CHAPTER 22 #3
In the reflection of the polished mahogany and brass panels lining the elevator, my eyes meet Ruby’s.
There’s no speech between us, just a heavy, violent understanding of everything we’ve done to survive the last few hours, and everything we’re about to do to get out.
I see the absolute survivor I’ve helped forge in the fires of this building, and she stares right back at the monster she’s actively choosing to follow into the dark.
I reach out and grab her hip again, my thumb tracing a small, slow circle against her bare skin right at the edge of her slip.
It’s a surprisingly intimate, grounding gesture in the middle of a bloodbath, a silent, bruising promise that I’m not letting anything touch her.
"We’re almost there," I tell her quietly.
"I know."
"Stay with me."
"Always."
The elevator slows down, the hum of the motor shifting gears. The doors slide open.
The main lobby is cavernous, a massive expanse of pristine white marble that reflects the pale moonlight bleeding in from the massive glass front of the building.
Ten heavily armed private security guards stand in a wide semi-circle, but their assault rifles are scattered on the floor by their boots.
Their hands are raised strictly above their heads.
They stare at me and the bloodied, broken form of Arthur Hemlock with a mixture of absolute terror and stunned disbelief.
The air down here is noticeably colder, smelling faintly of the freezing winter night leaking through the cracks in the lockdown seal.
I step out of the velvet car, my heavy combat boots making a sharp, echoing 'clack' against the marble floor that sounds like a hammer striking an anvil.
"Hands higher! Nobody moves!" I roar, my voice booming across the empty lobby.
The guards flinch, their arms locking out straighter.
"Ruby, sweep the left side," I order, dragging Hemlock out by his collar.
"Sweeping left," she confirms, moving with lethal precision.
"Don't even breathe toward those guns," I warn the closest guard, aiming the SIG right between his eyes for a split second before returning it to Hemlock's head.
I propel the billionaire forward, using his stumbling body as a mobile shield as we cross the vast, dangerously exposed distance toward the main entrance.
Ruby moves perfectly in sync with me, walking backward, her rifle trained steadily on the line of disarmed guards.
Her eyes are completely dead of hesitation, her finger resting lightly on the trigger.
We move like a single, violent organism, covering all three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of the massive room.
Suddenly, a guard’s walkie-talkie squawks loudly with static.
Ruby immediately whips her aim directly at his chest, her posture aggressively dropping into a firing stance that makes the man freeze in pure panic, shaking his head slightly.
"Keep moving, Arthur. Don't look at them," I say, shoving him hard in the spine.
"I see you, guard. Don't try it," Ruby warns, her voice icy and flat.
"Almost at the glass."
We reach the towering glass doors of the main entrance.
Directly above us, the massive, reinforced steel lockdown shutters are groaning loudly, the heavy industrial chains rattling and grinding as the system slowly retracts the metal barricade upward.
A tiny sliver of the dark, snowy night appears at the bottom of the glass, growing wider with every agonizingly slow second.
A sudden blast of freezing wind slips beneath the gap, hitting my face.
The sharp, clean smell of fresh snow and ice is a shocking, aggressive contrast to the stale, bloody, smoke-filled air of the skyscraper.
The mechanical slowness of the shutters is a fucking liability, trapping us in the doorway, but I don't break focus.
The icy wind catches my hair, blowing it back from my face as the gap widens.
"There it is," I mutter, keeping my grip tight on Hemlock's throat.
"The air... it's cold," Ruby says, her voice hitching just slightly as the reality of the outside world hits her.
"Wait for it to clear. Don't rush."
The heavy steel shutters finally clear the top of the doorway, locking into place with a loud, metallic clank.
I don't relax my grip on my hostage; if anything, my fingers tighten down harder on Ruby’s hip, the pressure almost painful as the final surge of adrenaline prepares my body for the sprint.
The snowy plaza stretches out in front of us, utterly silent, completely empty except for a few dark, snow-covered SUVs parked in the distance.
The skyscraper was a cage, and we just broke the fucking lock, but I know better than to think a quiet street means we're safe. Out here, the rules just change.
"Step out. Now," I command, shoving Hemlock through the open doors.
Our boots hit the snow, the ice crunching loudly under our weight. The freezing air burns my lungs, but it feels like survival.
"We're through, Ruby."
"Yeah."
"Don't stop running until we hit the street," I say, scanning the dark tree line bordering the plaza, my finger tightening on the trigger as I push Hemlock forward into the cold. I don't look back at the lobby. The game inside is over; it's time to figure out what's waiting for us in the dark.