Page 79 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
The slow pulling back of her lips couldn't have been called a smile in any universe. "You have no idea what you've stepped into, little man." Quick as a serpent's strike, she grabbed his wrist and agony lanced up his arm to his chest, so sharp he crashed to his knees and dropped his pipe. "Who else? How many of you?"
A distant part of his brain wondered if she really wanted an answer, since his jaw had locked so tight from the excruciating pain. His vision began whiting out along the edges, but he clung to sanity, to himself, clawing through the pain to stay. There was a child beside him. He couldn't descend into savagery yet. Though he could give Lori a chance to run.
Channeling a bit of Blaze, he fought his seizing muscles to turn his free hand up and extend his middle finger as an answer. She snarled and the pain spiked, but at least all her rage had focused on him.
Lori appeared behind Hippocrata with the pipe and swung, metal connecting to skull with an impressive crack. Shock bled into the pain-healer's expression as she toppled with a thud.
"Stay down, fucker!" Lori raised the pipe in both hands and brought it down again, though the second blow hit mostly floor.
"Stop. Lori." Damien used the wall to climb to his feet, stepping carefully into Lori's space to take the pipe from her. "She's out. Thank you for that."
"Let me beat her fucking head in." Lori's breaths heaved, her eyes wild. "She… she…"
Damien nodded and took a quick glance out the little square window in the door. "She was actively involved in the experiments, wasn't she? I don't understand everything that's happened here, but we don't have time for explanations. Where Hippocrata is, so are her acolytes."
"Right. Her stupid goons." Lori rubbed her arms fretfully. "You okay, Mr. Damien?"
"I'm…"One breath. Two. "Close enough. Let's go."
Flitting from cover to cover, they nearly made it all the way back to the others without incident. The civilians had perhaps gone to ground somewhere, maybe in an emergency bunker, and the guards had their hands full.
All too soon, though, heavy boot steps pounded behind them and a deep voice yelled, "What did you do to her, you crackbrained bastard!"
Damien risked a quick look back and, yes, the tank of a man coming after them was one of the goons who had been with Hippocrata in Blaze's hospital room. He took Lori's hand and whispered, "Run."
They were more agile, turning corners and eeling around obstacles, but they were both hurting and tired. The goon quickly closed on them even as their doorway came in sight.
"Blaze!" Damien tried to shout, but it came out more as an exhausted wheeze.
Movement in the doorway showed someone had heard. Tara poked her head out, making a reaching motion with one hand. He had no idea what she was doing until he heard the heavy thud behind him. A kudzu vine, presumably at Tara's direction, had lifted just enough to trip their pursuer.
The assist gave them a few extra yards, and just when the goon had regained his feet, Blaze leaned around the doorway and shot him in the knee. He went down howling.
Damien had hoped to be able to draw breath when he reached the relative safety of Blaze's protection, but as soon as he cleared the door with his last rescuee, Blaze shoved the Sig into Dryad's hands and pointed to the pipe in Damien's.
"Help cover the door, Twitch. Shuds is down. Stubborn, stupid idiot."
"But I—" He cut off his futile protests about barely being able to keep his feet by now. Blaze had already dashed out, Mannheim in one hand, yet another, smaller pistol in the other, laying down cover fire as he dashed across the yard to Shudder's ruined tower.
The sun glinted off black-and-gold Guild aircraft now, a small fleet of transports and gunships swooping in from the south. They would land any moment, and Damien understood Blaze's desperation. Shudder couldn't be lying wounded, out in the open, when the Guild landed. They did provide a useful distraction, though. Many of the guards were looking for escape routes, powering up pocket bikes, running for cover as all that official firepower moved in.
It helped ease Damien's rising anxiety about Guild involvement in all this. If the compound's employees were panicking, the Guild ingeneralcouldn't be part of it.
Damien kept an eye out as Blaze reached his goal, lifted Shudder out of the rubble to sling his unconscious body over his shoulder, and began his zigzagging way back. He still fired the occasional suppression shot, though only a few stubborn guards lingered. It looked like he'd managed his headlong rescue unscathed until he slowed and limped the last few steps to the door.
"Are you all right? Is he alive?"
"Leg nicked on a ricochet. Nothing to worry about. He's breathing."
The big-shouldered girl, Helena, spoke up. "Shouldn't we get out there?"
Blaze grunted as he lowered Shudder to the floor. "Stay put. Let the Guild boys and girls secure things. Desperate people do stupid shit."
"But I can help," she protested.
With a frown that was less condescending than Damien would have expected, Blaze looked her up and down. "Yeah. Believe you could. But how about we not complicate things, okay?"
Dryad handed the Sig back, held between thumb and forefinger, apparently relieved to be rid of the thing.
