The woman aimed the gun not at her, but over her shoulder, at Wagner. Her gaze, though, was fixed on Shield. She had expressive eyes—and they conveyed a clear, pleading message to play along. When Shield stared unflinchingly back with understanding, the woman gave the slightest, subtlest nod.
“I told you, they don’t care,” Shield said over her shoulder to Wagner. “Look at them. It’s obvious they don’t have a mind of their own. They’re too stupid to know right from wrong or to realize what my organization will do to them.”
The woman facing them lowered her gun. “You know, before I met one of you fucked-up contractors I used to care about these threats.” She stepped forward until she was only two feet away. “But now,” she continued, as she lifted the gun to Shield’s forehead, “not so much.”
“Do it,” one of the men said, and his friends laughed. “Maybe you can get them both with one shot.”
“No!” Wagner screamed from behind her.
The woman’s intense green eyes looked from the gun, to Shield, and back to the gun. “By any means necessary,” she muttered, repeating the EOO motto.
That was enough for Shield. She grabbed the weapon. Although outnumbered, it was her only desperate chance.
She got off three quick shots, firing next to the woman’s head, and got two of the men—one in the head and the other in the stomach. She missed the third one as he ran for cover behind a stack of barrels near the stairwell. “Let’s go.” She grabbed Wagner by the wrist.
The woman who’d helped them was bent over, covering her head. She was in obvious pain from the loud gun reports so close to her ear.
Shield put her free hand on the woman’s back. “Can you hear me? We have to run.”
“Leave me.”
Shield released Wagner. “Don’t move,” she told her. Then she turned back to the woman and put an arm around her waist. “We never leave one of our own behind,” Shield said, not knowing if she could hear or if she was indeed one of theirs.
But the woman tried to pull away. “Leave me,” she said again.
Shield couldn’t understand what was going on with her and didn’t have time for riddles.
“Watch out!” Wagner yelled, and pushed her forward. A second or two later, a shot rang out from the direction of the stairwell, followed by a muffled chink as it tore a bit of concrete from the floor near them. Wagner screamed again.
Shield pulled Wagner behind her and fired back. Once. Twice.
Wagner poked her on the shoulder and pointed to the emergency exit.
“Use me to get out,” the dark-haired woman whispered. “Threaten to kill me.”
“I can’t do that.”
The woman punched Shield in the face. “Fucking do it.”
Shield aimed at the overhead bulb and shot out the light. “Move and I’ll shoot you in the head,” she said loudly.
With the woman in a headlock and Wagner behind her, Shield kept the gun pointed in the direction of the stairwell as she shimmied the three of them over to the emergency exit.
Wagner pushed the door open and held it.
Shield turned her body to let the woman she had hold of through it first, but as they crossed the threshold, the woman struggled to get away.
“What is your problem?” Shield said as she tried to get the woman to stay put. “Why are you—” She heard the shot before she felt it.
Chapter Thirty-one
“Kennedy!” Ryden screamed, and shut the door. There were thirty feet from the bottom of another stairwell, and the vague reddish glow from the exit sign provided her enough light to see Kennedy, motionless, facedown on the floor. “Oh, my God. Kennedy!” Ryden fell to her knees. “Can you hear me?” She wiped the hair from Kennedy’s face. “Kennedy, please don’t—”
The woman in black bent over and grabbed the gun from Kennedy’s hand.
“Are you crazy?” She turned to the stranger with tears in her eyes. “She was trying to get us out and—”
“I told her to leave me.”
The woman looked down at Kennedy’s back, where a dark hole had appeared in her brown leather jacket. “Give her a moment. She’s winded, that’s all.” She flipped Kennedy over, onto her back, then slapped her.
“Don’t you touch her.” Ryden pushed the stranger away. “What are you doing?”
“She’s wearing a vest,” the woman replied, and went to stand with her ear to the door.
No sooner had the words left her mouth than Kennedy’s eyes fluttered open.
“Oh, thank God.” She caressed Kennedy’s face.
“Are you all right?” Kennedy asked her.
“You’re the one who got hit.” She couldn’t believe Kennedy was worried about her well-being after being shot at.
“I’m fine. He got me on the vest.”
“I told you,” the woman said.
Ryden glared at the stranger, trying to contain her anger. “She could have died because of you.”
“Last time I checked, it was because of you she almost died,” the woman replied.
“Are you in pain?” Kennedy asked Ryden.
“Why would I—”
“You’re bleeding.” Kennedy touched her left arm, at the shoulder.
She looked down and discovered a growing splotch of red on the sleeve of her hoodie.
“Flesh wound,” the woman said. “He got you the first time he fired in there.”
“But I didn’t…don’t feel any—”
“Adrenaline.” Kennedy slowly got to her feet. “You’ll feel it later.”
“You two need to leave…now.” The woman turned to them. “Take the van.” She dug in her pocket and threw a ring of keys at Kennedy. “There’s a safe house twenty miles from here outside Burke. Mitcham Court, north side of the big park. Stay there and have your people come get you. Keep clear of public places and transport, and ditch the car as far away from the safe house as you can.”
“Can’t we go to the police?” Ryden asked.
“No. The bitch has her people everywhere. Keep low until your own show up.”
“You’re coming with us,” Kennedy said.
“I can’t.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“Yeah, you are.” The woman handed the gun to Kennedy and waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Kennedy led the way up, with Ryden behind her and the other woman last, but she’d gone only a few steps when she paused and turned to look at the stranger. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What you said—by any means necessary. Why did you say it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the woman repeated.
“Why did you help us?”
“I helped you,” she said to Kennedy, then tilted her head toward Ryden. “Not TQ’s bitch. If you want to help her, that’s your issue.”
“Who’s TQ?” Kennedy asked, and looked at her like she had the answer.
She, however, had never heard of anyone by that name. “I don’t know who she’s talking about.”
“The hell you don’t,” the woman replied. “It’s the same crazy bitch who hired me to kill you both,” she told Kennedy. “The same woman who hired your friend here to play president. Enough talking. You need to go.” She pushed past them and stopped at the door one landing above. It had another illuminated EMERGENCY EXIT sign above it. “This looks like it comes out the back of the building. You’ll have to make it to the van from there.”
“Come with us,” Kennedy insisted.
“He may be out there, and he can’t know I let you go.”
“Then come with us. You’ll be safe. My people will make sure of that.”
“Your people don’t give a damn about me.”
They all heard steps on the metal stairwell above them, and Ryden squeezed Kennedy’s arm. “He’s—”