Chapter 13 #3
Knowing this is her chance, Ulayna waits until she hears the telltale sound of a zipper, then she makes her move.
Silently, she climbs out of the duct and sneaks around behind the other man.
Using a move Phoenix taught her, she chops down hard with the edge of her palm where his neck meets his shoulder.
The sharp hit to his brachial plexus, a major nerve cluster, causes him to fall to his knees and cry out.
Temporarily immobilized, he falls face-first to the ground.
Not wasting the few precious seconds she has before he recovers, Ulayna snags the flag from his pocket and stuffs it inside her shirt next to the first one.
“What the fuck?” the other man yells.
He’s staring at her with open-mouthed shock, struggling to tuck himself back in his pants and pull up the zipper. Fumbling, he lurches toward her.
Ulayna is up and sprinting before either man can grab her. She makes it to the side of the building with the fire escape and throws herself over, hoping it holds.
She lands on the upper landing of the fire escape with a crash. The men peer over the ledge at her, but hesitate when metal scrapes against concrete and brick and the entire structure shudders.
Ulayna doesn’t wait to see if they risk adding their weight to the rickety structure to chase her.
She moves down as quickly as she can. Rung after rung, stair after stair, she hurries down to the bottom level.
At the bottom, she jumps onto the dumpster.
Landing with a thud, she rolls off, ending on the dirty pavement of the alley on all fours.
She pushes herself to go, go, go, knowing they won’t be far behind her, even if they took the inside stairway. After a few blocks with no sign of her pursuers, she allows herself to slow. Moving more cautiously now, she slides along the abandoned buildings, sticking to the shadows.
Pride and excitement course through her, and she takes a minute to revel in her success. Now she has two flags.
Her head whips up when she hears sudden shouting in the distance. She can just barely make out the distinctive sounds of a fight under way.
She circles behind a building to get a better look. One team has ambushed another. The fight is brief but intense. In just a few minutes, the first team has incapacitated the other team and stolen their flag. They race off into the distance, carrying one of their limping teammates with them.
Carefully, Ulayna skirts around the defeated, furious team to follow the group that now has their flag. Because they’re moving more slowly with their wounded team member, she’s able to catch up relatively easily.
They move down a set of abandoned railroad tracks, heading for an old grain silo.
Ulayna gives them a few minutes to get inside before she dashes across the open space between the nearest building and the silo.
Reaching it, she quickly scales the catwalk snaking up the side of the tall structure.
Thankfully, the catwalk is in better repair than the fire escape was.
At the top, she hunkers down and peers inside what seems to be the grain elevator room. Bits of rusty machinery litter the space, and the old gears and cables from the now inoperable elevator glint dully in the moonlight.
Seconds later, the six men stumble inside. In the dim lighting, Ulayna struggles to make out their faces.
One man collapses in the corner, clearly the worse for wear. Despite that, the men are obviously in good spirits.
“Check it out, boys,” one of them says and pulls out two flags, one red and one blue. He holds them up and waves them around. “We’ve got two flags.”
“So?” another man says. “We need all four.”
The man with the flags grunts, his smile dimming. He checks his watch. “We still have twenty minutes. One of you should stay here with Jim.” He nods, indicating the man slumped against the wall. “The rest of us can still try to find the other flags.”
“I heard the green team’s flag was stolen from where they hid it, so the yellow team must have it,” one of the other men says.
The first man nods in acknowledgment and puts both flags on top of a dusty crate in the center of the room. “We’ll go see if we can track them down.”
“Careful out there,” the injured man says as four of the team members head for the door. “The blue team will be pissed, and they’ll be searching for us.”
“You just keep your head down and stay hidden. No one is going to find you here.”
Outside on the catwalk, Ulayna struggles to contain her smile. They obviously have no idea that she has the other two flags, or that she’s already found them.
She gives the four men a few minutes to climb down to the base of the silo and disappear into the night, but she continues watching the two remaining men from her hiding spot.
She doesn’t dare risk attacking. Even with one of the men injured, they’re on high alert, and they’d see her coming.
