“We’ve already dispatched police to that address, ma’am. Are you in immediate danger?”
“I’m not, but other people are. Send more.” She hung up and stepped over Gabby, starting to crouch to figure out how to get her upstairs.
“No!”
Lark recoiled at Gabby’s shout. “I need—”
“You need to go after Jason,” she insisted, feeding Lark’s rising urgency. “He’s sick, weak, and facing a strong, healthy enemy. Don’t you get it, Lark? He needs help. He probably can’t handle Isaac himself, and if he’s not treated immediately, he’ll die!”
* * *
Jason stalked down the hallway, listening hard to the dead silence. At least, to what silence he could hear over the ringing in his ears, residual effect of the gunshots. The fluorescent lighting flickered overhead, making his vision blur. He blinked and squinted. His arms holding his pistol up vibrated slightly, and a new full-body ache had joined the party.
Great time to admit he was really sick.
Think, Templeton. Isaac had never been down here before, as far as they all knew. Even if he’d somehow obtained access to the building plans, he still had to figure out what was where. Every door down here was kept locked, except the bathrooms.
Jason headed toward that end of the hall, listening hard. Every door he passed was latched tight, which didn’t mean Isaac wasn’t in there but cut the odds a little. Now the question was which bathroom should he check first? Habit would send most people to the bathroom they’re used to going into. Was Isaac good enough to override that, on the run, and go into the ladies’ room?
Jason bet he was and eased carefully through that door, which he held until it silently met the jamb. A faucet dripped, and the lights hummed. There was otherwise no other sound, and no quality of waiting that he could detect. Still, he checked all the stalls and the janitorial closet before leaving the room. The ceiling was solid, not acoustical tiles. Isaac hadn’t gone up there.
The men’s room was different. Isaac had either not overcome habit, or anticipated Jason’s expectations. This time there was no humming or dripping, but the air was too still. He could feel Isaac holding his breath.
No sooner had Jason detected his presence than Isaac burst through the first stall door. It didn’t slam into him, but did catch his gun hand and send the weapon clattering across the floor.
He recovered, blocking Isaac’s first punch and ducking the second, but the other man landed a blow on the side of his head. His vision blurred again, the ringing in his ears almost unbearable, but he couldn’t succumb. Lark and Gabby were out there, vulnerable, and everyone’s future hinged on Jason capturing Isaac now. He swung and his fist connected with something cloth-covered. Isaac grunted but landed another hit. Furious at his weakness, Jason tapped his rage. Where was his bionic strength now?
He grabbed Isaac by the back of the neck and swung him toward the sink, intending to smack his head on it. Isaac slipped and landed on the floor, immediately sweeping Jason’s feet. Jason hit the ground flat on his back. The air whooshed out of his lungs and sparkly, colorful dots filled his vision. The door banged open and Isaac’s footsteps went out into the hall.
It took far too many seconds for Jason to drag air in through his nose, roll over and push to his feet. He found his weapon and staggered to the door, bracing himself as he opened it.
But he wasn’t prepared enough. As he swung around the doorjamb into the hall, he registered a red blur and pure, malicious glee on Isaac’s face as he drove the end of a fire extinguisher into Jason’s chest.
* * *
Lark wasted precious seconds arguing with Gabby, not wanting to leave her with Nils and Caitlyn, no matter how unconscious they were. Gabby insisted she’d be fine—she could hide in her office and they’d think everyone had left. Lark hesitated, watching blood stain the white fabric of the lab coat.
But the heat of determination in Gabby’s eyes convinced her. She went around the table and grabbed Nils’ Taser before she raced out into the empty hallway. She stopped again, listening. They could be anywhere. But muffled thumps and what could be grunts came from the end of the hall. She headed that way, startled when the men’s room door opened and Isaac emerged, alone. Lark ducked into the intersecting hallway.
“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath. He’d seen her. She expected him to come right after her. But he didn’t. There was silence again, eerie and taut in the too-bright hallway. Lark took a deep breath, made sure the Taser was ready, and whirled around the corner. Isaac stood in the hall, holding a fire extinguisher. Lark hesitated, confused—there was no sign of flames, and he wasn’t moving. Then the bathroom door opened again and she understood. She started running, breath filling her lungs to yell a warning, but too late. Jason emerged, gun first, but far too close to Isaac. He drove the end of the extinguisher into Jason’s chest. Jason went down, worse than being Tasered, his entire body limp.
Lark screamed. Isaac spun, but instead of attacking her, he ran to the end of the hall and hammered the extinguisher against the stairwell door, trying to open it. Lark skidded to the floor next to Jason, her breath sobbing now, not sure what to do, what to check first. She ripped open his shirt. His chest looked odd, a curved purple bruise already forming but also a spot of concavity, as if…she touched it gently, not wanting to press.
