Hunted (A Sinners Series Book 2) (40 page)

He waves us forward, giving us support while we bolt across the street, coming alongside the hospital. I inhale deeply through my nose, then exhale through my mouth. My quads burn from squatting so long.

Three bodies in typical dark uniforms lie in a pile near the entrance of the hospital. I smell cigarette smoke and notice their cigarettes still burning, the ashes tender and red beside their lifeless forms. One of them looks like he’s staring right at me. My breath catches in my throat. I slow my roll, hugging the wall, and focus on where to step next. Cole stops to examine them.

“Ahhhhh!” A figure comes bounding out of the darkness, yelling something unintelligible.

At first, my body freezes, unsure if he’s friendly. His hands wave in the air. Instinctively, I point my gun at him. He doesn’t slow down. Now, he’s so close I can actually see his guard uniform and the light shade of his eyes. He’s not stopping. I focus on the object in his hand and see the sharp outline of a gun, now pointed at me.

I squeeze the trigger and shoot him. He doesn’t stop. Shells pop off to my side as I unload on him. His body slows, but he still stumbles forward.
This guy won’t give up.
My pulse races in my throat.
How many rounds did I shoot?
His eyes lock onto mine, and his gun dangles from his hands. I finish him.

He falls forward. Blood flows from beneath him. I nudge the body with my shoe before firing off one more round into his head to make sure he doesn’t get up this time. I feel a tap on my shoulder and see Cole’s panicked eyes, his night-vision goggles off.

He shoves me forward. But I stop quickly and pick up the dead guard’s gun, shoving it into my pants.

Zeus howls. Another figure darts out of the shadows. I raise my gun, hands steady, finger stretching for the trigger.

“Don’t shoot!” Bill shouts. His outline becomes clearer. “It’s me.” I relax my finger and bring my gun down, shoulders sagging with relief.

“Where the hell have you been?” Cole asks.

“Getting us in,” Bill says. “The guards at the front? Yup, that was me.” So that’s why they were lying there with still-burning cigarettes.

“Are there more?”

“There’s always more, and the ruckus you just made won’t exactly help things.” Bill turns, and we follow him.

“He was going to kill us,” I say. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“The tank completely threw us off,” Cole says.

“See? I told you they’d go for a ride,” Bill says over his shoulder. “Remember?”

“You forgot to mention it was a tank,” I say. “Slightly different than an SUV.”

“Jeep? Tank? They decide that, not me. Besides, usually they take the jeep,” Bill says. He runs past the side doors and we see Bruno and Grace just as Bruno swings the butt of his gun into a window alongside the hospital. The crashing of glass splits the air. He lowers his equipment in and slides through afterward, waiting for the rest of us to do the same. Cole is through next, then Roméo.

Zeus sprints in front of me, corralling Grace and dancing around her.
Zeus knows.
I hurry to her side, relieved to see her. Her face is coated with sweat, and her shirt’s stained around the collar. We push our equipment through first, buying time so we can talk.

“Hey, how are you holding up?”

“Almost peed myself about a thousand times, but otherwise, peachy,” she says. She steps back and clasps her hands over her belly. Her eyes drift downward quickly and then we both jump through the opening. Zeus follows and then Bill.

Once we’re all inside the basement, chills chase up my spine, causing goose bumps on my arms. I let my feet settle beneath me before grabbing my flashlight and looking around. It’s still a mess. Boxes are piled up in heaps. The tables, beds, and chairs are in the same places I remember. I feel Cole’s eyes on me as I walk a few feet away from everyone.

This is where it was, this very spot.

I stand in the exact area where guards dragged me just a few months before. If it weren’t for Cole and Zeus, they would’ve raped me right here.
And probably murdered me afterward.
I clear my throat and take a deep breath, feeling a twinge of guilt for being angry at Cole. He grabs my arm, and my hands reflexively come up.

“I’m right here,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Come on, faster people,” Bruno says.

I straighten my shoulders, put the flashlight away, and focus. “The stairs are that way.”

Cole leads, flipping on his night-vision goggles as we get further in. He steps over things we can’t see and tries to lead us safely away from them. He stops. He’s maneuvering in the darkness, and I wonder what he’s doing. Then a flashlight flips on, and I notice he’s pulled off his night-vision goggles He points the light toward the wall and nods for me to follow it.

