By the time he’d created the space he needed, he was exhausted, but he’d managed the entire effort without further damaging his leg. Taking a few deep breaths, he planted his right hand firmly on the deck as he lifted his right leg off of it and slowly swung it up and over his body, keeping his left leg against the floor as he pivoted on his hip. Taking sharp breaths through gritting teeth, he slowly lowered his right leg towards the floor, straining as he forced his abdominal muscles to keep the leg from dropping downward.
At last he was done. A ton of effort, over several minutes, just to roll over.
Taking another breath, he sat up, using only his core muscles as he continued to avoid moving the injured leg. Once in a seated position, he took a moment to recover, leaning against the seats, then swallowed and looked around. Aside from the exhaustion he felt, he was also hot and thirsty. ‘Water would be amazing,’ he thought for a moment, before his mind chided him, ‘first things first.’ Exhaling, he leaned forward and examined his leg once more. The jagged end of the tibia greeted him, pointing back at him accusingly, as if asking, ‘how could you let this happen?’
He knew he needed to splint the leg, preferably with two straight objects, but at the bare minimum one, one would do. Nothing he could do there would allow him to walk on it, but he could at least immobilize it to prevent further damage.
The problem was, ‘what could he use for a splint?’
His eyes traveled towards McGhee once more. The man was a walking arsenal.Surely he’d have something Reed could use. Sighing, he rotated on his butt slowly so that his torso was near McGhee’s.
‘Sorry again, brother,’ he thought, as he began searching the man’s pockets and belt. He immediately found the man’s KA Bar knife, which was eleven inches in length, perfect for what he needed. Could there be something else usable on the man’s body? Working his way down the man’s legs, Reed found the second item in the cargo pocket of the man’s right leg: a telescoping baton. Why the man brought such a weapon, Reed had no idea. It didn’t make sense, but maybe it was part of the man’s typical load out. It certainly was effective in close quarters battles, though not as effective or as deadly as the KA-Bar’s seven inch blade. Either way, it would serve Reed’s purpose perfectly. Using the blade of the knife, he cut several long strips of cloth from McGhee’s uniform, apologizing for yet a third time. When he had enough, he gently straightened his leg, wincing as the bone dragged against the damaged muscles and flesh surrounding it. Though he felt fairly confident that he remembered enough from medical school to get the two parts of the bone to line up once more, he resisted the urge, telling himself that (a) if he screwed up, he could injure himself further, maybe permanently, and (b) if he introduced too much pain, he could very easily pass out yet again. Settling for having the leg extended, he held the baton against the side of his leg, wrapped the cloth around the leg and it, then looped in the KA-Bar, pressing it against the other side. He wrapped the cloth around and around until the two parts were held firmly against his lower appendage, used another strip of cloth to secure the lower half, then finally used a third to secure the splints near the middle of the leg, just below where the bone protruded.
When he was done, he leaned against the seats once more, catching his breath and wishing for a bottle of water again.
As he wiped sweat away from his brow, he heard the sound of a powerful engine getting closer.
Steight began to growl.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
East Palo Alto, California
Inside the headquarters of the social media giant, Miguel ‘Mikey’ Olivares and Hector Guillermo walked through the first floor, looking for the men they’d been sent to kill.
“I can’t believe this place still has the lights on,” Mikey said aloud as he walked through the giant room, looking left and right at the rows of desks. The wide open room housed countless freestanding, multi-person platform desks. Each one seated four on either side of its length, with the occupants essentially facing each other, separated only by the dual 42-inch monitors, which provided a barrier between them. Overall, the giant space held twelve of the eight-person desks on each side of the main walkway, providing seating for one hundred and ninety-two people. Additional rows of seats at counter height positions lined the windows on the north and south side of the room, offering another forty seats on each side of the room, putting the room occupancy at two hundred and forty people.
Even so, the tall, wide, cavernous space looked as though it could easily hold twice that many people. The walkway that traversed the center of the room was ten feet wide, and the space between the desks and the countertop workstations against the windows was easily that wide as well. On each side of the room, each set of four desks was separated by round, twelve-person conference tables, surrounded by cushioned, high-end office chairs. The far end of the room had a long counter that held multiple pod or packet type hot beverage dispensers, along with baskets filled with packets of non-dairy creamer, sugar, and sugar substitutes. Next to the hot beverage area, rows of bottled water sat upon the counter.
Hector, a stocky but muscular Latino with a shaved head and a thick mustache, didn’t bother replying to his statement. Instead, he muttered, “Thirsty,” before heading towards the counter.
“Hey, ese, the Scorpion said we need to find those assholes that killed Bang,” Mikey said, objecting to the detour. Stocky as well, he was anything but muscular, and though he had a similarly shaved head, he wore a goatee around his mouth. Both of his arms held a variety of tattoos, some religious, some meant to intimidate, one that professed his love for his girl, and one that memorialized his younger brother.
“Just let me grab a drink real quick.”
Relenting, Mikey shook his head as he followed the man to the counter area. “Shoot, fool, hand me one, then.”
