It was the last thing Sean heard from him before the world disappeared, blacked out by the floor they passed through. Light appeared again as they floated into the level below, arriving in a security room manned by half a dozen people milling around in confusion. Every terminal Sean could see had a red emergency bar on the bottom of theholoscreens.
“What the hell?” someone exclaimed as Sean and Alexei dropped in fromabove.
Sean solidified them both just enough to get their feet on the ground before hauling one of Alexei’s arms over his shoulder. “You with me,Lyosha?”
Alexei didn’t answer him, eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming in uneven gasps. Sean was having to take on more and more of Alexei’s weight, which didn’t bode well for them getting out of here quickly. Phasing made them intangible, but he didn’t have Annabelle’s anti-gravity power to make a personlighter.
Sean swore as he pitched them both forward through the terminals, phasing as he went. Sparks erupted everywhere as his power disrupted the room’s computer system in a cascading effect before they disappeared through the floor again. He didn’t stop their descent, not even when they fell through occupied and unoccupied rooms, startling more than one person intoscreaming.
“You think they’d be evacuating,” Sean muttered as he kept countingfloors.
Alexei still wasn’t talking, and Sean ruthlessly shoved his worry and fear to the back of his mind. Panicking wouldn’t help either of them right now. He relied on his training to keep calm, mind narrowed to the hard focus that always came when faced with a life-and-deathsituation.
In the event their covers were burned, the plan was to get out of Las Vegas any way they could. The biodome complicated matters, because there were only six ways out of the city, all through a version of the locking tunnel system they’d used to get inside. But if they could get out ahead of Declan’s people, they’d have a better shot at surviving. Being without communications or RealIdents greatly limited their capabilities in a world where everyone and everything was wirelessly connected. Using their actual identities would be easily traced, especially if the CIA was responsible for leaking their covers toDeclan.
A biting fear pounded through Sean’s mind in time with his heartbeat, incapable of dying off. If that information came from Stableford, there was a good chance it came from CIA Deputy Director Carter Bennett, which meant he needed to head north to his family. If the CIA was taking action against the MDF through intermediaries, then the director needed to know. Sean knew how critical it was they got that information out, but he couldn’t risk hisfamily.
He needed to get to NewSeattle.
Not for the first time did he hate his phase power, just a little. Metahuman powers weren’t all they were cracked up to besometimes.
Sean phased them back to solidity on the second floor, the room they appeared in thankfully empty. Their feet hit the ground and he took a moment to readjust his hold on Alexei. As he wrapped an arm around Alexei’s waist, his fingers slipped through something warm and wet. Sucking in a sharp breath, he stretched his fingers away from Alexei’s body, seeing them smeared withblood.
“Fuckingshit,” Sean growled as he hurriedly maneuvered Alexei onto thenearestbed.
Alexei didn’t protest, just leaned against Sean and weakly grabbed at his arms as he fought against the pain from the neuro-jammer. Sean was surprised he was still conscious, but then, it hadn’t been a direct hit. Even indirect hits were terrible though, and Sean wondered how much longer Alexei would remainawake.
Sean set his stolen gun on the bed and quickly shoved Alexei’s suit jacket out of the way, glad it was a darker color to hide any bloodstains. Alexei’s dress shirt was torn over his right side where a bullet had gouged a deep, bloody gash through his flesh. Sean checked the area to make sure a bullet wasn’t actually embedded in Alexei’s body and didn’t find any sign of one. He was bleeding, but not with the life-threatening quickness that meant a major vein or artery had been hit in any way. Sean couldn’t see if the wound went deeper, or if shrapnel could have broken off during itspassage.
“Fuck.”
They didn’t have time to clean up and patch the wound, not right now when they were on the run. They needed to get moving and rendezvous with the others at the designated MDF safehouse. They only had a limited amount of time to do that before everyone would have to scatter again. Keeping on the move was the only surefire way tostaysafe.
Right now, they weren’tmoving.
“Lyosha, I need you to stay awake. Can you do that for me?” Sean asked, curving his hand over Alexei’scheek.
Sean helped him straighten up, trying to get him to focus. Alexei’s gray eyes were dark with pain, his pupils uneven, as if he had aconcussion.
Getting hit by neuro-jammer gun is pretty similar,Sean thoughtgrimly.
“Lyosha?”
“How they know?” Alexei gritted out, breathing harshly through clenched teeth as he fumbled at the wound in his side. “Where we gowrong?”
Sean pressed his lips into a tight line as he hurried into the bathroom, yanking a hand towel off the rack. He folded it up as small as he could before returning to where Alexei teetered on the edge of the bed. Sean carefully pulled Alexei’s blood-soaked shirt away from thewound.
“The other guy must’ve taken most of the hit,” Sean said as he undid Alexei’s belt. “You need medicalattention.”
Sean worked the folded-up towel underneath his shirt and pants, pressing it against the bullet wound. Alexei’s lips peeled back from his teeth as Sean applied pressure. “No hospital.Justteam.”
“We might not make it to the safehouseintime.”
Sean tried to quell his frustration at Alexei’s demand, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He was used to going to ground and off the grid at a moment’s notice before making his way back to a viable extraction point when undercover. Working with a team still took some getting used to, which Alexei reminded him of when he lifted his head and grabbed weakly at Sean’s tie, pulling him down into an off-center, close-mouthedkiss.
“Be okay,” Alexei promisedshakily.
Sean smoothed a thumb across Alexei’s mouth before nodding. He wasn’t going to argue, not when they still needed to get off the premises. With a few quick motions, the shirt was tucked back into Alexei’s pants and the belt done up. Carefully, he helped Alexei stand, bracing them both against the weakening of Alexei’sknees.
