“Good.” Bryson got himself into the building, then turned around so he could reach back into the car and help.
Michael was ready, having twisted himself around just enough to free his hands and get his feet beneath him, planted on the torso of the cop. He found the steering wheel, gripped it, curled his arms in a pull-up. Bryson grabbed him by the shirt and pulled as well. Kicking to find a foothold wherever he could, Michael clambered up the seat of the sideways car and toward the opening of the smashed window.
There was a heavy, grating groan of metal, along with the splintering of brick, as the car shifted downward. Bryson’s grip slipped, and Michael, in a rush of terror that filled his throat, fell several inches before wedging his foot on the brake handle between the front seats. Someone screamed; then, with a crunch, the car came to a stop, though the moan of bending metal and shifting bricks continued.
“Get out of there!” Sarah yelled.
“Trying!” Michael shouted back.
Bryson had a firm hold of his shirt again and yanked, grunting with the effort. The fear that had choked Michael lit a fire of adrenaline in his muscles, and he clawed and kicked his way up and through the window, crawling over Bryson’s body in his haste and crashing into Sarah. She hugged him fiercely, both of them breathing heavily.
“Dude, you just put your foot in my mouth,” Bryson grumbled.
The car shifted again, causing a rattling cascade of broken bricks. Michael thought it would surely fall this time, but it stopped. Somewhere in the building, alarms clanged.
“Come on,” Sarah said, getting to her feet and pulling Michael up to his. They were in some kind of conference room with a large table and chairs, luckily unoccupied.
Bryson was by their side, brushing the dust from his shirt and pants. “Yeah, like I said, they’ll be swarming on us in no time.”
Michael got a good look at the demolished wall behind them: bricks scattered across the carpet, torn drywall, lengths of wire and pipes snaking out, the scratched and dented hovercar somehow still clinging to it all. He thought of the cop.
“We have to help him,” he whispered, though that was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.
“His buddies will be here soon enough to get him out,” Bryson replied. “If that thing was gonna fall, it would’ve taken the dive already. We have to go. Now.”
Michael was relieved someone else made the decision—a part of him knew the guy might be dead, and that it was his fault. He fought off the thought and nodded, still trying to catch his breath. Sarah grabbed his hand and the three of them ran for the door of the conference room.
Alarms bleated in the hallways, a few people running for the stairwells, though most seemed to have escaped already. That, or it was a slow day at the office. Leaving the conference room had been the easy decision, Michael thought, but what now?
“There’s no way we can just blend in,” Sarah said. She’d let go of Michael’s hand, and he had the silly urge to take hers right back. “I’m sure they know what we look like.”
“No doubt,” Michael agreed. “The cops’ll have our faces memorized.”
“Maybe we can hide in the basement,” Sarah said. They were all walking toward the closest stairwell door—a woman cast a nervous glance at them right before she went through. “We obviously can’t waltz out the front entrance. We’ll have to climb through a window or … go through a garage. Back door, emergency exit, something.”
They reached the door to the stairs and Michael opened it. “Let’s just get down as far as we can go. We’ll figure it out.”
Bryson had been quiet, and he didn’t move toward the opening after Sarah had walked through. His arms were folded and his face had that pinched look of concentration.
“You can’t hack your way out of this one,” Michael murmured.
“I know,” Bryson replied. “I’m thinking.”
“Not a good time,” Michael said, but deep down he hoped his friend would devise some brilliant plan.
“Let’s go!” Sarah yelled, clearly out of patience.
“Okay, okay,” Bryson snapped, moving into the stairwell. “Follow me.”
And of course he went up the stairs, not down.
Sarah took in a breath, probably ready to argue. But Michael reached out and squeezed her arm. She stopped before she began, looking at him anxiously.
“I think he’s right on this one,” he said, proud of how softly he managed to say it.
Sarah’s defeated look showed she knew they were right. “I just want to be out of this place.”
“Me too. But we’d be walking right into their arms if we went down. Cops are probably running up those stairs as we speak.”
“Then we better get moving.”
Bryson had already disappeared around the bend of the ascending stairwell, and they took off after him, up two steps at a time.