He gets in another hit, but then someone’s grabbing his arm and pulling it back.
Asch.
In some ways, he’s more suited to this kind of fighting than I am, and he quickly manages to get Beardy to realize that he’s a threat as well.
I use that confusion to break free of Baldy’s hold, and I pummel him with a series of jabs. He counters a few of them, but I manage to break through his defenses.
My next punch lands on his nose. I hear the crack, smell the copper. A drop of blood lands on my cheek.
Baldy groans loudly, and his body goes limp and falls to the floor.
There are no tap outs here.
I punch Baldy again, then shove at him hard with my foot. He’s not feigning unconsciousness; if he was, he’d have gone for my foot.
So that means we only have to deal with Beardy. The second he’s out, we can bail.
Asch has him mostly handled, but I still grab Beardy from behind. Beardy grunts, but with my hold on him and the way Asch is putting pressure on him, there’s not much he can do against the two of us.
We put him down, too, and while there’s a dark part of me that wants to make sure neither of them wakes up from this, I know we’re already fucked.
“Let’s go,” I tell Asch as Beardy crumples to the floor.
He glances at the two of them, assessing them, then nods. “Yeah. Blaze should have Pam dealt with by now. We should have a few minutes before they send backup.” He jogs toward the stairwell, and I follow him down.
Asch heads for the lobby.
“Pandora?” I say. “Where are you? We’re heading out now.”
No response.
I hear something, but it’s muffled.
Asch and I both rush down even faster. My lungs burn, from adrenaline and exhaustion and so much fucking worry that I don’t know what to do with it.
She’s fine, I tell myself.
Pandora got away.
But there’s nobody on the other side of the stairwell door.
Blaze’s car has its lights on, and he drives over to us.
“Let’s get the fuck…” Blaze frowns at us. “Where’s Pandora?”
I scan the parking lot. “Samantha had my keys in the hoodie, but I don’t know if she realized,” I say. My heart sinks when I see my car still sitting there, dark and quiet. “Maybe they doubled back to wait for us?”
Then the ear piece crackles, and I hear Pandora.
“Y’know, Romano’s a shit name,” she says, her voice muted—the way Blaze had been, hearing him only through Asch’s mic. Did something happen to her earpiece? “You should consider changing it.”
Romano.
“Ezio is here,” I tell Blaze before Asch can even open his mouth. “Fuck. We have to find her.”
Before things get even worse.
33
