The elevator light pinged. A cheerful, mundane sound in the middle of a war zone.
The heavy steel doors slid open.
Empty.
“In!”
We piled into the cavernous freight elevator. It smelled of grease and industrial solvent. Havoc slammed his fist against the button for the underground garage.
“Come on, come on.”
The doors hesitated, then began to slide shut.
Gunfire erupted from the hallway.
Bullets sparked against the metal door frame. Ping-ping-SPANG.
“Down!”
I returned fire through the narrowing gap. The recoil jarred my shoulder, comforting and familiar.
Then, a sudden, searing heat across my upper arm. Like a hot poker laid against the skin.
I grunted, twisting away. A bullet had grazed me. Ripped through the tactical jacket and furrowed the flesh of my deltoid.
The doors slammed shut with a final, metallic thud.
The elevator lurched. We began to descend.
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating, broken only by our ragged breathing and the hum of the hydraulics.
I looked at my arm. Blood was already soaking the fabric, dark and wet. The pain was distant, muffled by adrenaline.
“You hit?”
“Graze. I’m fine.”
I looked up at the floor indicator descending. 11... 10... 9...
A cold feeling washed over me. Not the white-out this time. A memory. A protocol.
I stared at the indicator. The garage was B2.
“Stop the car.”
Hellhound looked at me. “What?”
“Stop the damn elevator! It’s a trap.”
“We need the garage. The extraction vehicle is...”
“Standard lockdown protocol. In the event of a breach on the executive levels, all elevators are rerouted. They don’t go to the garage.”
Hellhound went still. “Where do they go?”
I met his eyes. “Containment. B4. The incinerator level. There’s a squad waiting for these doors to open, and they won’t be looking to arrest us.”
8... 7... 6...
