Damage (19 page)

“I’ll send a message out to everyone on the floor,” the nurse says. “But I can’t let you search the rooms, especially with a gun. We have a lot of sick kids here and they—”

“I understand. I promise I won’t disturb them,” he says. “I believe the boy and girl I’m looking for will come with me willingly when they’re found.”

Right. That’s why he has the gun.

A gun. My hand that’s clutching Dani’s starts to sweat. This guy could force us to go with him at gunpoint. My gut tells me our new super strength won’t help us if it comes down to getting shot at close range. We’re both healing crazy quick, but a bullet can kill in a split second, before there’s any time to heal.

“Let me ask my supervisor,” the nurse says. “What was your name again?”

“Agent Bullock. I’m with the FBI.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” There’s a clatter as the phone rattles back into its holder. “I didn’t realize. I’m sure it will be fine for you to search the floor. If you’ll just sign in here and let me get a copy of your I.D., I’ll let the floor know you’re coming through and to help you with anything you need.”

“I appreciate that.” There’s a moment of silence and then large feet step away from the desk.

“And I just need your I.D.,” the nurse repeats, a sliver of steel in her polite tone.

“I left my wallet and badge down in the car. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

The nurse makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and groan. “You know … I’m really not supposed to let anyone on the floor without getting a picture I.D. It’s for the safety of our kids. Maybe you could run down and get it?”

“I understand. There are some real sickos out there,” Agent Bullock says. “I think it’s great you’re so dedicated to protocol.”

“Thank you, I—” There’s sharp zap, followed by a guttural cry, and the unmistakable sound of a body crumpling onto the floor.

Dani sucks in an almost silent breath and grips my hand even tighter. I catch her eye and know she understands what happened, that Agent Bullock shot the woman asking for his I.D. Any doubt that the man means us serious harm vanishes as the nurse’s thin moan fades to silence.

Dani trembles, a delicate tremor that echoes up my arm. I strain to track the sound of Bullock’s footsteps, holding my breath as they draw closer, closer. He’s behind the desk now. A few more steps and he’ll be able to see us. I scan the room for the third or fourth time, looking for anything I can use as a weapon. But there’s nothing, not even enough hot coffee left in the pot to do much damage.

I’ll just have to use my hands and hope I’m strong enough and fast enough to put him down before he can shoot anyone else.

I drop Dani’s hand and lift my fists. Beside me, Dani does the same. The sight of her anything-but-dangerous-looking hands balled up and ready to fight might have been sad if I didn’t know she’d broken a man’s nose with one of those fists earlier today.

Instead, seeing Dani ready to fight makes me feel stronger, safer. For the first time in my life I have someone I can count on. Dani is willing to risk her life for mine. The hugeness of it is too much to handle, but I know—if we make it out of here—that I’m going to
have
to handle it. I’ll have to decide if I’m going to let her risk herself for me the way I’d risk myself for her, if the situation was reversed and I was the one gaining control of my demons.

Two steps, three. Agent Bullock walks closer, pauses for a moment, and then turns and walks away, shoes tapping against the tile as he circles the desk and heads down the hallway to the right. My hands shake as I drop them to my side, the force of my relief making my shoulder muscles twitch. I close my eyes and focus on his footsteps. He’s definitely moving down the D wing, and moving fast. Which means we’re going to move fast, too. In the opposite direction.

I grab Dani’s hand and motion for her to follow me. She nods, holding tight as I step out into the hall and move quickly past where the front desk nurse lies crumpled on the floor. She’s motionless except for her flickering eyelids. Her lashes blink a syncopated rhythm, Morse code warning me and Dani to run. She isn’t dead. There’s no bullet hole or any blood on the white tiles. If I had to guess, I’d say Agent Bullock probably hit her with some sort of Taser. Better than a gun, but a Taser can still be deadly.

Whether she’s dead or alive, I don’t plan to stop, but when Dani tugs her hand from mine I’m not surprised. I should have known she’d have to do something—that’s who Dani is. A good person, who can’t walk by a stranger in pain without trying to help. I wonder if her goodness will rub off on me if we’re given more time together.