“Oh, God, no.” Gabby appeared, collapsing beside Lark. She was pale and holding her wounded arm. “He got hit in the chest?”
“Fire extinguisher.” Lark spread her hand across the center of his chest. “What do I do?”
“Does he have a pulse?”
Lark pressed her fingers to his neck while Gabby pressed the fingers of her good hand to his wrist. They shook their heads in unison. Lark rose up on her knees, automatically getting in position to do CPR, but Gabby pulled her back.
“We can’t do CPR if his sternum is fractured. Get the AED. Other end of the hall.”
Lark jumped up and sped to the other end. The defibrillator hung in a box next to the elevator. She wrenched at it fruitlessly until she realized it lifted off its bracket. The run back seemed endless, her legs heavy as if she were running through water. At the far end of the hall, Isaac still worked to get away, apparently not considering Gabby and Lark a threat since Jason was incapacitated. And dammit, he was right.
“Here.” Lark finally reached Jason and Gabby and dropped to the floor again.
“You have to do it. Open the cover.”
Lark pressed the button and flipped off the plastic cover. Underneath were flat adhesive pads connected to a cable. She automatically checked that the cable was plugged in, and pressed the “on” button. A computerized voice told her to place the pads as illustrated.
For a moment nothing made sense to Lark. Panic made it impossible for her to act. The realization that Jason was dying should have galvanized her, but instead it paralyzed. She stared at the diagram, helpless.
She was going to be alone.
Then Gabby slapped her.
Everything snapped into place, and a deep calm descended over her. Later, she’d be embarrassed and filled with self-loathing. Right now, she was going to save the man she loved.
“God, I hope.” She quickly peeled the backing off the negative pad and pressed it to the upper right side of Jason’s chest, and put the positive pad on the lower left side. “The ambulance and paramedics should be upstairs,” she told Gabby. “Go get them.”
The doctor was smarter than Lark had been. She went without a word. The uneven click of her shoes on the linoleum told Lark of her slow progress, and she had to fight the urge to go instead. Gabby had only one arm—she couldn’t help Jason by herself.
Lark pressed the “analyze” button and waited, ignoring the continued bangs and curses coming from Isaac’s end of the hall. “Come on, come on.” She was about to scream with frustration when the display flashed “shock” and she hit the button, tears running down her face at the effect on Jason’s body.
&
nbsp; “Administer CPR,” the machine told her, and Lark actually wrung her hands. She couldn’t compress a broken chest, probably shouldn’t have used the AED on him, since the inside of the cover had a warning label with the line, “Do Not Use On Trauma Patients” screaming up at her in red letters. Uncertain what else to do, she pressed the “analyze” button again. It came back “no shock.” She pressed her fingers to Jason’s neck. He had a pulse. But he didn’t seem to be breathing. She adjusted his head, pinched his nose, and lifted his jaw to begin rescue breathing.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been doing that, lost in the rhythm and desperation, when all hell broke loose. The elevator dinged, shouting voices and rumbling wheels coming toward her. At the same time the stairwell door burst open. Lark jerked upright in time to see her father come roaring out of the stairwell, the most foolhardy move she’d ever seen him make. He had no weapon, no position, no awareness of his enemy’s position—and he paid for it. Isaac made some kind of martial arts move and her father crumpled.
Urgent hands dragged her away from Jason. She was surrounded by navy blue uniforms, but they were all rescue personnel. No cops. Jason lay at her feet, her father ten yards away. And Isaac was escaping.
No, he’s not! Lark retrieved the Taser and followed him. She was ending this.
Now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Isaac had a discouraging head start. By the time Lark got through the stairwell door—adding a precious few seconds hesitating over her father’s inert body—the asshole’s footsteps echoed two or three floors ahead of her. Lark didn’t allow herself to think of the difference as insurmountable. She told herself Isaac was lazy, that he was heavier and slower. And that his motivation was no match for hers.
Tight turns. Fast feet. Use your arms. She coached herself up three flights, hauling against the metal rail, staying on the inside, landing on her toes and immediately pushing harder. Isaac couldn’t get out of the stairwell without a keycard on any level but the main lobby.
She was pushing herself so hard she didn’t realize at first that the footsteps had stopped. Her subconscious made her stumble on the last steps to the lobby landing, so Isaac’s grab for her gave him mostly air. He cursed and whirled for the door. Lark lunged and hit the button on the Taser when he was halfway through. Isaac’s momentum carried him out onto the shining tile floor, and into chaos.
