“She’s not up here,” Declan shouts, peeking out from behind the doorway he’s taken cover behind and shooting at more guards at the end of the long-ass hallway. It branches off in a t-shape, and the bastards are hiding around each corner, only peaking around to take shots at us. Except the guy still smoldering on the ground, who thought he could rush me.
“What the hell are we still doing here, then?!” West asks, his expression hard.
“They’ll follow us if we just leave!” Declan’s voice is irritated, probably from my lack of finesse when it comes to interrogation skills.
Or, you know, all the bad guys shooting at him. I can never tell with him.
“Fucking hell,” Sam mutters, then reaches behind him, pulling something out of the back of his pants.
“Dude!” Rory explodes in laughter. “Where the hell were you hiding that thing?”
Sam brandishes his grenade launcher, loading it with the three cartridges he pulls out of his pocket and props the muzzle onto the edge of the table. There are six chambers in the launcher though, so I wonder if he has another set of three hidden somewhere. “Cover your ears!”
We all reach up to follow his directions as he pulls the trigger, and the grenade goes flying out of the launcher, hitting the left side of the hallway. It explodes on contact, the blast spraying shrapnel where half the guards are taking cover.
The ground shudders as the deafening explosion reverberates in the room, making my ears ring even though I’m covering them.
“Shit!” Declan shouts, a panicked look on his face. “Don’t do it again—”
But Sam is already pulling the trigger, aiming for the right side, where the other half of the guards are taking cover.
Another explosion, another deafening burst of noise. Sam waits, eyeing the end of the hallway.
For a second, the only sounds are the grunts and moans of the exploded guards. Then, Declan tears out of the room, his face furious. “Fucking idiot!” he shouts, quickly shooting down a guy who had been trying to crawl towards us. “We don’t know how far down this place goes! You could have made everything collapse on top of us!”
“I’ve seen bunkers like these before,” Sam snaps, standing and shooting at another downed man who started groaning. “Ten feet of reinforced concrete between each floor, and more counter-measuresto collapse than you or I could dream of. Two little grenades aren’t going to do shit.”
For a second, Declan looks like he might argue but then he sighs, shaking his head. “Then let’s go. We can see if the ‘T’ button on the elevator stands for ‘testing’.”
Declan, Rory, Sam, West, and I sit in tense silence as the elevator moves down. It’s hard to tell, but I think we’re going to the floor directly below the one we’re coming from.
Muffled voices from right outside the elevator have Declan hitting the emergency stop button before the doors open. He turns to us all with a warning look.
“Don’t know what that sound was, and the radios aren’t working.” One of the voices says, sounding frustrated.
“It was probably just one of the loony scientists working late again. You know they blow stuff up sometimes.” Another voice responds. “I was in the middle of dinner—let’s make this quick.”
Declan silently raises his handgun, and puts a finger to his lips. Then he pats Rory on the shoulder and makes a stabbing motion. Rory nods, pulling two bowie knives out of his belt. There’s a feral glint in his eye as he twirls them once.
“We should let Brooks know what’s going on,” the first voice says.
“Nah. He’s busy with that omega and the Vasiliev bastard. We’ll update him if there’s actually anything to worry about. Remember last time we interrupted him and it ended up being nothing? Guy was pissy for like, three days. I don’t want to deal with that again.”
We startle when there’s a series of three bangs on the metal door. “Where the fuck is this elevator?” The frustrated voice huffs.
“You guys checking it out too?” A new voice says, and I hold my breath. More guys. Shit.
Declan gives Sam, West, and me a stern look, then makes an outward sweeping motion with his hands.
Sam yanks me against the side wall of the elevator, and West presses his back against the opposite side. Right. Out of the line of fire.
Rory holds up three fingers, then counts down on them before reaching zero and hitting the button to disengage the emergency stop. Declan stands, his silenced gun ready, and Rory is poised to strike.
As soon as the doors slide open, all I hear is a “What the fu—” and then a small pop from Declan’s gun, followed by a thump as a body hits the floor. Rory flings himself forward, knives in hand, and a series of quiet pops go off as Declan aims from inside the elevator.
In less than ten seconds, Declan is lowering his weapon, and jerking his head at us. “Let’s go.”
Dumbstruck, I step out of the elevator, my eyes landing on ten guards swiftly taken out by the Irish Mafia duo. Rory is wiping his bloody blade on the uniform of one of the dead guards. He bares his teeth at me in a feral grin as he stands.
