Genevieve noticed my distress. “You don’t want to kill him?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow.
“I don’t think I can,” I confessed, feeling strangely embarrassed by my weakness and equally unsettled by her casualness. “Don’t know if we should,” I added quietly.
For a moment, I thought she was going to do it. Her grip tightened on the poker, and I didn’t know whether to fight her or cheer her on. But then she closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them, the impenetrable mask was once again firmly on her face.
She shrugged. “You’re the boss. I am going to find something to tie him up, though, while you look for evidence.”
Right. Evidence. The reason I had stupidly insisted we come in here.
In my panicked haze, I had barely taken in the room. I looked around now and saw it was a generic office with seventies-style wood paneling on the wall and orange shag carpet. I wrinkled my nose and tried to keep myself from gagging on Glen’s overwhelming rotten fruit stench baked into every surface.I guess improving the interior design of the evil lair wasn’t high on the priority list.
I dug my nails into my palms, not to punish myself but to help me focus. A desk was in front of me and a filing cabinet to my right. I rushed over, using my supplies to pick the cabinet lock and trying to make sense of the endless rows of files. For a deranged madman, Glen really had his organization system down, and it only took a few minutes to find the rows and rows of files labeled “Top Secret Omega Facilities.” I scrunched my face in disbelief, turning towards Genevieve who had finished with Glen and was peering over my shoulder.
“Is he in middle school?” she snorted. “Guess those are them. Let’s put them in this briefcase.”
She popped it open and we stuffed all the files in there before snapping the briefcase shut and heading to the door, kicking Glen’s tied-up form on the way.
“Alright, this is it,” Genevieve said, her hand resting on the doorknob. “Death or escape.”
“I have one more tab,” I said.
“We better make it count.”
I nodded, steeling myself for what was to come.
ChapterThirty-Two
Josie
We ran down the hallway as fast as we could until we reached the stairwell that would take us down to the kitchen. I clutched the heavy briefcase and Genevieve held the poker from Glen’s office like a sword.
She slowly opened the door to the stairwell and I knew we were both holding our breath, waiting for someone to jump out at us. But no one did. It was strangely quiet.
We paused again at the bottom of the stairs. Before we could open the door to leave, it slammed open. Genevieve jumped back with a cry, barely moving fast enough to keep the metal door from hitting her in the face.
“Found them!” Mustache guard shouted, his face red with exertion and his chest heaving.
Without thinking, I put the last tab in my mouth and bit down hard. Immediately, his eyes glazed over. Mullet and another guard I didn’t know sprinted in and immediately fell under the effect of the tab.
“Go lock yourselves in the utility closet,” Genevieve said, her voice like ice.
The guards all obeyed her, filing out of the stairwell single file until they reached the utility closet and marched in, locking the door behind them.
“That was the last tab,” I muttered.
“Guess it’s the old-fashioned way now,” she responded, tightening her grip on the poker. My hands felt slippery and my arm ached from holding the briefcase.
We jogged down the hall and rounded the corner to the kitchen when a guard jumped out from the opposite end of the hallway. Before we could do anything, he pulled the trigger on his gun. Fire seared through my thigh and I screamed, dropping to the ground. All sound ceased as the pain consumed me and my vision went spotty. I heard another gunshot and I curled in on myself, positive that he had shot Genevieve.
I whimpered when I felt hands on me, pulling my arms away from my face.
“Josie,” Genevieve said, slapping my face. “Get up. We have to move.”
My eyes flew open. Genevieve was kneeling next to me, hair wild, gun slung around her back. She looked like a fucking assassin.
“The bullet just grazed your leg. It didn’t go in,” she said, hoisting me to my feet with surprising strength. I was moving in a daze and in the back of my mind, I knew I was in shock.
“Where is the exit?” she asked, keeping her arm around me. I pointed down the hall, past the kitchen, studiously trying to avoid looking at the dead guard lying in a pool of his blood on the floor. I tested putting weight on my injured leg. It fucking hurt, but my leg didn’t collapse, so that was something.