She knows better than to push her luck again tonight.
She’s racking her brain for an idea when she spots a team of men creeping along the edge of the nearest building. That must be the blue team, looking to recapture the flag stolen from them.
A crazy idea takes shape in Ulayna’s mind. It’s risky. But if she can pull it off, she can win this whole damn thing.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her flashlight. She presses the button and tosses it inside the grain elevator room. Thanks to the high-lumen bulb, blinding light instantly fills the entire space like a lighthouse.
“What the fuck!” one of the men inside yells as they scramble to find the light and turn it off as quickly as possible.
A second later, she hears the blue team shout below. They race across the open space and storm inside the silo. The pounding of heavy boots is loud as the men run up the stairs, ready to attack the two men waiting at the top.
The men inside the elevator room scramble around and finally turn off the light. But it’s too late. The damage has been done.
Knowing their night vision will be severely impaired, Ulayna jumps through the small window and into the room the second it goes dark. She has just a few seconds while their eyes adjust, and before the blue team makes it to the top of the silo.
She lunges for the flags, forgotten on the crate while the men were scrambling for the flashlight. Her hands close around the soft fabric just as she’s seized from behind.
The uninjured man yanks her backward by her belt and snags the balaclava off her head. She cranes her head back to look at him, recognizing Mikhail, the man who gave her information about Hawk.
Shock washes across his face as he also recognizes her.
They both glance toward the doorway when they hear the unmistakable sound of the blue team barreling up the stairs.
Mikhail looks back at her with cold fury in his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here,” he seethes in his heavy Russian accent. “But I’ve got you now.”
He yanks her toward him, but she flicks the quick release on her belt. She sends up a silent prayer of thanks to Hadley and Phoenix as the leather slithers through her belt loops, and she drops to the ground on all fours.
Like a sprinter off the blocks at the sound of a starting gun, she lunges forward before Mikhail can grab her again.
With the last two flags clenched in her fist, she dives into a grain conveyor tube.
The cool metal is barely big enough to fit her shoulders.
She slides down, and down, quickly gaining speed.
The tube was designed to gravity feed grain from the top of the silo to waiting railcars several stories below.
It was definitely not meant to be used as an escape chute.
Ulayna’s stomach drops out as she feels herself go weightless for one terrifying second.
Gritting her teeth, she sticks out her elbows and knees, shoving her body against the sides of the metal tube to slow her descent.
The material of her shirt and pants is quickly eaten away, but she pushes harder, knowing that if she doesn’t, the landing might just break her neck.
She screams in pain as her skin is stripped away, but she doesn’t stop. Just when she’s sure she’s not going to make it, her momentum slows a fraction. A heartbeat later, she reaches the end of the tube, and suddenly, she’s falling.
The drop is short, but the impact knocks the breath out of her. She lies there, dazed, trying to catch her breath. But she knows she can’t stay there. She has to get up. She has to run. Because both teams will be on her in seconds if she doesn’t.
She pushes to her feet, joints screaming. Risking a glance back at the silo, she sees Mikhail's livid face staring down at her.
With a slight shudder, she takes off running. Faster and faster, she races toward where she knows Alexi and the Irish are waiting. Five more blocks. She can make it!
When she hears pounding footsteps chasing her, she digs deep and finds that last bit of strength.
Panting in pain with tears streaming down her face, she rounds the final corner and finally sees Alexi ahead. She sprints straight for him.
Surprised, he stands from where he was sitting on the hood of a car. He looks between her and the men chasing her, not sure what’s happening.
She skids to a stop in front of him, seconds before the rest of his men reach them.
Hands to her thighs, she struggles to catch her breath.
Concerned, Alexi clasps her shoulder. “Ulayna? What—”
She holds up a finger, signaling for him to wait a second until she can breathe. Twenty-two men from the challenge, plus the Irishmen, crowd around them.
With a triumphant grin, Ulayna pulls out four scraps of fabric from her bra and hands them to Alexi.