The Chemist

More rustling. He was at another window, on the other side of the barn. Her booby trap’s wires were inconspicuous, but not invisible. Hopefully he was only looking for a target inside. Had he gone to the house first? Why hadn’t he gone in?

Sounds outside another window.

Just open it, she thought to herself. Just crawl inside.

A sound she didn’t understand – a hissing, followed by a heavy clank from above. Then a thump, thump, thump so loud that the barn seemed to shake. Her first thought was small explosives, and she hunkered down into a protective position automatically, but in the next second she realized it wasn’t that loud, it was just the contrast with the silence before. There was no sound of anything breaking – no glass shattering or metal tearing. Was the reverberation enough to break the connections around the windows or door? She didn’t think so.

Then she realized the thumps against the wall were moving up, just as they stopped. Above her.

Major hitch – he was coming through the roof.

She was on her feet in a second, one eye to the seam in the tent. It was still too dark to see anything. Above her, the sound of a welding torch. Her intruder had one, too.

All her preparation was falling apart. She glanced back once at Daniel. His gas mask was on. He would be fine. Then she darted out into the larger space of the barn, bent low with her hands stretched out in front of her to find the objects in her way, and moved as quickly as she could toward the faint moonlight filtering through the closest window. There were milking stalls to maneuver around, but she thought she remembered the clearest route. She broke into the open space between the tent and the stalls, half running, and one hand found the milking apparatus. She dodged that and reached out for the window —

Something tremendously hard and heavy threw her to the ground face-first, knocking the wind out of her and pinning her to the floor. The gun flew away into the darkness. Her head thudded resoundingly against the concrete. Bright pops of light skittered across her eyes.

Someone grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms behind her, then wrenched them higher until she guessed her shoulders were close to dislocating. A grunt escaped her lungs as the new position forced the air out. Her thumbs quickly twisted the rings on her left and right hands, exposing the barbs.

“What’s this?” a man’s voice said directly above her – generic American accent. He changed his grip so he was holding both her wrists in one hand. With the other, he yanked off her gas mask. “So maybe not a suicide bomber after all,” he mused. “Let me guess, those hot wires aren’t connected to charges, are they?”

She squirmed under him, twisting her wrists, trying to get her rings in contact with his skin.

“Stop that,” he ordered. He clocked the back of her head with something hard – probably the gas mask – and her face smacked the floor. She felt her lip split, and tasted blood.

She braced for it. In such close quarters, it would probably be a blade across her carotid artery. Or a wire around her throat. She hoped for the blade. She wouldn’t feel the slice as pain – not with the specially designed dextroamphetamine she had racing through her veins right now – but she’d probably feel the strangulation.

“Get up.”

The weight lifted off her back and she was drawn up by her wrists. She got her feet under her as quickly as possible to take the pressure off her shoulder joints. She needed to keep her arms usable.

He stood behind her, but she could tell by where his breathing came from that he was tall. He pulled her wrists until she was on her tiptoes, struggling to maintain contact with the floor.

“Okay, shorty, now you’re going to do something for me.”

She didn’t have the training to beat him in a fight, and she didn’t have the strength to wrest herself free. She could only try to make use of the options she’d prepared.

She let her weight sag precariously against her stressed shoulders for one second as she kicked the toe of her left shoe down with enough pressure to pop the stiletto blade out of the heel (the front-facing blade was in her right shoe). Then she slashed awkwardly back toward where his legs had to be. He jumped out of the way, loosening his grip enough for her to rip free and spin around, her left hand flying out for an open-handed slap. He was too tall; she missed his face, and her barb scraped against something hard on his chest – body armor. She danced backward, away from the blow she could hear coming but could not see, her hands extended, trying to make contact with unprotected skin.

Something cut her legs out from under her. She hit the ground and rolled away, but he was on top of her at once. He grabbed her hair and bounced her face against the concrete again. Her nose popped and blood flooded her lips and chin.

He bent down to speak directly in her ear. “Playtime is over, honey.”

She tried to head-butt him. The back of her head connected with something, but not a face – uneven spires, metallic…

Night-vision goggles. No wonder he’d been able to control the fight so well.

He slapped the back of her head.

If only she’d put her earrings on.

“Seriously, stop it. Look, I’m going to get off you. I can see you, and you can’t see me. I’ve got a gun, and I will shoot you in the kneecap if you try one more stupid trick, okay?”

While he was talking, he reached back with one hand and ripped her shoes off, one after the other. He didn’t check her pockets, so she still had the scalpel blades and the needles in her belt. He jumped off her. She heard him move away and click the safety off his gun.