The doorway to the staircase. Next to it is a sign that reads
STAIRCASE/8 WEST
. An eerie feeling washes over me. The morgue is only next door. It’s too bad we can’t take the elevator, but I know the cameras would probably pick us up immediately.

“This is it,” I say in a flat voice.

He jiggles the handle, which doesn’t budge. He slams his shoulder into the door, but it won’t open. Another flashlight flicks on, and Bruno comes to the front of the line.

“Never get lucky,” he says. “Everyone back up.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m going to blow this sucker.”

“Oh, hell,” I say, covering my ears.

Cole pushes us away from the door and holds the flashlight as Bruno fires at the lock. Next thing I know, the handle’s dangling from the door. When Bruno pushes the door open, it squeals in protest.

They have to know we’re in the building now.

“Run, Forest!” Bill says. But I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Cole flashes his light up the dark stairwell. “Follow me.”

We move in procession up the first flight. I do my best to be quiet, even as Zeus’s nails tap along the floor.

Two flights. Roméo stops to catch his breath. He gasps and coughs.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” Bruno says. He pulls Roméo forward.

Three flights. Grace bends over, placing her hands on her knees. I run to her side and put my hand on the back of her backpack.

“What do you need?”

“Water, please.” She sounds raspy, so I grab her water and let her drink some before putting it away.

Four flights. My lungs are on fire. My legs ache. I hope I don’t start cramping up.

Five flights. Even Cole is breathing heavier now. He’s not running so much as jogging up the steps now. His flashlight bounces, and he checks every door along the way. So far, all of them are locked.

Six flights. I’m pretty sure my backpack has completely stripped the skin off my shoulders. I glance back into the shadows. Roméo and Grace look worse. Bruno, on the other hand, looks like he could take another twenty flights carrying Grace and all her equipment on his shoulders.

Seven flights. Bill chugs from his flask, then chucks it away. It clanks on the way down the stairs, making me want to punch him for being so thoughtless.

Eighth and final floor—where Sutton’s office is. Once again, the door’s bolted shut. I feel all jumpy as Bruno and Cole try to get through it without using their guns. It’s no use. Cole shakes his head. Bruno aims his gun.

“Stop,” Bill says from the back. “Let me try.”

Bruno pulls his finger away from the trigger and allows Bill to step in front of him. In his hands, Bill holds two tools that look like small bobby pins, except one of them is curved. First, he sticks one in the hole and jiggles it up and down, pulling it back out. Then he puts the curved end of the other one at the bottom while shoving the first tool back in. He pulls the bottom tool left, while flicking the other up.

With a click, he pulls the door handle, and it opens.

“What the hell was that?” Bruno asks. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Bruno slowly opens the door an inch. Nothing happens. He slides in, Cole moving in behind him. I give cover as the others enter, following shortly after. I can tell the sun’s rising because the hallway’s a strange hue of light blue. The doors to the patient rooms hang open, but I don’t hear a sound.

This seems too easy.

Bruno moves toward the first room, clearing it. Cole moves to the next.

“Clear,” Cole says.

“Clear,” Bruno says.

They head into the next rooms as Grace, Bill, and I move farther down. I kick in a door and shove inside with my gun raised. I scan the room. My nerves are taut, but my hands are steady. The bed’s undone, sheets half on the floor. The chairs are overturned, and the bathroom’s dark. I slowly walk to the bathroom door and push it open. Nothing.

“Clear,” I say, turning and walking out.

Bill’s in the room next door, and Grace goes into the one beyond that. Four more rooms to go, and then we’ll head to the office to raid it.

Suddenly, Zeus howls. The hair on my neck stands straight up.

I hear it. There’s no mistaking the sound of a gun banging away. I sprint down the hallway, trying to find where it’s coming from. Then I hear more shots, and my throat constricts. Bruno stumbles backward into the hallway with a man on top of him. In the guard’s hand is a knife.

“No!” I scream.

But Cole comes to his aid, shooting the guy in the torso. His body jerks, and his hands slip, so Bruno shoves him off. More guards pile into the hallway from another room.

Oh my God, it’s an ambush.