The lobby teemed with Hummingbird agents and cops. Voices and radio static echoed against the ceiling and walls, a bombardment of movement and noise. Lark took in the big picture for only a few seconds before it disoriented her and almost sent her sprawling after Isaac. She managed to grab on to the crash bar of the stairwell’s fire door.
Isaac belly-crawled a few feet away. Lark didn’t know what he thought he was going to do. She took three steps forward and hit the Taser again, this time on the back of his shoulder, and holding the button until the safety shut off the stream.
“Hey!” Two uniformed cops lumbered over, one with his hand on his weapon, the other with his already drawn.
Lark dropped the Taser and threw her hands in the air. “I’m Lark Madrassa, the owner’s daughter!” she shouted. “My father and other people are downstairs, hurt, and this man is responsible!”
The officers didn’t hesitate. One cuffed Isaac while his partner ordered Lark down to her knees and did the same to her. She didn’t fight or protest, knowing they were just doing their jobs, but it about killed her to go along, to let herself be dragged out to a patrol vehicle without knowing her father’s or Jason’s condition.
They let her stand outside, at least, while a female officer patted her down and started questioning her. Lark answered as patiently as she could, but when uncountable minutes had passed, she couldn’t help herself.
“What’s going on in there? That’s my father. My…friends. Please at least tell me the paramedics are working on them.”
Just then the front doors opened and two gurneys were wheeled out, followed by her father walking under his own power but holding an ice pack to his head. As soon as he saw Lark he strode over, gathering her into his arms despite the cuffs holding her arms behind her back.
“Is he alive?” she choked out, her gaze locked on Jason’s pale, still face.
“He is. You saved him.”
This time, a voice said. It was inevitable that there would be a next time. Lark knew this. She knew if she stayed with Jason, something—either another enemy or a simple virus—would take him down again. He had great strength, but also great vulnerability. But it didn’t matter.
It was already too late.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The first things Jason became aware of were the comforting beep of a heart monitor and the alarming swish of a respirator. He didn’t know why he had those reactions to them. He felt floaty, but couldn’t open his eyes to see why.
I’m back in the tank. But that couldn’t be right. His body was heavy, only his mind floated. A couple of voices murmured nearby, but there was something in his throat. He couldn’t ask them what was going on.
Lark.
Then he went back to the black.
When he awoke again, the respirator was gone. His mind was much clearer, already telling him that the steady beeping was receiving signals from the clip on his finger, and his raw throat was a welcome sensation because it meant he was breathing on his own. But halfway through a full indrawn breath, he stopped, registering, finally, the pain.
He groaned and opened his eyes, the brightness of the room hurting almost as much as his chest. But after he’d blinked a few times, he realized it wasn’t that bright at all. The overhead lights were off and the curtains at the window pulled, only a soft yellow glow from behind him lighting the room.
Wait a minute. Curtains? The lab didn’t have curtains.
Jason turned to the right and found Gabby grinning at him. Her arm was in a sling and she didn’t have a lab coat on, but she propped a clipboard against her hip with her free hand and skimmed it through new glasses before beaming at him again.
“Well, mister, I hope you realize you’ve now used your quota of miracles and three other people’s.”
“What happened?” he croaked.
Gabby winced and held a small pitcher of water so he could drink through the bent straw. “Sorry about the throat. You were on the respirator for only two days, but it’ll take a while for that to ease.”
“I remember.” Jason shifted in the bed. Nothing seemed to hurt but his torso. “I got hit in the chest.”
“Yeah, exactly what I told you not to do.” Gabby sat in a plastic chair at the side of his bed. “You also got sick. We’ve been pumping you with antibiotics and fluids, but we didn’t want to use anti-inflammatories because the fever is supposed to help your body fight the infection. It seems to have worked.” She held her hand to his forehead, even though he knew the monitor above his head told her his temperature as well as pulse and heart rate.
“So my sternum broke, huh?” He shifted again and tightened his mouth around a moan. Sonofabitch, that hurt.
“Yes, and your heart stopped. Lark saved you.”
Jason relaxed against the pillows, and he hadn’t even been aware of how tense he was, fearing that Gabby was avoiding mentioning Lark because something had happened to her. Her tone was normal, though, so he was free to ask, “Is she okay?”
“Oh, yes. After she saved your life and Matthew was clocked in the head with that same fire extinguisher—he had a concussion, but he’ll be okay—she went after Isaac. You’ll have to ask her what went down.” She held the pitcher out for him again, and he drank, savoring the coolness against his throat.
The door opened and Matt came in. He smiled when he saw that Jason was awake but stopped to kiss Gabby before settling gingerly in the chair.
Acceptable Risks Page 34
