my voice doesn’t shake.
“Yes.”
The nursery lights suddenly flicker.
Then die completely.
Darkness crashes over the room.
Followed immediately by automatic gunfire.
And somewhere inside the blackness…a child screams for help.
50
Clay
“Help!”
The scream cuts through the darkness again.
Young.
Terrified.
And close.
Gunfire erupts blindly through the nursery while red emergency lights struggle weakly overhead before dying completely again.
Muzzle flashes become the only illumination in the room.
Strobing violence.
Children crying.
Operatives shouting.
The lullaby still playing somewhere in the dark.
Jesus Christ.
I drop over Hannah instinctively as bullets hammer through the overturned beds behind us.
Russ fires toward the doorway.
“MOVE THOSE KIDS!”
Lucas and Mason start dragging frightened children toward the rear medical corridor while Gabriel shoves the captured doctor against the wall hard enough to keep her pinned there.
“Hannah!”
The voice again.
Closer now.
Not from the doorway.
From beneath us.
