“Grenade!” someone shouted, and he heard the metallic clash of something bouncing from the stair railings.
Emily screeched and fell into him. He had no chance, tripping forward with his arms outstretched to break his fall. He struck Rosemary's back and she fell as well, striking the landing and twisting, rolling, and Jack was down with her, Emily clasping onto his back.
Clang…clang…the grenade still fell, and though he had no idea where it would explode, moving felt better than lying still.
Rosemary had found her feet and was starting down the staircase to the second floor, and Jack and Emily were following, when the explosion came. It did not seem as loud as the first, but it blew him against the wall, snatching Emily's hand from his and spinning the world around his head. He was being struck from all sides, battered and thumped and cut; falling, or being hit by debris, he was not sure. When he gasped in a huge breath it was laden with dust and smoke. He opened his eyes, saw nothing, and for a few seconds he was terrified that he had been struck blind. But then someone wiped a hand across his face and Jack saw the blood.
“Jack?” Emily said, leaning over him, crying. He smiled and she cried even harder, and he thought, Do I really look that bad? More blood ran into his eyes and this time he wiped it away himself.
His head hurt. Everything hurt.
There was more shooting from up above, but it seemed to be receding.
Someone was shouting—Sparky—and the words faded in as if he was rushing in from a great distance.
“…outside and meet you behind the hotel, find somewhere to hide?”
“Okay!” Rosemary called from much closer.
Jack sat up, and used the wall for support as he found his feet. Looking up, he realised how lucky he was to be alive. The whole flight of stairs they had just come down had collapsed, sending a shower of concrete, tiles and reinforcement rods tumbling below. On the landing above the gap, Sparky and Jenna were already peering cautiously through the door onto the third floor. Jack wanted to say something, but with a quick glance back at him, Jenna was through and gone. She looked terrified, and there was blood on her neck.
“Can you walk?” Rosemary asked him.
“Of course.”
“Don't worry, dear,” she said to Emily, “it looks worse than it is. Head wounds bleed a lot.”
“Can you fix it?” the girl asked.
“Soon.”
This time it was Emily leading Jack. They went down to the second floor landing, then had to climb carefully over the ruins of the fallen flight to head for the first floor.
“Where are the Superiors?” Jack asked.
“Still fighting, somewhere,” Rosemary said. “But they're farther away. Must have pushed the Choppers back.”
“So this is a normal day for you, I suppose?”
Rosemary surprised and delighted him by laughing. “This is the first time I've ever been shot at, would you believe? And I've never in my life fired a gun.”
They passed the first floor door, and with every step Jack was feeling stronger. He used a handkerchief handed him by Emily to dab at the blood running down his forehead, and he even managed a smile when she briefly aimed the camera his way. Glad that survived, he thought, chuckling at how ridiculous that was. Glad we survived!
Jack tried to think tactics, but his mind was not working very well. Blown up, shot at, he was confused and disorientated. He could not recall what the street outside the hotel looked like, and for a few seconds he had trouble remembering whether it was even day or night. Then he remembered Gordon being shot—the blood splashing the air behind him, the way he'd fallen like a chunk of meat in an abattoir—and the present punched back at him.
“Won't they know we're in the stairwell?” he asked.