Page 75 of No Safe Place

Jodi was dead.

A bullet had hit her high in the forehead and another had gone in right under her left cheekbone.

I shook my head, trying to stay focused.

They killed her. They actually killed her.

I closed my eyes as I thought about what she had said about her husband.

Man, that hurt.

It hurt even worse when I remembered my promise to get her out of this.

What bastards, I thought, looking at the blood on this pretty lady’s cheek, in her blonde hair. What total psychopathic scum.

“It’s over. Stop. She’s gone,” I said to Colleen, who was still pumping away.

“No,” Colleen cried, continuing to pump.

“Stop, Colleen,” I said, pulling her off of Jodi. She was in shock.

“We have to go or we’re next,” I said as calmly as possible.

I held her by her shoulders and looked right into her eyes.

“As I empty this last magazine, you just turn and run full out back for the factory as fast as possible before they start firing back again, okay? It’s our only chance.”

She nodded slowly.

“What about you?” she said in a whisper.

“Don’t worry about me. I have the shield. Are you ready?”

I helped her up, hoping she would be steady on her feet.

“Okay,” I said. “One, two, run!”

I stepped out with the shield and gun and opened up down the hall again as Colleen ran.

When my gun went click for the last time, I was already moving backward as fast as I could. Then I finally reached the end of the tunnel and was back in the factory basement gloriously unshot.

I immediately dropped the shield and ran across the basement and grabbed one of the antique doors, a heavy oak thing, and ran back for the mouth of the tunnel with it.

I laid it across the opening and ran back for another. As I returned with the second door, several rounds suddenly punched through the first one.

Undeterred, I propped the second door against the first and I ran back and grabbed the old hand truck. I jammed the lip of it under the side of the Ms. Pac-Man console and tilted it up and ran, pushing it across the basement floor to slam it hard up against the two doors. The cheap pool table made a screeching sound, or maybe that was my spine, as I carried it on my back to sit it beside the Ms. Pac-Man.

Another round came through the wood and then I remembered something.

I fished out the baseball-shaped frag grenade, pulled its pin and ran up and dunked it hard into the small gap between the top of the doors and the top of the tunnel.

I heard it skitter deep into the tunnel and then I lay flat against the wall as it ba-boomed.

I was already at the stairs when I was rewarded with a thoroughly satisfying scream.

How’s it feel, losers? I thought as I started running.

“Come on! Come on! Let’s go!” I said to Colleen as I grabbed her hand and pulled her around the old boiler for the stairs.

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