area at the front looked the same as when I’d been here the first time, but the lab beyond looked abandoned. A couple of flickering fluorescents were the only source of light, so my guess was the generator was running out of juice.

“Is it clear?” Doc asked when he made it to the landing.

“Looks that way, but it’s kinda dark in there. Hard to tell.” I closed the door. Scratching the stubble on my face, I considered what I’d seen inside. If Gwyn had been working on the cure for the infection she should be in that lab. It was the only lab I’d seen in the building so it seemed logical that this would be the center of activity. I’d expected to find Gwyn chained to a workstation with Miriam standing close by ready to crack the whip if Gwyn slacked off. Maybe it was just too early in the morning for anybody to have reported to work yet, but that didn’t seem likely.

“Only one way to find out, I guess,” I said, opening the door to march into the room beyond.

“Crap,” I heard Doc mumble behind me.

I crossed the lobby area, heading for the glass doors into the lab. This time they were unlocked, thanks to my previous handiwork.

Inside the lab itself I reached for the light switch. When I flipped it on, most of the fluorescents blinked to life, but two flickering lights refused to cooperate. What I saw in the middle of the room drew me with laser-like focus.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, hurrying to the worktable in the middle of the room where Gwyn’s pale, lifeless body was laid out flat.

“Dammit,” Doc muttered.

“Cover me, Doc,” I said, laying my pistol on the table next to Gwyn’s hip.

I rested a finger at the side of her throat, terrified her skin would be cold and there would be no pulse underneath.

“Come on, baby, don’t be dead,” I whispered. I nearly collapsed with relief when she still felt warm. There was a thin, steady pulse beating against my fingertip. I had no idea what was wrong, but whatever had happened, originated here. I figured the solution had to be here, too. Unfortunately, it meant the get-in-get-out mission just got more complicated.

“She alive?” Doc asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what’s wrong with her. God, what I’d give for a doctor right now.”

“Apparently, you’ve come to the right place.” Miriam’s voice sliced through the silence like a buzzsaw.

I grabbed my gun in lightning speed, putting her in my sights.

“What’d you do to her, you bitch?”

“Sticks and stones,” she said, chuckling at my expense.

She sauntered into the room followed by her gaggle of scientists, but she looked different from the last time I saw her. Fewer lesions dotted her skin, no rattle when she spoke and her eyes looked clear. There could only be one reason for that.

“She found the cure, didn’t she?”

Miriam beamed at me, preening as she answered. “It shows, doesn’t it?”

“So what did you do to Gwyn? She’s still alive.”

“She is. At first I didn’t know why. When I realized she’d discovered a cure I injected her with blood from one of the infected in the basement, full of a mutated form of the original virus. But instead of giving her symptoms or killing her, she just lost consciousness. She’s been like that for a couple of days.”

I cringed to think blood from one of those things in the basement was swimming around in Gwyn’s veins.

“And?”

“I took a blood sample from her to run diagnostics. The little know-it-all had apparently injected herself with the original vaccine. Without more testing and study I can’t tell you exactly what’s going on inside her. Honestly, I really don’t care. I suppose her body doesn’t like all those conflicting contaminants in her system so it just shut down.”

I raised my weapon, pointing it at her forehead. “Fix her.”

Her confident smile faltered just a bit with a gun pointed at her head. I imagined she wasn’t willing to bet with her life now that she was on the mend, but I had to give her credit, she had guts, if nothing else. She brightened her smile and gestured to one of her scientist minions who handed her two syringes.

“I’ll do even better than that. I’ll let you fix her yourself. All you need to do is choose the correct syringe. One holds Gwyn’s new cure, one holds drain cleaner, so choose wisely.”

The liquid in both syringes was clear. I couldn’t evaluate them any more than that. I literally held Gwyn’s life in my hands. Choosing a syringe amounted to nothing more than a fifty-fifty chance of picking the cure. Silence stretched as I considered my options. The longer I waited, the wider Miriam’s smile became. I ground my teeth in frustration, fighting the urge to growl at her, or just shoot her and be done with it.

“Don’t do it,” Doc murmured. “It’s got to be a trap.”

Why hadn’t that occurred to me? Of course it was a trap. She’d never really give me the chance to cure Gwyn, so it was more than likely both syringes were drain cleaner. She wanted Gwyn dead, and having me kill her would only make it that much sweeter for her. I’d let her get under my skin, forcing me to lose focus, which just pissed me off.

“Okay, Miriam,” I said, holstering my weapon. “I’ll take this one.”

It startled her when I stepped forward, snagging the syringe from her right hand. In one swift movement I spun her around and held the point of the needle to the place in her neck where the artery throbbed.

Her entourage all gasped in shock, confirming my suspicions. The pulse in Miriam’s neck accelerated, but she managed to sound relatively cool, almost convincing, when she spoke.

“Good choice, but I’ve already taken the cure. Don’t you want to give it to Gwyn?”

“The big problem with that scenario,” I said, adding enough pressure on the needle for it to pierce the skin, drawing a drop of blood, “is that I don’t trust you.”

I felt the movement of her swallowing. “I suppose that’s practical on your part. But let’s think this through before you do anything rash.”

“No thanks. I think I’ll call the shots now. You’re going to drop the other syringe. One of your minions is going to draw up a syringe of the real cure and give it to Gwyn. If she responds, you go free. If she doesn’t,” I said, pushing the needle all the way to the hilt into her carotid, “you get a neck full of drain cleaner.”