The Gender Game 5: The Gender Fall(115)

Frowning, I looked at Ms. Dale, who shrugged her shoulders. “We have to keep going,” she said softly. “We can’t stop to question it now.”

I took a deep breath, sticking my head out slightly to check the halls. “How far to the next checkpoint?”

Cruz looked down the hall over my shoulder. “Maybe a hundred, a hundred and twenty feet.”

“All right, then. Abigail, you and Kurtis take point, Vivian and Jeff, you’re in the rear. Get ready with some more security babble, and Cruz—get ready to be more and more irate about this whole situation.”

We were halfway to the next checkpoint when we passed by another set of doors leading to a VIP booth, and the sound coming through it stopped me cold. I dropped from formation and dashed over to the door, my heart skipping a beat as I heard the screams of rising panic tearing through the walls—punctuated by the definitive sound of automatic gunfire.





38





Viggo





“What’s happening?” Cad asked me. “What are we—?”

“We gotta get as many people as we can out alive!” I said, my eyes meeting his.

I snatched my gun from its holster, looking over my shoulder at Ms. Dale and Amber as the sounds of gunfire and shrill screaming ripped through the corridor. Ms. Dale’s face was grim, her mouth an angry slash across her face.

“Do what you can here,” she barked. “Vivian, on me. Mr. Cruz, you’re still coming with us!” Then she turned back down the corridor the way we’d been going, breaking into a run.

Amber nodded, taking off down the hall after Ms. Dale, her weapon at the ready. Cruz stared from them, to me, to them again, as if questioning.

“I don’t have a weapon!” he began, but I overrode him, shouting, “Just go!”

He went, and I paused at the door handle for just a moment. “Are you two ready?”

“I’ve got your back,” said Jeff, dropping to a knee behind a metal trashcan, his gun coming out of the holster.

“Good. Cad, with me.”

The young man nodded, and I tore open the door, not wanting to waste any more time. The panic that had been muffled by the door exploded into our ears, and I moved down the carpeted steps into the VIP box we’d entered, my eyes scanning the second level before falling toward the ground. Wardens had encircled the crowd, blocking the exits, standing there and firing mercilessly into the crowd. It was a brutal scene, one that made my vision go red: the thousands of people trapped inside, diving this way and that, crawling around behind the seats for cover, using their neighbors as shields or trying to shield them… I had no way of knowing whether the same thing was happening in the other stadiums yet. Right now, all we could do was save as many witnesses as we could from this one.

I moved quickly down the stairs, hardening myself, becoming mechanical and precise. I raised my handgun, sighting the wardens I had a good angle on and squeezing the trigger once, and then again. The woman on the left dropped immediately, but the second one grabbed her shoulder and sagged back against the door. I squeezed the trigger again, not letting in any emotion, save a grim sense of satisfaction.

Amber had lied when she’d said I didn’t kill women. I would kill any human who had stooped to something like this.

Cad rushed up to the wall next to me and began firing at the wardens covering another set of doors. I cursed and grabbed his shirt, hauling him back as someone looked up at him and began firing at us. Bullets whined as they flew by, and I pulled Cad down onto the ground as they impacted the walls overhead.

Meeting my gaze, Cad’s eyes were tight and furious. As soon as the first round of bullets lulled, he rose to his knees and squeezed off a few more rounds. I followed suit, dropping two more wardens and losing four bullets in the process. Seven rounds down, four more to go.

I ducked as another spattering of automatic gunfire hailed up at us, the bullets hitting the concrete wall and making shards and powder rain down. I gritted my teeth, then burst up, training my gun on our attacker. I squeezed the trigger, satisfied to see her drop.

Movement on my left caught my eye, and I turned my head in time to see two wardens burst through the doors of a VIP box two doors away. “Left side,” I shouted to Cad, turning my gun toward them.

Cad sat up, his eyes wide in alarm, and then ducked back down as one of the women swung her aim toward us. I compressed the trigger—two left—and then ducked, cursing when she didn’t go down. More bullets streaked overhead, and I had an intense, momentary debate with myself about whether I should change the clip before it was spent, when I heard the gunfire stop suddenly.