She grabs a cell phone sitting on the counter and presses it into the woman’s hand. “Call for help when you can,” she whispers. “I’ll call and tell the hospital police what happened as soon as we get downstairs.”

I don’t wait for the nurse to nod before taking Dani’s elbow and pulling her to her feet. We have to move. Now.

I cut around the desk, heading for the service elevator, back down the hall we walked with Mercy. She’s one of the few nurses whose name I actually remember. I always thought it was weird that the person in charge of sticking me with needles every morning and night was named Mercy. She was anything but merciful when it came to jabbing a vein. I can still feel the way her enthusiastic pricks stung at the back of my hand, made me bite back tears in an attempt to be tougher than the kid in the bed next to me. But I couldn’t always pull it off. She was brutal. Despite her smiles and sympathetic looks, I kind of got the feeling she enjoyed her bloody work.

Maybe that’s why I’m not surprised when we turn the corner and find her standing next to the flower mural, the photo from the year Dani and I helped decorate this hellhole clutched in her hands. She’s talking to a tall man in a gray suit wearing sunglasses and a black ear piece, just like some cheesy Man in Black from one of Trent’s action movies.

But he’s the Man in Gray, come to take me and Dani away. Agent Bullock isn’t alone. We just might be screwed.

“There they are!” The nurse jabs a pudgy finger in our direction.

Guess we know how the bad guys found us.

“This way!” Dani grabs my hand and pulls me back the way we came. I stumble after her, tripping over my feet in my haste to change directions. I’m never this clumsy during a game, but then the guys chasing me down the field don’t have guns, either.

“Stop,” the man shouts, his footsteps hurrying down the hall behind us. “Danielle, Jesse! Stop or I’ll shoot.”

Dani drops my hand and runs, sprinting for all she’s worth back toward the D wing, faster and faster until her hair snaps around her face. I push hard behind her, kicking into superhero speed as we turn the corner and race toward the front desk. The man behind us yells again for us to stop, but doesn’t make good on his threat to fire. Maybe we’ll make it to the main elevator, maybe we’ll—

Agent Bullock bursts from the doors leading to the D wing with what looks like a real gun, not some stun-gun alternative, clenched in his hand. I’ve never seen his face before, but I just
know
that this man with the sandy, gray-streaked hair and the fake’n’bake tan is the agent. I can imagine the way that smug mouth would curl up on the side when he called me “son.”

He slows when he sees us and lifts his weapon. He’s only a few feet from of the front desk. There’s no way we’ll make it to the elevator. We’re trapped.

I skid to a stop. “Dani, wait! We—”

“This way!” She cuts to the right, into the laundry room. I duck in behind her just as the gun fires. I hear the bullet hit the wall and watch a piece of concrete crash to the floor. I slam the heavy wooden door closed and flip the lock without a second to spare. The smell of dirty sheets and bleach spins through my head, making me dizzy.

No doubt that’s a real gun. And Agent Bullock is shooting to kill.

I back away from the door, clenching and unclenching my fists, fighting for a deep breath. Dani and I are as good as caught. A locked door will buy us a few minutes, but that’s it. The nurse probably has a key to the room. If not, they’ll just shoot the lock off and bust in. They’ll be on top of us before we can—

“Come on.” I spin to see Dani opening a small door in the wall. She lifts the metal hatch and hooks one leg up and into the hole beyond. A laundry shoot. “Give me a few seconds and then come down behind me.”

She’s getting ready to slide down a laundry shoot. Down
nine floors
, into a laundry room where there might or
might not
be anything to break her fall. I know I should tell her to get the hell out of there, that she’s crazy and shouldn’t risk her life, but I don’t. I run, loop an arm around her waist, and haul her back into the room, silencing her protest with two words.

“Me first.”

She wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight. The strength in her squeeze gives me hope that she’ll survive the fall. “Be careful. Put your feet and hands out to the sides. It should slow you down.”

