Page 23 of The Alpha: Part Two
I look at Devon. He’s their leader in shit like this. I’d love nothing more than to ride that elevator to the top floor and bring Desir’ee out without dealing with all the other people in the building, but I’m smart enough to know that Devon will know the best thing to do.
Alex is watching Devon, too, but he has a question. “If we clear each floor, who’s to say that more people won’t show up to surprise us on the way out? The people still here could call for help.”
Devon nods. “We clear each floor. Quietly. Dead people don’t call for help.”
“I should have signed up to be a COT,” Alex smiles. “I would have made an excellent member.
“No,” Nathan says, “Trent’s bad enough. You’d cost the council too much money. Fucking flame throwers. Let’s go.”
Then we go. Floor by floor, up more stairs than I ever want to climb again. We don’t find anyone on the first few floors, but there are sixteen floors in this building and there’s no way it’s empty. The way this place is set up is strange. Each door either opens up into a massive office or storage space or an open floor plan consisting of a common space with couches and a television. That then merges into a huge kitchen and dining area with private spaces lining the exterior.
“How many floors are residential?” Devon asks Nathan.
“Every third.”
We encounter our first group of betas on the ninth floor and take them down before they really ever realized we were there. Easy pickings is what Alex called them. They were, well, I don’t know what they were doing, but they were all bunched together talking. I heard one of them say the name James before Alex tightened a fucking ziptie around his neck and left him to flop on the ground like a fish while the rest of us were handling the others in the group.
Most of the residential floors are empty and I’m glad. I have the distinct impression that the majority of the people who work for or with Flores aren’t doing it because they want to. But Devon’s right though, dead people can’t call for backup no matter what brought them to their current situation.
We run into actual trouble on the fifteenth floor. There are probably thirteen or fourteen guys, all betas, all armed, lounging in front of a giant television who all look up at us when we step in from the stairwell. After about three full seconds of silent inaction, one of them reaches for his gun and then it gets loud.
Everyone starts shooting and diving behind furniture to avoid being shot. We take down several of them, but the ones who got to cover have an advantage over us since we essentially marched into an open field whereas they know where everything in this area is.
“Two around the corner,” Nathan says into his mic, “two behind the couch.”
“Three near the elevator,” Devon says into his.
“One behind the weird shelf thing,” Alex adds, not to be left out.
I don’t say anything. I saw the guys moving towards the elevator when all the shooting was going on and I wanted to put myself in a position to head them off. They are right on the other side of the low wall backed with filing cabinets I’m crouched behind and I’d really like it if they were surprised when I start shooting out kneecaps.
Alex knows I’m here. He’s inching closer without looking so as not to give me away. Devon shoots at the media cabinet that Alex referred to as the weird shelf thing, splintering the wood beside the head of the man hiding behind it. I’m not sure if it was unintentional or if Devon is just that good, but I have a clear view of the splinters bouncing into the man’s cheek. He yells and jumps out from behind the cabinet, firing several shots into Nathan’s direction, but Devon takes him out before he realizes what’s happened.
Nathan drops to his knee and aims at the armrest of the couch. I don’t have time to see what happens because the three guys on the other side of the filing cabinets make a run for the elevator. I fire on them, getting one in the back of the head as he’s running. I stand up to give chase, but Alex is suddenly beside me aiming a…crossbow?
Not a crossbow, a personal grappling hook launcher. I didn’t know they were real, I thought they were just in the movies. He pulls the trigger and the hook is thoroughly embedded into the torso of the guy closest to the elevator before my thought completes itself.
“Ha!” Alex barks.
“Where did you get that thing?” I say through my teeth.
“Nathan,” he says, and jerks on the cord connected to the hook.
The man on the other end of it grabs at the line, but the hook must be embedded too deeply for it to do any good.
“Go!” one of the other betas shouts.
“Get to the elevator!” He started off strong but the last few syllables are distinctly guttural.
His buddy will never make it to the elevator if I can help it. I can hear a struggle happening from where Devon and Nathan are dealing with their targets, but I’m too busy running for the elevator. “Go help them,” I call to Alex. “I’ve got this asshole.”
Asshole number two hears me as clearly as Alex did and he turns around instead of continuing his escape to the elevator. Beta or not, he’s big. Tall like Obi, and muscular like some of the rogues I saw at the compound a couple years ago. The thought of how similar he is to them is fleeting because he’s as fast as he is big and he smashes into me in a full frontal collision.
“Who are you people?” he grits, trying to roll us over so that he’s in a dominant position.
I don’t answer. Instead, I roll with the momentum he’s trying to create and straddle his chest. I can feel his body twisting as he tries to gain purchase but it won’t do him any good. I’ve got a knife plunging into his neck, he just needs time to realize he’s bleeding out.
It sounds like Devon and the others have everything under control, but the guy run-through with the grappling hook isn’t down and he’s moving steadily, albeit slowly, to the elevator. We can’t have that. The beta under me isn’t gurgling anymore, so I stand up and start closing the distance between me and the grappling hook guy.
