14
ANSON
The door burst open.
I didn’t wait for anyone to come through.
I sucked in a deep breath and threw the first bottle to the ground at the opening.
I watched it shatter in slow motion. Saw the liquid splash up and catch the start of shoes and pants coming through the door, but I didn’t see more before Twill launched up from where she’d crouched and bound forward, a piercing scream ripping from her throat.
Somehow, she managed to throw not one, but both glass jars through the open doors into the hallway beyond, and I heard both explode when they impacted the tile floor.
No hesitation.
Not a hint of slowing down.
She barreled through the first two officers like pins at the end of a bowling lane. The stunned men stumbled to the side, one clutching his throat, the other shielding his face.
Vincent rolled out from behind his door, quickly threw both his jars, and followed behind her. Paul went next, with me last.
With six shattered jars, the hallway was filled with acidic white haze.
Officers and hospital security rolled on the floor.
Some staggered back, others ran—gasping, searching for air.
I don’t know how many—there was no time to count—but it didn’t really matter.
One man made a grab for Twill as she bolted by, but Vincent caught him in the chin with his elbow, sending him spinning.
I’m not sure who pulled the fire alarm. Maybe it was Paul or Vincent. Maybe it was one of the cops. The high-pitched alarm sounded and lights began to strobe as we shoved through the fire door at the top of the emergency stairs.
All of us sucked in the clean air.
My eyes burned, and when I caught a glimpse of Paul’s frightened face, his eyes were beet red and dripping with tears from the gas.
Voices below.
I couldn’t tell how many.
I had two jars left.
I dropped one over the railing to the level below.
Crash.
Screams.
The four of us kept running. Bounding down the steps two at a time.
The first-floor door was open, blocked by the body of some guy from hospital security. He was curled up in the fetal position, his entire body jerking with spastic coughs.
When I stepped over him behind the others, we found ourselves at the back of the ER.
It was a madhouse.
People streamed in from everywhere, searching for the exits.
Hospital personnel, patients, visitors. Some moved slowly, orderly.
Others pushed and jostled through the crowd.
With the fire alarm sounding, all the emergency doors had automatically unlocked and swung open. Four exits in total. All guarded.
One bottle left.
“Throw it!” Twill shouted out.
And I did.
I heaved it as hard as I could toward the exit leading to the ambulance ramp, picking it for no particular reason other than the fact that there was only one security guard rather than two or more, and he was busy shouting something into the radio clipped to his shoulder.
While I aimed for the metal frame above the door, my throw came up short.
The bottle crashed against a support pole about ten feet from the door, sending glass and liquid raining down.
There were screams and hoarse shouts as gas plumed, filling the space with a white mist. The crowd pushed out from the center like an angry ripple in a pond, and those near that exit forced through the open doorway, knocking the officer aside, gasping and lurching in search of air.
My eyes were burning horribly when I finally got outside. I tried wiping them with the sleeve of my hospital gown, but that only made them worse. I realized we had left our clothes in the bag tied to the back of the wheelchair still up in the morgue—nothing we could do about that now.
Paul slammed into my back and pushed me forward. He shouted something, but I couldn’t make it out over the cacophony. When he pointed, I followed his finger.
Vincent and Twill were climbing into the front of a rusty brown minivan parked in the ambulance bay with its hazard lights flashing.
Paul and I ran over and scrambled into the back as Vincent reached under the steering column and yanked out a cluster of wires.
He had Twill’s scalpel and used it to strip the ends of two.
When he twisted them together, the minivan’s engine turned over with a rough growl.
He shoved the mess of wires back up under the dashboard.
Twill had Vincent’s gun. She held it in her lap, pressed between both palms, her fingers kneading nervously over the metal. “Go! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”
Vincent pointed out the windshield.
Van Man was standing at the mouth of the portico, directly in our path, his dark eyes locked on Vincent.
Paul nudged up into the space between the two front seats. “Run his ass over!”
Twill’s grip tightened on the gun. “What the hell is he doing here?!”
Vincent didn’t answer.
He jerked the gearshift into drive and slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
The minivan lurched and shot forward with far more power than I expected, the tires shrieking on the pavement.
Van Man didn’t move.
Didn’t reach for his gun.
Didn’t so much as flinch.
He glared at us like he could stop us with sheer will.
It wasn’t until we were mere inches away that he finally sidestepped, and he only did so long enough for us to shoot past. Through the rear window, I watched as he stepped back out behind us and calmly took out one of those new cell phones to place a call.
A bulky thing with a nubby antenna on top.
His gaze never left us as we exited the parking lot and vanished into traffic on Calhoun.