Page 107 of Two Chambered Heart

The elevator music was still playing, some stupid jazz song. It eased her into the moment, that small aspect of normalcy. Despite everything happening right now, the chaos helped her focus. She was used to chaos. When everything was falling apart, she felt her sharpest.

As the elevator climbed up the floors, she stared at herself in the mirrored walls. The night vision goggles they’d used on the main floor were on her head. Archie had reinstated light on the upper floor, not wanting to interfere with the surveillance feed he’d also re-established while they’d been separated.

Corey could barely recognize herself after the last few months with the twins. There was a self-assurance in her that hadn’t been there before, a hardness in her that showed she was dangerous. Her upper body was well-muscled from all the training she’d done. She had more knives strapped to her waist and grenades and guns on her person than she knew what to do with.

She looked like a soldier. And she liked this version of herself.

She was ready to unleash on anyone and everyone who had harmed Jase. He had said he would always come for her, but now she was coming for him.

The elevator stopped, and Archie’s voice flowed through her earpiece. “Guns up. I’m going to open the doors in five seconds. Just remember, you’re on your own up here, kid.”

She always had been, until the twins. Now they were a team, and she was going to help get them out of here.

The doors opened and Corey stepped out of the elevator, both guns raised.

“To your right.”

She unleashed a rain of bullets before the words had even registered in her ear, and three bodies fell. She was moving on instinct alone, fully submitting to the voice in her ear.

“Down the hall and to the left,” he directed.

She sprinted down the hall, a gun in each hand, feet light on the linoleum. She skidded to a halt before making the left-hand turn.

“There’s four men running towards you. Use a grenade. Throw it as hard as you can and get back behind the wall and cover your ears.”

“I feel like I’m inCall of Duty,” Corey said into the earpiece. She jumped out from behind the wall, whipping the grenade down the hallway and diving for cover. She had her hands over her ears and counted to five before the explosion racked her body.

“Only difference is, if you die, you die. Send another grenade. They’re not all down.”

Corey did as instructed. She only had five grenades left now.

“They’re incapacitated, but not dead. Shoot them as you move. Go.”

Again, she sprinted down the hall, her adrenaline pumping through her veins. She unleashed bullet after bullet into the bodies that were writhing on the floor, killing indiscriminately as they screamed in pain. The deaths didn’t even register. The only thing she was thinking about was how grateful she was for her cardio endurance, and how fast she could sprint. Corey moved down the hall like the wind itself was carrying her, like she was the wind.

Two men lunged out of a door up the hallway.

She saw them at the same time he did. “Fuck,” Archie cursed into her ear.

They lifted their arms up, but she was pulling the triggers on her machine guns before they could loose any bullets, and they both ducked back into the room as she kept sprinting towards them. Her left gun stopped firing before the right one. It was out of bullets.Fuck.

“Can I stop to reload?” she whispered.

“Yes, quickly.” Kayden had showed her how to do it back at the car, and she frantically fed another roll of bullets into the rifle.

“Corey.” She halted the step she was taking towards the door at the tone of his voice. “He’s not in good shape. Don’t let yourself look at him. You need to take out the two men guarding him. I can’t have you freeze. If you freeze, you’re dead, and so is he, and then Kayden too. They’re my family.” His voice broke. “Please.”

From some fucked-up place inside of her, a laugh bubbled up. “You’re putting a lot of pressure on me. I’m just a dog from the streets, Archie.”

“No, you’re everything to them.”

“And they’re everything to me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m just a girl who picked up a gun for the first time today.”

“But look how well you’re doing. I just don’t want that to stop.”

She let the words settle over her like sun rays on a hot morning. She had always been a fighter. She wasn’t going to stop now.

Corey stepped through the doorway.

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