Page 67 of Rescued By the Convicts
A projectile whizzed overhead. Not sonic fire, otherwise a lot of people would be on the deck. The crowd erupted into screams.
The two guards behind her were closing in fast. Ahead of her, a guard drew his blaster.
“Stop or I’ll shoot.”
In the distance, like fish swimming upstream, Ivan and Reece pushed against the dense crowd. They’d never reach her, and even if they did, there was nothing they could do since too many guards converged on her.
Melina raised her hands and turned to face the guards. To her horror, Namir pushed through the line of four guards. “Shoot her,” he ordered.
The guard fired and Melina slammed against the deck hard. Her head struck the ground so hard she felt the vibration travel down her spine. She could barely breathe as a heavy weight pressed down on her, pinning her.
“You okay?” Jayce strained to say as he lifted the bulk of his weight off her.
“You. . . saved. . . me,” she forced the words out as curses and screams surrounded them. Ivan shouted in the distance. Melina strained to see over Jayce’s shoulder. A fight had broken out between Reece, Ivan, and four guards. Her guys were winning. And Namir had disappeared.
“This is my favorite place to be,” Jayce said with a shaky grin. “On top of you.” Blood trailed from Jayce’s mouth as his smile dimmed.
“Jayce?” She reached around to his back and pushed him off of her. Her hand came up bloody. “Jayce!”
He rolled onto the floor. Green eyes stared up at her as she crouched over him. He wasn’t moving.
“Ivan! Jayce has been shot! Hold on, Jayce!” she begged as she turned him onto his side. There was a three-millimeter hole into his lower back and the surrounding tissue had frostbite. An ice bullet. That was good and bad. There’d be no projectile to remove, but ice bullets tended to shatter inside the body, wreaking more havoc than a laser wound. Already, blood soaked through his shirt at an alarming rate.
Jayce reached up to touch her face, but only managed to grip her shirt. His hand fell away as his eyes closed.
“We have to get him to the med-center, now, Ivan!”
In a blur, Ivan threw Jayce over his shoulder and started shooting his way through a new group of guards. Reece, meanwhile, tossed men aside like they were stones he was skipping across a lake.
Red lights flashed through the corridors as people fled the public areas. The sound of boots striking the floor made Melina’s heart race, but not as much as the sight of Jayce growing paler every second.
Ivan laid Jayce on a table in the med-center. “He’s been shot. Ice bullet.”
The doctor backed away and held up his hands. “I can’t treat him.”
Melina didn’t wait for Ivan to argue with the man. She started tearing through drawers. “Where are your tissue nanites?”
“We don’t have any. They’re still experimental.”
“You have them,” she insisted as she tore open a pressure bandage and applied it to Jayce’s back. The bandage wasn’t going to help much. She needed the nanites or a surgeon with the skills to operate the microlasers to repair the internal damage.
Melina ran to the back room. “You don’t have a microlaser. That means you have to have the nanites!”
“Een,” Reece said from the entrance to the med-center where he stood guard. He was urging them to hurry. They’d lost the guards at some point, but it was only a matter of time before security sent several teams to the med-center.
“Can you help him or not, Melina?” Ivan asked, his dark eyes staring at her with desperation.
“I need those nanites. They’re new, but The Company stocks their stations with the best equipment.
Ivan threw the doctor against a wall and held his knife to the man’s throat. “It’s cliché, doc, but if my friend dies, so do you.”
“But I didn’t—”
“I’m already a Level 5. I’ve got nothing to lose by killing you.”
The doctor’s eyes went wide, but then he nodded. “In the back room. Second cabinet, left drawer.”
Melina raced to the back. “Retina scan lock,” she yelled to Ivan. Two seconds later, Ivan dragged the man to the back room and shoved his face up against the scanner. The drawer opened and Melina found the tube of nanites.
