Of fucking course there are.
I spin toward the kitchen, heart slamming so hard it hurts.
Through the smoke and flashing red light, I see them.
Boots.
Heavy. Black. Armored.
Three pairs, planted just inside the kitchen service entrance like they grew out of the tile.
I can’t see their faces.
I don’t need to.
“Back exit is blocked!” I scream to the dining room. “Nobody goes that way!”
People surge toward the front door instead, panic compressing the room into a bottleneck.
Someone goes down.
Two people trip over them.
The screaming gets louder.
The smoke gets thicker.
I stagger toward the kitchen anyway, ignoring the hot, wet pull of blood down my forearm and the way my side feels like it’s been caved in with a bat.
“Ishaan!” I shout. “How many?”
“I don’t know!” he yells back. “Three I can see, maybe more behind them!”
One of the booted figures raises a gun.
Not at us.
At the ceiling.
He fires.
The crack is deafening.
Plaster rains down in choking white clouds.
“Everybody get the fuck back!” he roars, his voice filtered and distorted through a mask.
The customers closest to the kitchen scream and scatter backward.
A woman drops her purse and crawls away from it like it’s on fire.
“They’re not here to rob us,” Mara pants, appearing at my side again. Her eyes are huge. “Kim, they’re not here to rob us.”
“I know,” I say hoarsely.
My arm is slick with blood.
My fingers are starting to go numb.
