I’m going to die.
Pulling myself into the hallway, the pain burns through my thigh, and I push through the doors to the stairs, relieved to be alive. Cole greets me, but I can barely look him in the face knowing I didn’t finish the job. I stand up, limp around, and see Bruno resting with Grace, Bill standing guard, and Roméo chewing on the inside of his cheek. All of them think I’ve protected the rear.
I can’t lead them without knowing that guy and his buddies aren’t following us.
“Run,” Cole says.
I shake my head. “Not yet.” I pull a grenade from my pocket, and his eyes grow large. “Hurry, take the others downstairs.”
“No way. Not without you,” he says. But I shove him away.
“I have to do this.” With that said, I push past him back into the hallway.
“Lexi, no!”
The guy’s not dead. I hear his raspy breathing and the sound of him slamming a new magazine home.
He’s waiting for me. He knows I’ll be back to take care of him.
The thought makes my nerves jump and causes a rush of blood through my veins. I pull the tape like Bruno did, slip the spoon, and then toss the grenade into the room. It clatters across the floor.
“Shit!” The guy’s scream runs up my spine.
I threw it hard enough that, with his injuries, he won’t reach it in time to throw it back. I turn and sprint back through the doors. I’m practically flying down the staircase. My heart races. My hair sticks to my neck. I’m just about to second-guess my decision when I hear the grenade go off.
In the next moment, I’m tumbling down the stairs. My backpack slings over my head and carries me forward. I throw my arms up in a feeble attempt to protect myself. My elbows collide with cement; my hair splays everywhere. I can’t focus. The walls seem to uproot and tiles drop from the ceiling.
I hit the landing with a thump and then roll into a fetal position. I try to breathe, but my chest’s tight. Is that gasping sound coming from me? Pain rocks my body, like I’ve shattered every single bone.
A face with a big black nose and four brown eyes appears through my cloudy vision. Or maybe it’s two? Something cool and wet hits my cheek and brings me into focus. I stretch out my fingers and feel Zeus prodding me to my feet. Around him, the carnage continues raining down. The walls groan.
“Come on, Lexi, get up,” Cole says in a muffled voice. He links his arm through mine, pulling me up.
Mother of God. Burning pain shoots through my leg. It looks like a god of destruction swooped down and took a hammer to the building, breaking everything into pieces and turning it ashen and gray. I blink away the particles on my lashes. Bill’s shadowy figure sprints down two landings ahead of me.
“Don’t you ever pull that stunt again, you hear me?” Cole says as he drags me through the wreckage. “Even though it was the ballsiest thing I’ve seen you do.” He mutters some other things under his breath that I can’t decipher. “I know you’re pissed and hurt and so am I, but you can’t be that reckless.”
The staircase seems to take forever. Every step leads to shooting agony in my leg, sending stars across my vision. I lean on Cole to help me get through it, his body solid and his grip like iron. Flashes of the past wreak havoc in my head. The weirdest memories, forgotten long before, resurface. Like the time I sprained my ankle in the woods with Keegan, and he carried me home. He wasn’t that much bigger than me at the time, but he did it anyway. I’ll never forget how he gritted his teeth and the tendons in his neck popped with every step. He was breathless when we got home, and he fell on the front stairs to the porch, dropping me on my behind.
Saved me and then dropped me on my ass.
I’d give anything for him to be here with me. He’d know what to do. He’d know where to go. He was always so sure of his decisions even if they weren’t always right, but now I know, it’s time for me to make mine and be confident like he was.
“Lexi, you got to keep up with me,” Cole says. I turn my head to meet his gaze, but he’s already focused on the next flight.
“I will.” My throat’s thick with tension.
Three more flights to go. If I survived five, I can do this.
More gunfire echoes in the distance. I don’t know where it comes from, but the distinctive popping sounds tell me that we’re not out of the thick of it yet. Ahead of me, the others finish their last flight of stairs.
The guards watching the cameras must love this.
Two more to go. I wriggle free from Cole even though the pain’s enough to make me want to scream. I have to do this for myself, push through it, and help the others. In truth, we’re all fighting some kind of battle, physically and mentally. It’s up to me to be strong.