I force myself to meet her eyes again. “Anytime.”
Her chest rises and falls against mine.
The gunfire around us fades for half a second before we both come to our senses.
“Now… can we get the fuck out of here?” I mutter, gripping my shoulder with my good hand. “Before anything else leaks, pops, or tries to kill us.”
Saint clocks the severed arm in my hand and grimaces, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.
We crouch beside her newest recruit—the trembling factory worker. He nods at me like we’re old comrades in war.
“I’m Mark,” he squeaks, holding out a hand.
“Alejandro,” I reply—and hand him Skippy’s detached limb, palm-first.
He shakes it before he realizes what he’s holding.
The sound he makes is… not flattering.
I grab a clear plastic bag off the floor, shake the dust from it, and hold it open. “Put it in here.”
Mark drops the arm inside like it’s radioactive. Saint joins as I tie the bag tight, cinching the knot hard.
“I just need one clear shot once we get outside,” she announces, adjusting the last component on her improvised launcher.
“What the fuck do you need that for?”
“Tex is here,” she snaps. “The hemorrhoid of the Guild.”
“You haven’t killed him yet?”
“Rule number one. No kill without contract.”
“Such a rule follower,” I mutter. “And look where that got you.”
She ignores me and turns to the factory worker.
“Kevin—”
Mark blinks. I blink.
Who the fuck is Kevin?
She doesn’t break stride. “When I say the word?—”
“It’s Mark.” I correct her and at the same time Mark says, “It’s Mark.”
Saint actually gets pissed like we’re the ones that are wrong. “It’s whatever the fuck I say it is. When I say the word, I want you to run as fast as your little legs can go and get the fuck out of here.”
Mark nods furiously. “Okay. Which way?—”
“Go!”
He bolts, scrambling between machinery, his terrified scurrying echoing behind us. Hopefully he makes it out. And not in the form of a hot dog.
Rest in peace, Skippy.
Saint and I move together, fluid and synced, sprinting toward the loading-bay exit. We’re ten feet from the doors when they explode inward and five attackers’ storm in, guns raised.
