Page 68 of Baby One Last Time
I pulled my shit together. I focused on the back of Mai’s head and listened for the slightest noise that might indicate we weren’t alone.
It was silent as a tomb. Which could not mean anything good.Fuck me again.
When we reached the end of the back hall, Mai stopped. She peered around the corner, rifle in her hand, tranq at her waist. If we got the drop on Derek’s captors, we’d tranq them and leave them for Penn and Sparks and the augmented cleanup crew. If they got the drop on us—well, then the pooch would be officially screwed, and we’d go down shooting live rounds.
We turned left and moved down the new corridor. Ten feet ahead, we’d take a right turn. If Alder’s odds were with us, Derek would be in the second room to the left in that wing. The soft echo of voices reached us now, and my pulse quickened with hope. If captors were outside his room, the captive must still be alive.
The full force of what we were doing, of what was at stake, landed in my gut. There was no room for error.No screw-ups this time, Kessler.
Mai and I hugged the wall as we reached the bend. She held a hand to signal me to stop and used a mirrored scope to peer around the corner. She held up two fingers. Two guards in view. She spread out her fingers like a high five, indicating the door to the room was open.
Well, damn.
If there were more assholes inside the room with Derek, it would be nearly impossible to tranq the two in the corridor without drawing attention. Mai glanced at her watch and I followed suit, then she looked at me with raised eyebrows. A question. Are we still a go? But there was really only one answer. I nodded.
She did a quick visual inspection of her rifle while I pulled my tranq gun out of my waist holster and checked the settings. I was on point, but Mai would be right over my shoulder. If even the slightest thing went sideways, she’d start dropping Beecher’s thugs like twenties at an upscale strip club.
Guns cocked, check. Hands steady, check. I met Mai’s eyes. Sharpshooter ready, oh hell yes. I nodded.
With one swift move like the tag team we were, we slid into positions. I went down on one knee, gun at the ready. Mai was at my back, on her feet. Without seeing her, I knew her eye was in the rifle sight and her finger was on the trigger. In a split second, I lined up my first target in my scope and dropped him with a tranq shot to the base of his throat. The gun kicked. I gripped hard to correct it. But my adrenaline spiked. I overcorrected. Took another second to get it under control and line up my next shot.
It was a second too long.
The second thug let out a grunt of warning. Mai’s shot of a dart to his throat cut it off, but it was too late. Voices rose inside the room as Mai and I ducked for cover around the corner. Well, Mai ducked and dragged me with her. Without her quick thinking, I would have run into a hail of bullets or launched myself into a spewing volcano or made any stupid, life-ending moves I thought might get me closer to Derek.
A crack reverberated around us. A gunshot.
I took my tranq gun in my left hand and unholstered my pistol with live rounds in the right. I sprang into the open hallway and barely heard Mai’s muttered “Goddammit” as I spotted a pistol-wielding fucker exit the room alone. Not dragging Derek. Not leading him. Which probably meant he’d shot him.
Time moved at the speed of chilled molasses as I dropped back to one knee to make myself a harder target and lined up the guy’s skull. I poured my rage and pain into the pull of the trigger. When time caught up to me and Mai grabbed my shoulder, the hall was a shit-show of blood and brain matter.
Mai kept her rifle trained on the door one-handed while trying to hold me back. I wriggled out of her grasp and yelled, “Cover me!” and sprinted down the hall.
At least I had the presence of mind—or more like a temporary parting of the clouds of my crazy—to stop outside the door and listen. Inside the room, someone groaned. It gave me no indication how many people were in there, whether Derek was one of them, or—fuck me so hard—whether he was alive.
Ragged breaths came from the room. “Cynth, please tell me that’s you,” Derek said.
I widened my eyes at Mai, then rolled into the doorway with my pistol drawn. It took me a few heartbeats to spot him on the floor, and if there had been a shooter in there with him, I would have been toast. Then again, if there’d been a shooter, Derek would have yelled for me to run, even it meant his own death. I knew that because that’s exactly what I would have done if our roles had been reversed.
I launched myself toward him, desperate to hold him safe in my arms, but stopped short. A cold wave washed over me. My legs wobbled. My heart dropped into my gut. Derek was hunched into a ball and lying on his side. In a pool of blood.
Chapter 18
Three things happened at once,which split my focus and saved me from full-on panic. Mai nudged me aside to assess Derek’s wound. An alarm, accompanied by flashing lights, went off in the hallway. And Derek grabbed my hand and squeezed with enough strength to assure me he was far from dead.
“Bullet to the shin,” Mai announced. She reached for the first aid kit hanging from her waist holster and pulled out a roll of gauze.
“See, just a flesh wound,” Derek said. He grimaced as Mai wrapped the wound. “Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, though.”
With the threat of his imminent death past, my brain re-engaged. “Alarms probably mean one of two things.”
“Evacuate or converge on the prisoner.” Derek finished my thought.
Mai nodded. We were all in agreement. And probably screwed.
“Let’s get him to his feet,” she said.
Derek sat up and wrapped an arm around each of our shoulders. He put a small amount of weight on his wounded leg and his face blanched as. “What the fuck?” he muttered through clenched teeth.
