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  She bites her lip hesitantly. "You are a doctor?"

  "I'm one of you. I was on the women's side. They're going to let us die."

  She steps over the nurse, "I never liked that bitch anyway." She smiles at the small girl in front of her, "Hey you need to come with me okay."

  I turn and walk back. Every hall I pass through has women running scared. Nurses are on the floors trying to calm everyone. I shoot the few I can hit without injuring anyone else. It makes the screaming worse.

  I round a corner and hear a woman speaking. "When the alarm sounds we know then that it's an evacuation. Not until then."

  I sneak my way behind her and run to the garden where Leo waits. We leave through the other door. I feel lost.

  I leave the doorway and enter into a staff area I see a map on the wall. I tear it off and start walking. I climb a set of stairs and enter another hallway.

  "Hey you. Where do you think you're going?"

  I turn and shoot without thought. The man in the lab coat drops. I know the guards will be coming soon. Normally they aren’t allowed in where the women are but dead doctors and nurses are going to alert someone.

  I look down at the map again to see where the elevator is. I smash the glass it is in and pull the paper out. I fold the small map and put it in my pocket. I round the corners with stealth. I shoot one doctor who is on the phone. He drops it onto the desk and collapses. I scan my way onto the elevator. I push B. I assume it means basement.

  When the door opens I am instantly afraid. It's dark and steamy down here. The place makes noises I've not heard in long time. Noises motors make.

  Leo is afraid. I can see it in his stance and the hackles on his back.

  I peer out into the dim lighting. No one is there but I am terrified. I step out with Leo next to me. We walk slowly looking all around us. My stomach is knotted tighter than when Will touches me.

  A hissing noise blasts beside us. Leo and I jump as steam is released from a valve. I almost laugh when it happens but I feel nauseous for a moment. My injuries are clearly not gone.

  A red light starts flashing and a loud alarm goes off. I see the red light on the wall. In the flashes of red light I see the far left corner where the detonation place is. I run to the corner. I look at the red flashes and wonder if the dead doctors and nurses have been found.

  The panel is something I've never seen before. It's huge and covered in buttons and diagrams. The wall above it has steps.

  1. Open the beige metal lid

  2. Press the number of minutes you wish to allow for evacuation

  3. When the red light flashes Re-Enter the number of minutes and press the green button to set the time

  4. Lock out the doors you wish the seal

  The lid is already opened. I look at it and press the one and the zero. The red light flashes and I press the one and the zero again. I press the green button and look at the labels. I push the black button next to the doctor's lounges, nurse's rooms and the guard's desks. The remainder of the doors I leave open I don’t touch the buttons.

  I fire several shots at the number pad and ruin it. There is a slot for a key card. I shoot it too. The bullets ricochet off the walls and pipes that hang low. Steam starts to come out of several of the pipes above me. Water comes out of one.

  I look at Leo, "We need to go now."

  We run to the elevator but I have a bad feeling about it. I see an exit sign and run for it. The door has no scanner. I push it open and listen. There is no sound but I wait one more second. I hear men shouting. There is a stairwell above me. I climb a flight of the stairs and listen for the men. They are not in the stairwell. We climb the stairs. On the second floor I scan my way out. I poke my head and see the hallway I was in before. The broken glass from the map is on the floor. The dead doctor is also still on the floor.

  Leo growls. I feel it too. I look around but see nothing. The alarms sounding have doubled. There is a red light and an orange light flashing opposite each other. My heart is in my throat.

  There is something around the corner and through the doorway that is bad. I can feel it.

  I raise my gun and glance quickly around the corner. Several men stand in a group.

  "Rebels in the halls and on the grass" is all I can make out. I look at Leo and nod at the door next to us. I open it and we slip inside and wait. I know we have about eight minutes if we're lucky. The office is empty but it has a window. I look out and see the several gardens in the middle. There are four. Each wing has it's own garden. The building is a giant rectangle with the four gardens in the middle. Each has a glass roof over it. The kids and moms all get natural light from them, like greenhouses.

