I nodded, resisting the temptation to pat my arms and legs to confirm their bullet-free status.
Rachel pushed herself up to her hands and knees, and then curled in a ball with a half sob.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She glared at me wordlessly.
Guess that meant she wasn’t hurt. Or not shot, at least. “Do you think—” I started to ask Ariane, only to realize she’d moved away.
She stood over Dr. Jacobs, who was now lying on the floor, next to the injured and unconscious guard.
Uh-oh.
She stared down at him.
“Help me, please.” Blood coated the side of his face and ran down his neck. He’d been shot somewhere. From where I stood, it was hard to tell the exact location and severity of his injury; there was so much blood. “107.”
I felt the faintest return of panic, watching her watching him. It would be so easy for her to finish off what Ford had started. And to destroy the gift Ford had given her.
But before I said anything, she turned away from him, leaving him to his fate, whatever it would be.
She headed straight to me, and as soon as she was close enough, I grabbed her in a hug, lifting her off her feet for a moment and squeezing her tighter than I probably should have. “You’re okay,” I whispered, as much for her as for me, because in that moment it was true and I was still having trouble believing it.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and let out a long shuddering breath that I could feel.
“Rachel?” Jacobs tried, his breath rattling in his throat.
But Rachel ignored him, the pallor of her face and tightening of her mouth the only signs that she’d even heard him. She stood slowly, her balance wobbly, and then moved past us toward the doors. “Can you open these now?” she asked Ariane. “I want out. I want to go home.” She was trembling, but her gaze was focused on us as she steadfastly ignored her grandfather on the floor. She was very clearly done with him, and when Rachel made up her mind, there was no changing. Stubbornness was a family trait, it seemed.
“Rachel is right. We can’t stay in here forever,” Ariane said against my shoulder and over the sound of the police shouting to be let in. “I have to open the doors, and I don’t know what’s going to happen when I do.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.” My voice was muffled by Ariane’s hair, and I didn’t want to let her go, not even long enough for her to let them in. Technically, she could do it just as easily without me putting her down.
But she pushed against me gently, and I released her, setting her on her feet.
“No matter what happens, it was worth it,” she said. Then she pushed me out of the way, and the doors opened slowly out into the hall.
And that should have been my first clue that even if she wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, she had a better idea than I did.
The floor shook with the boot steps of black-uniformed men in tinted face shields and unmarked body armor as they poured through the doors. Not the police anymore.
One of them pulled Rachel out into the hall, “rescuing” her presumably. “Get down, get down, get down!” Their shouts overlapped one another, making it hard to understand the individual words, but the gist was clear.
Ariane knelt on the ground, her hands raised above her head, offering no resistance. She looked so small and vulnerable. And they didn’t seem to care, surrounding her and blocking my view of her until I caught just flashes of her pale hair in the gaps between them.
“It’s not her. You’re looking for that one,” I shouted at them, pointing at Ford’s body.
But that caused only more angry shouting and more guns pointing at me until I sank to my knees as well.
“That boy is my patient. He’s in my care. Do not harm him,” Emerson shouted from his position near the wall.
“I’ve got three dead and two injured,” one of the men in the center of the room said into his radio. “Hostiles are contained.”
Did he mean Ariane and me? I guess, considering we were the only ones currently being threatened with weapons, three guys on me and about six on her.
“She’s not hostile,” I snapped. I couldn’t say the same for myself; I was feeling a little angry and misunderstood at the moment.
The lights sputtered overhead.
“Zane. Don’t.” Ariane’s voice came through loud and clear.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Don’t—”
But I didn’t get to hear what she was forbidding me to do because as quickly as the strike team had flowed in, the six surrounding Ariane had her up on her feet and moving out of the room.
“Hey!” I protested. “Where are you taking her?” I tried to stand, but the business end of a rifle suddenly two inches from the end of my nose convinced me otherwise.