The doors finally move.
They’re sliding closed at the rate of slug flopping over a garden path, and I’m so fucking sweaty with panic I’m not sure how I haven’t dropped my gun already.
Danvers isn’t close enough, and he lifts his gun and gets off a shot right before the doors seal between us.
So he doesn’t catch the way Iwailin pain.
A fiery burn rips through my shoulder, and I glance down to find red quickly bleeding out across the white T-shirt.
My friends fur-ever T-shirt.
That bastard.
Before he can get the doors open again, I drag my good hand down every button and finally suck in an inhale as the elevator moves. Good luck to him guessing which floor I’m getting out on.
My shoulder is in goddamn agony, and as soon as the doors open on the first floor, I run. I tear down one corridor to the next, and as I spot a window to head for, movement on my left makes me stop.
Lars is holding open the door to the stairwell as St. Clare steps inside.
“Close that!”
Lars hurries to do it even as St. Clare’s jaw drops.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
I ignore him, grab the potted plant right by the window, and throw it as hard as my injured shoulder will allow. The glass gives way easily—and it’s lucky we’re not on a higher level where this wouldn’t have been possible.
“Out. Now.”
Thankfully, neither of them questions me.
Lars goes first. Jumping from the first floor onto the cement like some fucking terminator, he then turns, and when I shove St. Clare ahead, Lars is ready to break his fall.
I’m not at all feeling woozy as I set the safety on my gun, tuck it into my jeans, and then give a quick plea to the universe that I’m not about to go splat.
Before I can do much more than that, I hear the door to the stairwell open behind me, and I jump.
There’s a second of weightlessness, and then my feet slam into the pavement, and I pitch forward, just able to catch myself before I go face-first into cement.
My shoulder gives out a second later as squealing tires fill my ears, and Lars hauls me to my feet before I’m run over. There are snatches of everything happening around me—a shout, St. Clare swearing, the car horns louder out here—that when the door to the car flies open, I don’t realize at first that it’smycar and Tommy’s sitting behind the wheel.
“Right on time, Perry.” He grins, and I shove St. Clare into the back seat ahead of me while Lars jumps into the front.
A shot hits the back windshield of my baby, shattering the glass into pieces.
“Might be a good time to drive,” I say weakly.
Tommy steps on the gas.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ST. CLARE
What the fuckis going on?
I’m still panting as we fly downtown in a car that’s half-deranged, a stranger taking us who knows where and Perry wheezing so hard he sounds like a squeak toy has been lodged in his throat.
Oh. And he’s bleeding.