  I stand at the door and listen. I hear footsteps and voices. When they pass I almost open the door but I wait ten more seconds. I hear someone run past the door. I open it and look out. No one is there. I slip back into the hallway where the stairs to the lower level are. The hall is empty. If they are trained like I was, they won't double back. This section is cleared. I reload my clip. Thank god for the seventeen shots. I get why Mary loves this gun.

  We have minutes at most. I start making my way back to the office where the doctor/spy is tied up. Girls and women are running every which way. Nurses are telling them to go back to their rooms but they fight them. I raise my gun and shoot one nurse who is dragging a young girl to a room. The girl looks at me and smiles.

  "Get to the pool. The building is about to blow up. The infection is here. We need to get away. The pool is the only safe spot." I shout but it only makes them scream and run more. I run through the building to where I locked the doctor in. I scan his door open to see him sitting looking terrified and annoyed.

  "About fucking time. Jesus Christ. What kind of plan is this? We have three minutes until the building implodes for crying out loud."

  I untie him and wince when I see how swollen his eye is.

  "Sorry about that."

  He shakes his head, "If they had opened my door it would have saved me."

  We sneak out of his office and run down the hall to where the women's side is. I scan the door and we run into the main kitchen area.

  "Get to the pool. Please run now or you will die. The building blows up in three minutes. Hurry please." He is herding them.

  I am scanning the crowd for one face.

  In the chaos I don’t see her. The doctor leads us to the pool. The room is huge. There are windows on one whole side of the pool.

  "Get into the pool." He tries to talk normally.

  He jumps into the pool and starts shouting, "COME AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!"

  There are far more women than I imagined there would be. I smile imagining there are three other pools that look like this one. Pools full of women and children about to escape.

  "Emma."

  I turn and see Muriel. Her face is beaten up a bit but she is running toward me. I run and hug her.

  "I'm so sorry."

  "No, the infected. What could we do?"

  I shake my head, "No. I should have been prepared for them too. I never even gave them a thought."

  She hugs me tight and talks over the loud women panicking in the water. "Is this you?"

  I nod, "It's all I could think of. The building is going to be destroyed in a few seconds. The pool is supposed to be the best bet."

  She grips my hand. I grab Leo, who is starting to freak out, by the scruff of his neck and drag him into the water. It's cold and not inviting. Leo starts his splashing as he enters, he loves the water but he is more nervous than normal.

  People are looking at him and me and raising eyebrows.

  "To the deep end ladies. If the ceiling collapses it's our best shot at surviving.

  Those of us who can swim all swim in a chaotic hoard for the deep end. The others cry and scream at the shallow end. The noise is unbearable. Leo is panting and panicking. He wants out of the pool. I let him go. He knows best. His instincts are better than anyone's. He swims to the edge and climbs o
ut. He slinks to the corner and sits there. A girl who doesn’t look much older than me follows him. She curls against him and cries.

  The noise is too much. Suddenly another noise rises over everything and shakes the building around us. I blow my air out and let myself drop to the bottom of the pool. I look up at the feet above me. They seem calm and collected for a second. Then it looks like red ink has been spilled into the pool. The water starts to froth and churn. I can't see above me anymore. My chest is crying out for air but I stay down there and watch. A woman is shoved under. I grab her hand and pull her down to me. I swim, towing her to the shallow end. The frothing water is everywhere. It looks like the rapids of a river. When I pull her out of the water I am elbowed in the face. I see stars for a second but keep moving. I am shoving people out of the way. I drag the girl to the shallowest part and start patting her on the back hard. She chokes out the water and starts coughing. I am tripped and pushed under. Feet trample me. I grab the girl who was coughing and push her up out of the water. I am under water and drowning but holding her out of the water.

