Penelope glared and hurried back to the downed Vanguard soldier. “I take it you’re Tace,” she murmured, feeling his wrist. “Weak but there.”
Sami turned back to hacking the system. “I’m sorry you didn’t make it home, Penelope.” The woman came from a huge Korean family north of Los Angeles and had been desperate to return to see if anybody had survived.
“Me too,” the young woman said. “Guess you found family?”
“Yeah,” Sami said, typing quickly. “Well, not my family, but I guess we created our own.” Her voice clogged. She desperately needed Tace to survive, but she knew the odds. Were they about to lose another Vanguard soldier? She still missed Wyatt, but this would tear her apart. Tace, the former good old boy and the new dangerous soldier—both held her heart. “How did you get up to this floor?”
“Somebody blew the doors wide open,” Penelope said. “I ran up the second I figured out what was going on.”
“How many soldiers are stationed here?” Jax asked, peering outside to the hallway.
“I don’t know. Maybe fifty?” Penelope answered.
Tace muttered something.
“Hold on, Tace,” Sami called.
He fell silent again.
She added another code, and lists unfolded on the screen. “Eureka.” She typed furiously, searching for anything to do with the vitamin B deficiency. Her breath caught, and explosions pummeled her abdomen. “Found it along with dosage. Third fridge—a yellow liquid labeled RTY78400.” Jumping up so quickly her chair shot across the room, she ran for the third refrigerator.
Blue vials, red vials, even purple vials were inside. She scrambled through them, shoving aside a bunch of clear vials.
“Go easy,” Penelope barked. “You have no idea what’s in some of those.”
“Do you?” Sami shot back.
“Yes. I’ve treated lab techs who’ve been infected by some of that stuff. They usually die,” Penelope said.
Sami slowed down. “Okay.” She gently moved aside a bunch of green beakers. “I’m not seeing yellow.”
“They might have stopped producing it,” Jax said. “We’re hoping for leftovers at this point.”
Leftovers. What if they found some but the contents were spoiled or past their effectiveness date? Sami dropped to her knees and reached to the very back of the bottom shelf. Yellow. Three yellow vials. Her hand shook, but she reached for them. “RTY78400,” she murmured, reading one. No date was on the vial. What if it had gone bad and what was left would kill Tace?
She turned to see him unconscious again. Did she really have a choice? She fumbled through drawers until she found a packaged syringe and drew out the correct cc’s from the vial. “Flip him over.”
Penelope rapidly turned Tace and yanked down the right side of his jeans. “Here.”
Sami handed over the syringe, and Penelope quickly injected Tace before turning him over.
The guy didn’t move.
Sami patted his face. “Tace? Wake up.” Her throat clogged.
Nothing.
The alarm suddenly shut off.
Jax breathed out. “Either Raze has taken command of the control room, or we’ve lost enough men that the Bunker leaders no longer wanted the alarm.”
A speaker crackled in the far right corner. “Attention, Bunker personnel. Stand down, and you’ll be escorted to the cafeteria on level B. If you resist, or if you are armed when found by Vanguard soldiers, you will be killed immediately,” Raze said over the loudspeaker.
Jax turned and nodded at Sami. “Looks like we’re in control.”
She shook Tace’s shoulders. “Wake up, damn it.” Tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
Penelope jumped up and typed quickly into Sami’s screen. An image of a long corridor with metal doors came up on the screen. A man of about forty with salt-and-pepper hair ran in from a door at the far end, a gun in his hands and two Bunker soldiers behind him. “We have to open the cells,” she screamed. “They’ll kill everyone.” She pointed to a keypad next to the overlarge doors. “I don’t know the code.” Panic rippled through her voice.