Something slams into the door, and a male voice demands that we “Open the door! Right now!”

“Come right after me. Don’t wait more than a second.” I lift the door and wedge one leg and then the other inside, balancing on my tailbone. “If you fall on me it won’t hurt. I’ll be ready to catch you.”

“I know you will.” The trust in her voice makes my gut twist even before I turn to stare down the long, dark tunnel. Dani trusts me. I’ve won her back. We’re going to get out of here in one piece. We just have to.

“See you soon.” I push off, my heart jumping into my throat as I begin to fall.

I let myself slide for a few seconds, making sure I get a good head start, zipping down the metal tube like a kid on a very dangerous slide before spreading my legs and pressing my palms against the sides of the shoot. The friction is immediate and unbearable. My hands are on fire, melting, blazing, but I keep pushing until I slow down a little, then a little more. It helps that the tube doesn’t go straight down. There’s an incline of about twenty degrees, just enough to keep this tumble from being an out-and-out free fall.

Above me, I hear the shoot door slam closed again and then a shooshing sound and a rattle in the metal. Dani made it inside. The fire in my hands suddenly doesn’t hurt quite as bad. She’s on her way. I just have to make sure I’m ready to make good on my promise to catch her.

I pull my hands back into my body for a second and then push them back out. In and out, in and out, until I’m speeding toward the ground at a pace just short of insane.

It’s also just short of fast enough.

The gun shot booms in the tight space. My ears pop and ring. The pain explodes in my shoulder a second later, making me scream as the bullet burrows into muscle. My left hand spasms and falls away from the side of the shoot. The shot must have zipped past Dani and found me. I’d be glad if I didn’t know that first shot won’t be the last. These people don’t seem to care if they kill us, and for the next few seconds we might as well have red and white targets painted on the top of our heads.

Whatever’s waiting at the end of this shoot—even if it’s a concrete floor where Dani and I will both break our damned legs—it’s better than a bullet in the brain. I give up trying to slow my slide and fall—faster, faster, faster, bones rattling and my heart oozing into my skull—until all of a sudden the fall is over.

I shoot out into a blindingly bright room, grunting as I land in a pile of stinking sheets. Vomit, blood, shit, sickness—it’s all piled up underneath me, but I’ve never been so glad to roll over and press my face into a filthy pillow. My shoulder is on fire and I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, but I’m okay. Dani’s going to be okay too.

She hits the sheets a second later with an
oof
and groans as she rolls into me, leaving a trail of red behind. My heart stops and begins the long, miserable journey back to my chest. Dani’s bleeding. She’s been shot; she could be dying.

“You okay?” she asks, voice tight, breathless.

She could be dying and she’s asking if
I’m
okay.

I reach for her with my left hand, but a flash of heat and pain remind me I’ve got a bullet wedged into my shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. They hit you, didn’t they? They—”

“Don’t worry about me. You’re bleeding.”

Her hands drift over her shoulder toward her back, but she winces and pulls away before touching whatever it is that hurts. “I think the bullet grazed me on the way by. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hurt that bad. You’re the one we’ve got to get to a doctor.”

“No way.” I scoot to the edge of the filthy pile, her words spurring me into motion. “We can’t stay here.”

“But you’ve been shot. You can’t—”

“And the men who shot me are probably running for the elevator right now. We’ve got to go. Far. Fast.” I hold out my good hand, helping her out of the tangle of sheets and onto the gray concrete floor.

She nods. “Okay. Come on. I was only down here once, but I think there’s a back staircase. It comes out by the vents near where we parked.”

She runs deeper into the laundry room, past towers of washers and dryers, into a storage area filled with industrial-sized containers of detergent and bleach. At the end of the metal shelves a tired, concrete staircase with a crack slithering up the side leads to a green metal door. Dani has probably just saved our lives. I recognize the door. We passed it on our way to the back entrance to the cafeteria. We’re going to come out right next to the car.