The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

I reached across my body and pressed the button, releasing the seatbelt. I landed awkwardly on my shoulder on the roof of the car. “Yeah,” I whispered, rolling myself upright, grabbing my bag from where it had landed on the ceiling. My body felt numb with shock and adrenaline—it would start to hurt soon, but I didn’t want to wait for it. “You?”


Something shifted out front, and I saw Morgan pressing her shoulder against her door, gently rocking it open. There was a metallic groan, and then she was out. Owen slid out of his seatbelt and followed Morgan’s lead. While he worked on the door, I leaned in between the seats to check on Lynne, who was fumbling with her straps.

“I’m stuck,” she whispered, the fear in her words strong enough to carry over the sound of Owen getting the door open. I was just pulling my bag over, grabbing the small knife from one of the side pockets, when I heard Morgan’s shout of alarm.

Looking through the cracked windshield, I saw a pair of uniformed legs making a direct line to us, and flipped open my knife, quickly cutting Lynne free. “Move,” I told her as I slid back into the backseat, making my way to the door and the pavement beyond.

Gunshots went off overhead, and I heard a feminine, yet inhuman roar that made me cringe, lighting a fire in my motions. I used my casted arm to sweep aside the glass as I moved—finally a use for the damn thing—and then exited the window feet first, crouching just outside the car. Owen was leaning over the belly of the car, shooting at something. I pulled out my gun and hunted for a target.

Oh God. There were so many of them. And they were bounding all over the place, faster than any human should have been able to move. Owen shouted wildly as he shot at another woman who darted toward us from out of the darkness, and she spun out and away. I fired two shots, catching a woman in her side, but she scampered into some of the deep shadows created by the pipes jutting out of the concrete concourse.

“Lynne, hurry up!” shouted Morgan over the sound of her own gun. One woman broke through the hail of her and Owen’s fire by leaping into the air to close the dozens of feet between us, swinging her fist toward me. I dodged, off balance on my knees, and then Morgan was there, catching the woman’s fist as it impacted on the car with a strength I hadn’t expected from her. The woman growled and swung Morgan around by her grip, trying to clutch her to her chest in a deadly hold.

Lynne was still inside, and she whimpered a little as the car groaned. “I’ll get out on my side!” she said nervously. As Morgan grappled with the woman in front of me, I tried to find a clear moment to shoot her assailant, but couldn’t risk shooting my friend in the process. Owen was keeping the rest of them at bay, picking them off with precise shots before they could get near us.

“Morgan, get her back toward me!” I called, spinning to my other side to shoot at two women closing in from that direction. One went down, and the other cut around the back of the car. I heard the heavy groan of Lynne’s door being opened forcefully and her grunting and muttering. Then it broke off, and I heard a scream instead.

Owen cursed, and I whipped around to see a woman pull a struggling Lynne up off her feet, one hand wrapped around Lynne’s throat. She was smaller than Lynne by far and shouldn’t have even been able to lift her, but Lynne couldn’t free herself. As Lynne struggled, going for her gun, the woman stared at her, lips curled in fury.

I brought my gun around to fire, but my aim went wide, my left hand jerking. Owen’s gun went off at the same time, and I heard Morgan shout “Lynne!” as she broke free of the woman she’d been fighting with the sound of a gunshot.

She was too late. As I pulled the trigger again, in one quick motion, the enhanced warden jerked Lynne’s head around with a sharp snapping sound.

My heart palpitated, and I kept firing, my hand shaking so hard that my shots went wide, pinging off the car. Heartbeats later, Owen and Morgan were there, their guns cutting the warden down. She and Lynne both fell. A part of me wanted to go check for a heartbeat—but I didn’t move toward our fallen friend, and neither did Owen or Morgan. We’d all heard the snap, seen her go limp and lifeless.

And we didn’t have time to reflect or mourn. I heard another inhuman roar come from our right, and I turned, everything inside me going colder as I saw several more olive-clad women closing in. I raised my gun, but Owen pulled me behind him, his gun already out, firing quickly and expertly.

“Go,” he shouted. “I’ll draw them off.”

“But Desmond—”

“You start heading toward Desmond,” he said, pushing me away before darting off in the opposite direction back down the hill. “This is my job.”

The blond man fired as he ran, three of the wardens moving after him. I raised my arm to shoot, not wanting to leave Owen alone to face such desperate odds, but Morgan grabbed my arm.

“Don’t—it’ll draw attention to you,” she said, pulling me off to one side. “Owen’s giving us a window. We should use it.”

The taller girl kept dragging on my arm, and indecision tugged at my limbs as I looked over my shoulder at where Owen stood his ground, firing at the oncoming berserk women. One of them dropped down on the pavement, but the others were still advancing toward him as he danced back.

Morgan fired her gun and dragged me a few more feet, toward a collection of pipes emerging from the concrete, thrusting me in between two of the pipes, boxing me in. “Stay here and keep quiet,” she ordered, turning to go, and I tucked my gun under my armpit and reached out to stop her.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Her head turned toward me, catching the light from one of the fires and giving it a blood-soaked impression. “More are coming. I’m going to draw them… Hey!”

She yelped as I pulled her into the small cranny with me, dragging her down until we were pressed together.

“Violet, they’re—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut off when the pipe behind me shuddered. I turned as much of my body as I could, and saw, through the gaps in the network of gray pipes, a warden’s hand pushing the pipes apart, making a hole to try to reach me. I felt a spray of water as the first pipe snapped, and I turned back to Morgan. “Behind me, right behind my head!”

She began to back up, and I felt the brush of fingernails on my neck, making my skin crawl as I slid forward, trying to avoid getting hooked on anything. The pipes shuddered, and the sound of more water splashing out on the concrete sent a chill racing up my spine. It all seemed so much deadlier now.