  A hand grabs the scruff of my neck and lifts me from the water. I look up to the see the worried face of the doctor. He points to the broken windows that lead to the outside.

  "Freedom."

  Leo is already out the window. He is watching me from the other side.

  I shout, "THE WINDOWS. BREAK THE WINDOWS MORE SO WE CAN ALL GET OUT!"

  The women rush at the windows and start smashing the lounging chairs against the already damaged glass. One window is broken and a girl is pushed through. I see her skin scrape again the glass. She screams. They are panicking. I unscrew the silencer and fire a shot into the cracked and ruined ceiling. The women stop and look at me. I walk to the dark haired girl on the ground bleeding, "THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT? TO KILL EACH OTHER? SINGLE FILE FOR FUCKS SAKE!"

  The doctor picks her up and climbs out of the jagged glass. The women leave, obviously calmer, but still in a hurry. I climb out and ready myself with my gun. There is no one on the brown grass.

  The doctor shouts back, "RUN FOR THE WOODS!"

  The doctor is running across the grass with the girl in his arms. I hear a shot and he drops. The girl screams.

  I look up at the roof to see a sniper team. I aim and fire several times. The first four men drop off the roof making the women and girls scream more. The fifth man sees me and shoots. I feel a hot burning feeling in my left arm but ignore it. I aim and fire and knock him back. He's too far for me to kill but I know I winged him.

  "RUN NOW!" I scream. They all scramble. I grab the girl under the dead doctor and help her. Leo is running ahead showing them the way. I look to the left and see a group of women with screaming babies fleeing for the woods. Some fall as gunshots ring out. Their babies fall with them.

  I hear my father whisper to me. 'You can't save everyone Em.'

  I shout at the women with me, "Run and break the branches. Stay together. I will follow the broken branches and find you. I will lead you to safety."

  "Emma I will lead them to the trail to the camp." I see Muriel and I nod, "I'm right behind you. I gotta get the young ones and the babies."

  She nods and starts shouting at the crying women.

  I head across the forest. I hear a crack and turn to see Leo standing beside me.

  "You came back huh? Ready to kill some shit?" He pants. I know he's freaking out.

  Through the woods I can see the building is on fire. The ledge where the snipers are is the only part still standing. Everything else looks blown out and in ruins. It warms my heart a little.

  I run to where the screams are coming from. When I get to the women who made it to the forest I point to where I just cam from, "Follow the tree line until you come to a bunch of broken branches, follow them. Safety is that way."

  They run holding babies and small children.

  I run through the herd and come out at the opening. A man is grabbing a woman. I shoot him and hit his ear. He grabs it and I fire again. I hit him in the throat. The lady grabs her baby and runs from the dying man. I shoot at the last few men on the ledge. I hit one and two duck. I keep shooting as the women make their way across the grass and into the woods.

  One man pokes his head up and I fire, skimming his head.

  I feel something grab my arm. I turn looking for Leo but he has a man on the ground and is tearing out his throat. There is a hand on my arm. I point my gun but I stop myself. Will's blue eyes are on fire. He drags me into the forest. I see tufts of grass blow up into the air behind me as shots are still being fired at me. I fire a shot at the men on the roof.

  "Let me go. I need to save the girls. There is another side of young children. They need help." I pull at him.

  He doesn’t speak. I kick and claw at him but he doesn’t budge.

  The fight must look like a bratty two year old being dragged from a store. He has no problem dragging me into the forest. I kick and fight. Frustrated tears blind me.

  "LEO. LEO HELP."

  Leo comes running in with fresh blood on his muzzle. He sees Will and stops running.

  "Leo, bite him."

  Leo licks his lips and falls into stride with Will. He senses no danger.

  I try to keep up but my feet stumble on a log and I lose my footing. Will drags me for a while. My legs bang on sticks and branches and rocks but still he drags me. My arm feels like it's coming out of my socket.

  "Just let me go back please. I promise I won't ever run again. I promise. Let me save them Will."