“Alright, bet,” the man replied, passing a plastic bottle of water to him.
Tucking his rifle under his arm, the man with the goatee unscrewed the cap and drank from the bottle. The water was lukewarm, but it was still refreshing when it hit his tongue, and he closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy it. Opening them, he nodded, then looked towards a doorway near the end of the hallway.
“What choo think that is?”
The second man glanced at it and shrugged. “A door,” he said, reaching for one of the granola bars that were inside a nearby basket.
“I know that, ese, but like, where do you think it goes?”
The muscular man cocked his head and looked at the door. “I don’t know. Another room like this?”
Curious, the goateed man set his water bottle down and moved to the door. Pushing on the bar to open it, he heard the latch disengage.
A second later it was ripped from his grasp as it flew open, releasing dozens of infected men and women from the stairwell and back into their workspace.
The two men didn’t even manage to fire a single round before they were swarmed over.
Racing along the third floor hallway, Daniel and Paul were no longer concerned about stealth. They’d been spotted, and now their only chance at survival was escape. Outmanned and outgunned, a firefight would quickly become a death sentence.
Neither of them spoke as they ran along the faux wood tiled floor, their shoes making slapping sounds as they struck its hard surface. Passing offices on either side, they pushed themselves yet again on legs that were far past weary.
When the first shot was fired, pure adrenaline carried them forward, giving them a fresh burst of energy, propelling them back towards the food court and the stairs to the main lobby.
The bullet flew past, ricocheting off the floor and striking one of the glass windows off to the right, chipping its surface. More bullets followed, traveling along a similar trajectory, one of them striking the same window and shattering it, sending a wave of glass to the floor.
Seeing the stacked furniture that rested against the door to the food court less than a hundred yards ahead, Daniel was wonderi
ng what happened to the other men that had arrived shortly after the first group. He’d heard the woman talking to them in a directive manner, which told him that she was in charge of the gang, but he’d been unable to hear what her orders had been.
Were the men waiting in the lobby?
More gunshots forced him to focus on running again. Five shots sounded in rapid succession, coming from a semi-automatic weapon. This time, the bullets went wide to the left, striking the walls and ceiling.
It would only be a matter of time before the shooters correct their aim.
“Zig-zag!” Daniel said, keeping his voice low.
“What?”
“Like this!” He cut left, took three strides, then cut back to the right. After four steps, he cut left again for two, then right for three. Paul understood quickly and began mimicking his movements in an effort to confuse the shooters.
If they were smart, they’d simply focus their aim down the middle of the hallway.
Daniel was hoping they weren’t.
Leading the way, he rushed past the first guard who’d died, jumping over the man’s extended legs as he rushed towards the stairwell. Paul followed close behind, nearly falling when his trailing leg clipped the dead man’s foot. Fortunately, he caught himself in time, getting his feet under himself before his momentum carried him down to the tile surface.
They were three, maybe four steps from the stairwell when the shooter’s line of fire finally crossed Daniel’s path, ending he and Paul’s luck.
The bullet struck Daniel in the left side just as he was cutting to the right. The impact hit him like a sledgehammer, surprising him with its force and knocking him off his feet. As he fell sideways, his legs rose up, catching Paul in his shins. Running at full speed and already in the middle of this stride, the unexpected impact to his lower body sent the teenager airborne. Flying over Daniel’s falling form, he extended his arms out in front of him in an attempt to break his fall.
Where his hands expected to find the floor, they found nothing but air as his momentum carried him out over the staircase. Shocked, he felt a surge of fear rise up inside him. His eyes went wide as he saw the steps falling away beneath him as he fell downward.
When his hands finally did make contact, it was with the fifth step, and by that point, his forward motion was too much for his arms to stop. They collapsed under him, allowing his chin to catch the sixth step, rocking his head backwards violently and knocking him into a stunned daze. His body slid forward, uncontrolled, bouncing along the remaining steps until it came to the second floor landing, where it landed with a heavy thump.
Not faring much better, Daniel’s brain told him that he needed to stop his awkward fall before the back of his skull found one of the steps. He extended his left arm out reflexively, reaching desperately for the stair railing as he fell backwards. Scraping the polished metal surface of the railing, his fingertips couldn’t find a way to grasp the metallic surface, slipping along its face.
Until they did.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, and coming at a moment when his mind had resigned itself to the fact that he’d endure a brutal, jarring impact, one which he’d be lucky to survive, his hand slapped against the metal tube. Like a spring-loaded trap, his fingers responded instantly, wrapping themselves around the railing. While his grip helped to stop his uncontrolled fall, slowing his momentum, his forward motion carried him into the railing and the plate glass. Unable to stop himself, he bounced off of it and fell forward. He stumbled down the steps before falling to the floor near Paul’s motionless body.
His body’s instinct told him to pause while it assessed the damage, but his conscious mind screamed, ‘Move!’ Rolling over to his knees, he grabbed the teenager’s shoulder and shook it, trying to spur the young man into motion.
At the sound of a gunshot, he froze.
