“Emergency stop!” Hellhound lunged for the red button. He slammed it.
The elevator groaned, shuddering to a halt between the 6th and 5th floors. The sudden stop threw us all off balance.
“Great. Now we’re trapped in a metal box.”
“Hatch. We go up.”
“Up? The car is going down.”
“If we override the stop, it continues to B4. We need to get out of the car before they start it again.”
I didn’t wait for a debate. I slung my weapon and jumped, grabbing the edges of the maintenance hatch. With a grunt of effort, I shoved the panel aside and hauled myself up to the roof of the elevator cab.
Darkness greeted me. The shaft smelled of oil and cold air. Cables stretched up into the abyss.
“Move.”
Hellhound boosted Havoc up. The tech specialist scrambled onto egg-crate metal next to me, breathing hard. Hellhound followed, pulling himself up with a grunt.
“Okay. We’re on top of the elevator. Now what?”
“Reset the car. Send it down empty. Let them ambush a ghost.”
“And us?”
I pointed to the wall of the shaft. About six feet away, a service ladder ran parallel to the rails. But between us and the ladder was open space. A six-foot void with a twelve-story drop.
“We climb.”
Hellhound looked at the jump, then at me. “With a tremor? And a shoulder wound?”
“You have a better idea?”
Hellhound reached back down through the hatch and hit the release on the emergency stop.
The elevator shuddered. The heavy cables groaned.
It started to move. Down.
“Jump!”
I didn’t hesitate. I launched myself across the void.
For a split second, I was weightless. The darkness swallowed me. The air rushed past.
THUD.
I slammed into the ladder. My good hand gripped a greasy rung. My bad arm scrabbled for purchase.
I roared, a guttural sound of pure defiance, and slammed my shaking hand back onto the rung, fingers locking around the cold steel. I hung there, swinging over the abyss, gasping for air.
“Gotcha!”
Havoc landed below me, his boots clanging on the metal. Hellhound hit the ladder above me a second later.
Below us, the elevator car descended rapidly, its light shrinking into a square of yellow in the dark.
We clung to the wall like insects.