  He stops and picks me up. He throws me over his shoulder. I am defeated. The children are dead. He let them die. I let them die.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The sight is beyond what I can comprehend. Children are everywhere. There are toddling about in every direction or breast-feeding. They cry and make noise.

  I smile at the sight. I have no idea how he did it but I know it was him.

  "Thought you hated kids."

  I take the water he offers and drink slowly. I am starved and dehydrated and probably still very sick from the head wound I got the day before.

  "How?"

  He looks angry. No pissed. He looks pissed. "We followed your trail this morning. When we figured out what you had done, we couldn’t get in so we decided to wait outside and see which exit you came out with guards gunning for you."

  I am amazed.

  "You sat at every exit?"

  "We paired off. It was pretty obvious what you had done when the blast happened and the smoke started filling the sky."

  "So many made it. Did we lose any of us?" I ask.

  "We lost two yesterday in the giant fuck up we called an ambush. They were shot trying to save Muriel." His eyes flicker on mine. I feel sick. I add them to the list of people who I am to blame for the death of.

  He shakes his head like he is reading my mind and sits across from me. "You aren’t responsible. Muriel has talked them down. Everyone knows it's not your fault."

  That changes nothing. I sip the water. I am to blame.

  My arm stings suddenly as if it is a delayed reaction. I look at my blood soak shirt. I pull it back and wince. The bullet grazed my arm. There is a thick scrape that burned out a path along my left bicep.

  Leo is beside me licking my hand. I pat his head, "It's nothing. Just a scratch."

  Mona walks over and smiles, "You are one crazy girl. I will give you that. You are balls to the wall, nuts."

  Will snorts and walks away. He still looks pissed.

  Mona tears my shirt a little and looks. She pulls my shirt open and looks at the quill marks in my chest and hands.

  "These are infected. That's going to get infected." She points to the bullet wound.

  I shrug, "I've shown up at camp in worse shape than this."

  Her eyes flash. She pretends to be looking at my wounds but whispers in my ear. "You need to lead these women to the retreat. They can't stay at the camp with Marshall and everyone. They don't have enough food and s
upplies for all these women. Plus you're sort of showing Marshall up. You just single handedly rescued over fifty women and children."

  My heart stops, "What? No I had help."

  She nods subtly, "He isn’t going to take kindly to you leading a mission to save all those women. People are going to ask how come he never did it."

  "He's a moron. People should be asking what he's doing up there."

  "Well either way you need to take them where he can't touch them."

  "Does he know we have to hike all the way to the retreat with all these babies and pregnant women?" I whisper just as softly as she does. She knows who I am asking about. She nods.

  "What was his opinion?"

  She chuckles softly, "Honey he came and saved you. That’s as far as he got."

  My stomach warms but I roll my eyes. "He did the same for Star. I'm pretty sure I know what he wants. Once he gets it I will be just another her. See the way he leads her around now. She follows him like a lost puppy."

  Mona crosses her arms, "That’s not exactly how it is."

  I raise an eyebrow and feel my face flush, "I heard you guys all talking the other night. They called her a piece of ass. I might not know a lot of things but I know what that is."

  It's her turn to blush.

  I nod, "As I thought. Anyway the lost puppy thing isn’t really my thing. I like to be the hero not the simpering damsel."

  Mona cleans my wound with a salve from her kit, "Well it's what I like the most about you."

  I sigh, "My granny always told me not to fall for boys who care what they look like or play in a band."

  Mona laughs, "Sound advice."

  I can't stop imagining him singing and playing the guitar. The way his lips move when he sings makes me feel funny, good funny. "Yeah well fat lot of good it did me. I always have to do things the hard way it seems."

  She puts a bandage on and smiles, "Speaking of doing things the hard way, me and Joe are gonna come with you. To the retreat. We've had enough of Marshall and his shit anyway. They sit on that damn mountain and plan things that never come to fruition."