The Chemist

She stayed low as she moved forward, guns pointed at the fractured square in case someone burst through it. But the movement came from her side; a dark shadow hurtled into the mosaic of glass fragments and crashed through it into the next room.

The men in the observation room were only ten feet away from her, so much closer than the hay bales she’d practiced on that it seemed too easy. She braced her hands against the steel table and fired toward the uniforms that filled the room. She didn’t allow herself to react to the fact that she couldn’t see Daniel or Carston. She’d told Daniel to get down when the shooting started. He was just following directions.

A storm of shots rang out now, but none of them were aimed at her. The soldiers were firing at the bloody, naked man who had exploded into their midst with a volley of bullets. There were six uniformed men still on their feet now, and she quickly dropped three before they could realize the attack was coming from two fronts. As they crumpled, they revealed the man in the suit they’d been protecting. His eyes were focusing toward her as she aimed, his body already in motion when the bullet left her gun; she wasn’t sure she’d done more than just wing him as he ducked down out of her range.

She couldn’t see Kevin’s position, but the other three soldiers were now on the ground. She had nothing left to aim at from this vantage.

Alex darted to the edge of the open window, glass crunching beneath her shoes, and put her back against the wall beside it.

“Ollie?” Kevin called, his voice strong and controlled.

Relief flooded through her body in a hot rush at the sound of his voice. “Yes.”

“We’re clear. Get in here. Danny’s down.”

Ice washed down the same path the heat had just blazed.

She dropped the guns into her pockets, wrapped her hands in the folds of her lab coat, and boosted herself over the jagged ledge of the window. The floor was a mass of bodies in dark uniforms, with deep red splatters marking everything light enough to show it – the faces, the floor, the walls. Kevin was shaking off a body he’d evidently used as a shield. There was still movement, and more than one gasping murmur. So, not entirely clear, but he must feel it was under control, and, obviously, the need was urgent.

Daniel was in the back right corner – she could see the white-blond hair ringing his pale scalp, but most of him was obscured by two bodies in uniform that looked to have crumpled on top of him. Carston was down a few feet away, blood blossoming across his white shirt from multiple wounds. His chest was still moving.

It took less than a second for her to absorb all this, already in motion as she assessed, heading straight for Daniel.

“Deavers is alive,” she muttered as she passed Kevin, and in her peripheral vision, she saw him nod and start moving in a crouch toward the far left corner of the room.

There was very little blood on the soldier lying across Daniel’s chest, but his face was an unhealthy shade of purple and there were pink bubbles on his lips. A quick glance at the man draped over Daniel’s legs revealed the same manifestations. Both of these men were dying from the venom on Daniel’s ring. A new froth of bloody bubbles foamed on the first man’s lips as she tried to pull his paralyzed body off Daniel.

Part of her was very far away from what was happening – the part that needed to scream and panic and hyperventilate. She let the ice of her fear keep her focused and clinical. Later there would be time for hysterics. Now she had to be a doctor on the battlefield, quick and certain.

She finally rolled the man off Daniel’s chest, and suddenly there was blood everywhere. She ripped Daniel’s crimson-drenched shirt out of the way and found the source only too easily. All of her training, all of her time as a trauma doctor for hire, told her she was far too late.

It was a perfect kill shot, right through the upper left side of his chest. Whoever had placed that bullet knew exactly what he was doing. It was one of the few shots that would fell a person instantly, straight through the heart, dead before he hit the ground. Dead probably before he could even register the pain.

There was nothing she could have done, even if she’d never left his side. She’d let him come here to protect her, and that choice had killed him just as surely as the bullet in his heart.

CHAPTER 31

I

t wasn’t supposed to have happened like this. The guns should have been pointed at Alex and Kevin. In the confusion, no one had shot at her – not even once; she was totally unscathed. Daniel was supposed to be in the background, invisible. There was no reason to waste such a perfect shot on an anonymous aide. That skilled shooter was supposed to be aiming for Alex.

She’d known the plan was deeply flawed, but she had never dreamed she’d walk through the firefight untouched. Daniel was supposed to be the survivor.

A line of nameless faces – gangsters she hadn’t been able to save – flashed through her mind. One had a name – Carlo. He’d died exactly the same way. She hadn’t been able to do anything. What had Joey G said? You win some, you lose some. But how did she live through this loss?

The shrieking part of her was very near the surface. Only shock kept the paroxysm of grief at bay. The frozen pause was endless, crystal clear, with every detail defined. She was aware of the sound of a struggle somewhere very far away from her, and Kevin shouting in his harshest voice, “Where’s your deep perimeter now, Deavers?” She could smell the fetid musk of her ring’s victims and the warm, alive scent of fresh blood. She could hear labored breathing at her back where Carston lay dying.