It felt as if she had been running for miles when she finally heard voices coming from the turn in front of her. She slowed down, using the opportunity to catch her breath.
She heard Will’s voice first: “… you don’t want to do this, Kate. I know you. Let’s talk about this.”
And a female voice, which Lara had a hard time placing at first because it had been such a long time since she had seen Kate, much less heard her voice: “Do you really think there’s anything to talk about, Will? I killed Ben and Rick. And I just shot Davies. What’s stopping you from shooting me now?”
Oh, no, not Davies, too…
Lara slowly took the corner and came up behind Will and Danny, standing with their Glocks drawn and hanging almost casually at their sides. They were looking across the long, brightly lit Entrance Hallway at Kate, who stood at the foot of the stairs. The smooth titanium steel plating at the base of the Door rested at the top of the steps above her.
But it was the figure slumped on the floor between the three of them that got her attention. It was Davies, lying on his back, a big, wet bloody patch spread across his chest where he had been shot. From her position, she couldn’t tell if he was still alive or not. She couldn’t see his eyes, or tell if he was still breathing even underneath the bright halogen lights.
Will had tilted his head slightly to his right when she initially came out from around the turn. He had already picked up her presence without having seen her.
Kate was holding a long, plain string in her left hand, her thumb rubbing against a slightly circular object that Lara recognized as Ben’s pendant, the same one he kept around his neck at all times.
The same pendant that controlled the Door above Kate’s head.
The same Door that stood between them and the creatures outside…
Oh God, Kate, what are you doing?
And Davies. Poor Davies, on the floor. Dead or dying.
She had to make sure…
Without even realizing she was doing it, she moved around Will and toward Davies when Will, his eyes on Kate the whole time, said in a soft voice meant only for Lara to hear: “Don’t. He’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” she whispered back.
“Yes.”
She relented and took a step back, continuing to look at Davies’s still body for indications that Will might be wrong. She wouldn’t put it past him to tell her a baldfaced lie to get her to stay back, to protect her.
She heard footsteps coming up behind her, fast. Then haggard breathing from people who hadn’t had to run in a while.
She looked back as Rhonda, Tom, and Mike appeared around the corner, sliding into the Entrance Hallway. Mike had a six-shot revolver, the kind she had only seen in movies, and he was still wearing his pajamas. Rhonda was fully dressed in slacks and shirt, and Tom still had bed head. They piled around the corner, freezing at the sight of Will and Danny, then Davies on the floor, and finally, noticing Kate standing at the bottom steps of the Door.
“Stay back,” Danny said, looking back at the newcomers.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tom demanded. He was a short man in wire-rimmed glasses, and hearing the profanity come out of his mouth sounded incredibly wrong to Lara for some reason.
“We heard gunshots,” Rhonda said between breaths.
“Jesus, is Davies dead?” Mike asked, moving forward a bit before another quick glance from Danny stopped him cold in his tracks.
“He’s dead,” Danny snapped. “Now shut the fuck up and stop moving around.”
That deflated all three newcomers, and they hung back in the hallway as ordered.
She knew all three of them pretty well. They had, at one point or another, come to her in the Infirmary for various ailments. Rhonda was a former school teacher, while Tom was retired, and Mike worked as a mechanic on the weekends. They had all barely survived The Purge, mostly thanks to Ben’s quick thinking.
“Where’s Ben?” Rhonda asked behind her.
He’s dead, she wanted to say. And so is Rick and now Davies. And Kate — who looks half-crazed — has her hand on the Door’s switch. Any more questions?
Will was talking to Kate, in that calm voice of his: “Kate, don’t let it go further than this. It can all end now.”
Kate looked almost amused. “Now you’re just being silly, Will.” She looked as if she was about to laugh, but all that came out was a smirk. “There’s no going back from this. I killed Ben. Did you miss that part? I put a bullet in his head. Then I shot Rick in the chest. They’re dead, Will. There’s no going back from that.”
Rhonda gasped behind her, and either Tom or Mike swore under their breath. Maybe both of them.
“It’s done,” Will said. “It’s over with. Forget about that.”
He sounded so convincing that Lara wondered if he actually meant it. Or was he just saying whatever he thought Kate wanted to hear? It was so hard to tell with him.
“Are you going to shoot me, Will?” Kate asked. “You should, you know. It’s the only way you’re going to stop me from doing what I have to do.”
She held up the pendant, and her thumb rubbed back and forth over the button that controlled the Door, that would open the facility to the undead things waiting up there.
“Oh my God,” Rhonda groaned behind them.
“She has Ben’s necklace,” Mike said.
Or was it Tom? She had difficulty distinguishing between the two of them, and she was so focused on Kate and the small object in her hand that everything else was hazy.
The Door. Don’t let her open the Door…
“Kate,” Will was saying, “I can’t let you open that door.”
“You’re going to have to shoot me to stop me,” Kate said.
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Of course it does. And if you can’t, Danny will.” She turned her head slightly to look at Danny. “Right, Danny? I bet you wouldn’t have any problems shooting me down.”
Lara didn’t know if Kate was purposefully trying to antagonize Danny, or if she really thought this was one big joke. There was something about Kate’s eyes, the way she was smiling. Kate looked like someone who thought they had nothing to lose, who thought they knew things that others didn’t and as a result felt confident in their actions, even if no one else understood. Lara called that kind of person crazy.
Then Kate’s eyes shifted, settling down on Lara from across the well-lit hallway. Lara instantly felt vulnerable and naked under that gaze, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was standing in front of a woman she never really got to know, whose lover she had taken, and who, right now, was standing before her with a gun in her hand.
The same gun she had already used to kill three men…
And she’s crazy. Don’t forget that part.
Lara fought every instinct to step back and cower behind Will, to escape the harsh spotlight of Kate’s scrutinizing eyes. She didn’t, because she couldn’t. She found the strength to stand her ground, returning Kate’s glare with as much intensity as she could manage. It wasn’t very much at all.
Kate smiled. “Hey, Lara. We never really got to know each other, did we?”
“No,” Lara said. She was surprised she could actually talk. She hadn’t been sure before the word came slipped through her lips. “We can change that, if you want.”
Kate cocked her head to one side, as if she was considering it. “No, not really. I’d rather just shoot you.”
There was a loud bang! and it took Lara a split second to realize that Will had just shot Kate in the chest. She had been so focused on Kate’s crazed smile that she never noticed the other woman lifting her gun in her direction.