Page 84 of Agent Zero
The blonde barely broke stride, holding a standard-issue with the barrel down, moving smoothly and professionally.“Incoming!”she barked, and Cal bolted straight for her.Weird—the new woman’s smell almost vanished into a powerful burst from the other agent, a blue-tinted wave that might have knocked Reese down if his anchor hadn’t been in his arms, coughing as her eyes welled with tears that were could be, if Reese was lucky, partly relief.
“Come on!”the blonde stranger said, but Cal grabbed her, neatest trick of the week, and shoved her against the wall, almost knocking the gun out of her hand.
“Stay there,” he snapped, and turned, his own pistol coming up.
Thank you, God.Thank you.But they weren’t out of the woods yet.
Reese pushed Holly behind him and had bare seconds to brace himself before the first pursuers appeared.
FIFTY-THREE
Chaos,bullets zinging, Reese yelling, “Get down!”and Holly stumbled aside, fetching up against the wall instead.Her cheeks were slick and hot, the persistent nagging pain in her head had vanished, and deep relief at seeing Reese—mussed and dirty, with blackened fingers and a pair of boots that looked hideously uncomfortable—turned her knees to jelly.
Cal was similarly dirty and didn’t even bother glancing at her, instead sinking to one knee and steadily aiming at the opening she and Trinity had just run through.Trinity raised her gun as well, sliding along the wall with oiled grace, and Holly realized what was about to happen.
The men chasing them were going to walk right into a shooting gallery.
Uh-oh.She snapped a glance back down the hall, impelled by a gleam at the edge of her peripheral vision.
Everything seemed to slow down.Later she would wonder if it actually had, or if her newfound senses had played some trick of perception.Maybe she’d just found a cosmic pause button.
Trinity, Reese, Cal.They all wore the same expression—set and thoughtful, though Reese’s expression shaded into worry and Cal’s into puzzlement.Trinity’s was faintly puzzled, too, but a casual observer would probably just call it blank.
There was a slice of brilliance behind their little group.Electric light, spilling from an opening door in a slowly widening scythe, and the shadow behind it filled Holly’s throat with cold dread.She was suddenly, completely sure that the shadow belonged to a man with pitted skin and eyes cold and dark as leftover coffee.He would be holding a gun too, and when he stepped out he would be able to fire down the hall, right at their unsuspecting backs.They were like fish in a barrel here.
Do something!
But what?What could one tired, terrified waitress do?
I am so tired of being afraid.And another thought, at once familiar and deeply strange like all uncomfortabletruths pushed under the stream of consciousness.
I want to live.
The shadow was growing closer because Holly was running, her boot soles squeaking as a bigger racket started up behind her.Pops and pings, a scream cut off on a gurgle, shouted obscenities.
It was him, the man with the bad skin.Everything on his face was puffing up, dried blood and bruising making him a leering grotesque.His mouth had opened, maybe surprised at walking into this chaos.Hedidhave a gun, the same kind the others were carrying, and Holly’s entire body went cold.
Because its ugly black mouth—and why did it look so big, she didn’t have time to figure it out—was pointed directly at Reese’s back.
Crunch.
Later she would be amazed that she could remember, very clearly, the sound of ribs snapping as she crashed into Bronson.The gun skittered away, an eye-searing flash as the shot went wide, and Holly realized she was screaming as they hit the ground in a tangle of arms and legs plus a hot burst of blood from his wounded face, because her forehead had clipped his broken nose again.
For one blinding instant, she fully remembered the light shining in her eyes—the rest of the room was black in comparison, and her unresisting body had been strapped to a plain wooden chair.Their voices—Trinity’s, Bronson’s, someone else’s—as they discussed what to do with her.The terse, low conversation as two men carried her up to her apartment, and Reese’s face, pale and drawn as he pulled her up from the floor.Holly?Holly, look at me.
Reese, the scalpel bright as he dug something small and silver out of his hip, his face betraying nothing but distance.No pain, not even a wince.
This is one of the men who made him that way.
Holly thrashed, trying to get free of the tangle, and there was another sickening crack.The man’s body sagged; Holly, blinking, a spray of hot blood touching her face, stared up into Trinity’s expressionless gaze.
The blonde woman had shot Bronson.
Next time, I’ll calculate better.
Holly’s stomach lurched.But Trinity stooped, and her warm hand closed around Holly’s.The other woman sank back; Holly rose in a rush, her head spinning dangerously.They stood almost nose to nose, for a moment, and Holly had time to see a spark of...something, struggling to stay alive in the other woman’s pupils.
The moment passed.Trinity snapped a glance over her shoulder, ponytail whipping.Then she was gone; she nipped neatly through the door Bronson had used just before it closed with a dull, heavy, final thud.
