Page 42 of Dirty Quinn
Motherfucker.
“Reed! It’s me, Mack!” I yell toward the doorway before poking my head back through.
He looks up, his face filled with anguish. “She’s not breathing.”
I’m by his side as the girls rush in. They move as one highly efficient unit. Roxie takes post by the door. Jen shoves gauze between my vest and the bullet wound, then wraps a flex bandage under my arm and around my shoulder to staunch the blood flow. I don’t question her actions until she goes to shoot me up with something from a small syringe.
“Antibiotic?”
“Morphine.”
“Oh, shit. Bringing out the big guns.”
“Can’t have you passing out from the pain.”
I want to argue that I would never pass out from the pain, but then the morphine starts to kick in, my body begins to relax, and I realize how tense and in pain I was.
“Thanks.”
She nods in return. “It’s clean through, no bullet, you’ll be fine.” She pats me on the opposite shoulder then moves to help Al check Quinn over.
“She’s breathing,” Al reports. “It’s just faint. So’s her pulse—”
Explosions rock the walls again. Debris rains down as bits of concrete break away from the walls, and dust flies free from the ceiling.
The sounds of screaming and gunfire fill the air. We look at one another, all with same thought at once. How in the fuck are we going to get out of here?
“We go back the way we came,” Al says. Answering the question no one dared to ask.
Reed gathers Quinn in his arms, who has yet to wake. We head back, single file once again, with Al in the lead, followed by Jen, then Reed with Quinn, Roxie, and me. That gives us two people in front of Reed to fend off anyone who may get in our way and two people behind. Reed has already given me each of his pieces. He won’t risk Quinn’s life by also trying to fire a gun. And I don’t blame him.
The further along the crazy hallways we go, the more apparent it becomes that everyone is upstairs engaged in the firefight, and we might just be able to make it out of this alive. I want to doubt that thought even as I have it. But at the same time, we deserve a lot of fucking luck right now. And that’s exactly what getting out of here without issue would be.
There’s one thing serving during times with active combat that a man rarely forgets the sound of—the sound of a missile as it flies toward you. Which is the same thing I’m hearing now.
“Retreat, we need to fucking retreat.” I grab Jen by the arm. She jerks away from me as though I’ve hit her. I immediately regret my actions, already forgetting that all these women who work with Daria have been victimized in horrific ways. And almost single-handedly by men.
“We need to—”
The missile hits the same side of the house we’re headed for. The sounds of concrete crumbling rumbles through the hall as the air fills with dust. Suffocation and blindness set in at once. I pull one of the cleaner bandages from within my vest and wrap it around my head to protect my nose and mouth. Then give Reed one for him and another for Quinn. I turn to the girls only to find they’ve all already tied bandanas around their faces.
Astounding me once again. Not that it should surprise me. They are trained by Daria, and she is nothing if not efficient and prepared for anything. We turn to head the other way, this time with me taking the lead. Al is still using her cool program, but the dust makes it hard for any thermal imaging to take place, and we can’t see more than a few inches ahead.
The only good thing about that is neither can anyone else who may be headed our way, but it makes our progress slow going. It isn’t until we hit another dead end that I realize we are completely fucked. Stuck in a series of hallways shaped like a cross with two points naturally resulting in dead ends, and the other two now filled with fallen concrete and debris.
Al kicks in a nearby door and we take shelter in what might be the only dust-free space down here to regroup. Reed settles himself into a corner, cradling Quinn in his arms. Dust covering every inch of him, making him appear decades older than he is.
“Well.” Roxie turns to the rest of us, pulling her bandana off and shaking the dust off before using it to wipe the grime from the rest of her face. “What the fuck do we do now?”
And isn’t that the question of the day?
25
Daria
All I see is dust and smoke, interrupted only by the new plumes that follow the intermittent explosions. It seems impossible that anyone could survive what’s going on in there. Yet the rapid gunfire belies that thought even as I have it.
I’m not worried about my father. He’s smart enough to steer clear of the real danger. He likes to be on scene to watch the chaos he inspires unfold. But not so close that there’s a need for him to be involved.