A laugh followed, before a woman’s voice called out. “Give it up, fuckers, it’s over!”
The Scorpion grinned widely as she gazed down at the two men on the stairway landing below her. The younger one, who looked to be a teenager, wasn’t moving, and a thin line of blood had formed on his chin. More importantly, she saw evidence of what she was looking for in pieces on the floor near where he laid: a broken piece of a bow and several arrows.
This was the son of a bitch that had killed Lizette.
She was going to make sure he regretted his actions more than he’d regretted any other decision he’d ever made. His death would be slow, methodical, painful. She’d break him down, piece by piece, until he was on the verge of giving up.
Then she’d bring him back by having one of the nurses treat his wounds and provide him with painkillers that would allow him to regain consciousness and a sense of awareness.
Then she’d start again.
But what about the older man with him?
After weighing his fate for a moment, she pointed her gun at him. She’d get rid of the man first, then take her time with the teenager.
Looking up at the source of the voice from the stairway landing, Daniel’s eyes were unable to focus on what appeared to be a female form, flanked by two larger male forms. He blinked repeatedly as he tried to force his eyes and brain to work together so that he could see what he was faced with, but it was no use.
He was essentially defenseless, unable to attack those who wished to kill him.
‘Shit,’ he thought to himself, finally taking time to evaluate the decisions that had led him to this point. He and Daniel had had one clear, specific objective: to lead the infected away from his wife and children.
They’d done that.
Everything afterward….was it worth it?
Should they have gotten involved?
Wincing as he tried to move in a way that would put less pressure on his injured side, his mind worked quickly, considering the questions he’d asked himself, poking holes in each side of the argument.
His first obligation was to his family.
But the people in the truck didn’t deserve to die.
He’d put himself at risk by getting involved.
Someone had to stand up for those who couldn’t defend themselves.
His family needed him.
His family respected him.
Because he did the right thing when it mattered most.
Gazing up at the three shapes above him, Daniel tried to fix his gaze on what he thought was their leader: the dark-haired female in the middle.
He ignored the feeling of blood running down his torso as it leaked from the gunshot wound. Fortunately it hadn’t hit any organs, but it had torn away some of the flesh at his side, leaving a thick groove just below his ribcage. It hurt like hell.
Shifting slightly, his hand found what it was searching for: the gun at his hip. With the position he was in, the gun was out of view of those above him. With any luck…
‘Come on, Daniel, be serious, you can’t even see clearly,’ the pessimist inside him said to his optimistic self in the no-nonsense tone it always used.
‘Okay,’ the optimist relented, ‘With a shitload of luck…’
Looking down on him, the Scorpion held the gun in her hand as she continued. “I suggest you give up now, you piece of shit. I’m fucking irritated, tired, and hot.
“If you do, maybe it won’t be as bad for you as it could be, and trust me, it’ll take a lot to keep me from introducing you to the worst pain you’ve ever felt.”
Glancing at Paul, Daniel saw that the young man still wasn’t moving. That factor limited his options even further. He couldn’t leave the teenager behind, so escape would be exponentially harder.
‘Fuck,’ he said to himself.
Looking up at the woman and her henchmen, he could only wish for a better outcome than what they’d surely face.
The sounds in the room seemed to intensify as he stared up the trio who stood at the top of the stairs. He blinked as a sudden realization set in.
Unless....
The woman continued, her
voice growing more confident with every passing second as she calculated the limitations of the two injured men.
“Listen,” she began, “I know you’re trying to figure out how you’ll get out of this, and who knows? Maybe you think you’ve come up with something: some way that you’ll escape, some way that you’ll get the upper hand, maybe even some way that you’ll kill us.”
The Scorpion laughed out loud at her words, leaning forward as she did. Beside her, Clint and Mario joined in, their deeper laughs adding to hers as the three of them collectively found amusement in the plight of the two injured forms below them.
After a moment, she shook her head.
“Trust me, though: you won’t. My men here will put a dozen bullets in you if you even move a muscle.” She shrugged. “All you can possibly do is piss me off even more, and trust me, I’m already angrier than I ever thought was possible. In fact,” she said, cocking her pistol, “I really want to just kill you right now and be done with it.”
Daniel was tired of listening to the woman drone on with her self-centered, egocentric speech. It’d been their actions that had caused him and Paul to intervene. Now she was up there, looking down at them and acting like she was the victim in all of this.
Parched and exhausted, his voice cracked as he looked up at the woman and spoke.
“Fuck you.”
At the top of the stairs, he saw a sudden movement before the sound of a gunshot echoed in the open space of the giant atrium. Bits of ceramic tile showered his face as a bullet ricocheted off the nearby step and zipped past his head, making him flinch. His ears rang as they dealt with the sudden, deafening sound.
The Scorpion laughed again. “Boy, oh boy, you’re pushing me, you fuck. I really do want to be done with this…. just put a bullet in the center of your stupid fucking head and be done with it. If I did, I could leave your stupid body here to bleed out as you fucking die while I deal with your friend there.…
Surviving Rage | Book 2 Page 71