Hell rains down in the form of bullets. Zeus barks, snarls, and rips at the guard lying on the floor. Drywall from the ceiling begins collapsing in chunks around me. The clatter of quick rounds sounding off deafens my ears.
Pop, pop, pop! Bang! Bang!

My ears ring. My heart sprints. I dive into the doorway of a previously cleared room and fire from there. I can barely see the white tiles of the floor anymore as men go down.

Zeus and Cole hop into the room with me. I squat so Cole can fire off more rounds from above me. He empties a mag and slams in another. We can’t keep firing at this rate, or we’ll run out of ammo.

As Roméo and Bruno sprint by, I grab Roméo. The melee is so loud that I have to scream in his face.

“Find Sutton’s office now!” He gives me a blank look. “Sutton’s office!”

Bruno grabs Roméo’s shoulder and drags him down the hallway, past the elevators and in the direction of the office. A few guards close in, but we give cover fire, pushing them back down the hall. Pretty soon, they’re imbedded in rooms, trying to take shots at our heads. I’d throw a grenade, but I don’t think it’d go off fast enough before they’d toss it back at us.

The inside of the hallway’s gutted and smells of sulfur. Dust peppers the air, making visibility almost zero. I cough and then shoot, cough more, and then shoot. Pretty soon, no one fires back. All I hear is the crunch of boots on debris and coughing from the other side.
Hurry up, Roméo.

At this point, I’m not sure how we’re going to get out now that the guards know we’re here. We could be surrounded, for all we know. I slide back into the room and watch as Cole slams in another mag. He glances at me, puts his hand on my knee, and beckons me with his eyes.

“I’m okay,” I mouth. He nods, strokes my cheek, and then his dark eyes move back to the doorway.

Sunlight filters in, magnifying the thick, white cloud in the hallway. Adrenaline explodes through me, despite the fact I’ve slept only four hours in the past two days. I’m keyed up, waiting in the doorway.

Someone stumbles over a pile of crumbling tiles. He curses as he falls forward, landing on his hands about five feet from our room. He wrangles himself up and into position faster than I expect. Suddenly, he points his gun in my direction, and I wonder why Cole hasn’t yet taken this guy down. Fear ripples through me.

“Don’t move,” I think he says. But a flash of dark fur knocks him sideways.

Thank you, Zeus.

I take aim and shoot the man in the side. Blood bubbles out in a slow trickle at first, but I don’t have time to stop. I flick my head around as another guard charges Cole with a knife. Pure panic erupts in me like a volcano. I grit my teeth. Before I even think of the consequences, I throw myself in front of him.

“No!” I say.

The figure screeches to a halt. He squints at me. His knife’s leveled at my chest. Another inch closer, and it’d be through my sternum.

“Go ahead!” I scream at him.

“Wish I could,” he says with slanted eyes. He pulls the knife away from my chest and tries to slash my face.

I sidestep him, using his own arm’s momentum to shove him off balance as Cole plows bullets into his torso. Zeus tears into him, and when he’s sure he’s dead, he looks up. Blood stains his muzzle.

I suck in oxygen, trying to catch my breath. The air is thick with dust and death. Despite my muffled hearing, I think I hear my name being called. I glance at Cole. He points with two fingers down the hallway and fires off some rounds to discourage more guards from sneaking up on him.

“Go,” he mouths. “Stay, Zeus,” he says aloud. Zeus parks himself next to Cole like a good watchdog. Then I turn on my heel and run down the hallway.

“Lusty!”

Bill calls me, and this time I know I’m not imagining it.
Where is that coming from?
I hop over debris, steadying myself along the wall, and look around for familiar faces.

“Lusty!” He sounds desperate.

I ground to a stop, my feet sliding on the dust. My hands shoot out, and I catch myself before my face meets the floor. It’s like a bloody jungle gym. A trail of blood leads into a room on my left. I peek in. My hearing’s starting to clear up when I see his face.

Bill kneels on the floor near the entrance. He shakes his head, his hands trembling. His eyes bulge, and when he motions me to come in farther, I notice his hand’s covered in blood. My heart stops.

I don’t want to see.

I hear more shooting in Cole’s direction, and the urge to run comes over me.