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I limped to the nearest bolt, aimed the assault rifle, and fired repeatedly. Dust and concrete flew, becoming a cloud thick enough to make me cough. By the time the clip had run out, a deep trench had been dug around the bolt. Bear carried over more ammo; I reloaded and continued.
The men are outside the door, Cat warned. They are attempting to break in.
It’ll take them a while to do that. If Winter—or whoever he truly was—had fortified his desk, I was pretty sure he would have done the same to the doors.
I kept firing at the concrete, until the ends of the bolts were finally revealed. I repeated the process on the other side, using every scrap of ammo I had, then pulled the two anchoring bolts free and tossed them to one side.
“You can shoot all you want, but it won’t do you any good,” Winter said into the silence. “This cabinet is fully sealed and impregnable.”
“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe not.”
I limped over to the two dead guards, picked up their weapons, then limped back. The woman was still watching me, her expression amused; condescending. It made me wish I could reach into the light screen and throttle her.
“I do not understand what you hope to achieve here,” she said. “You’re trapped and you will die. You know it, I know it.”
“What I know,” I said, “is that the person currently known as Rath Winter is about to die. And when I’ve done that, I’m coming after you. And that’s a promise.”
I raised the handgun and shot the control box sitting on the top of the desk. The light screen flickered, then died. I clipped the weapon to my belt, then pressed my hands against one end of the desk and heaved with all my might. The desk slid several feet forward, but the effort left my head swimming. I sucked in a breath and pushed again. Another few feet forward.
Inside his metal fortress, Winter squawked, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“You said the desk was impregnable,” I replied, with another push. Something tore in my calf and warmth began to pulse down my leg. I ignored it. “But I’m figuring it’s not immune to the laws of gravity or a thirty-floor drop.”
Bear joined me at the end of the desk, and together we moved it another few feet forward.
“You can’t have taken out the windows. They’re bulletproof.”
“You keep thinking that, if it makes you feel any better.”
We shifted the desk again, but this time little more than a few inches. I let my head drop and sucked in air. My body was trembling with fatigue. I was soaked with blood and sweat, and almost out of time.
I was trapped in this office as Winter was in his box.
A sharp, almost metallic whine bit into the silence. They’re using a drill on the locks, Cat said. They said it will take ten minutes.
Which meant I had half of that to finish my task here and figure a way out.
But how?
If Winter held his nerve and stayed in his box, then everything I’d done here—everything I’d gone through—was for naught. Fury rose and I shoved at the desk violently.
As I did, Bear screamed, Duck!
I obeyed without question. The windows lining Winter’s office exploded inward, showering the room with a deadly rain of glass. When it stopped, I carefully peered around the edge of the desk.
All that remained of the windows immediately in front of the desk were the broken remnants of the frames that had once held them. I guess the windows weren’t bulletproof after all.
I glanced beyond them and saw—standing on the rooftop of the building opposite and holding the biggest damn gun I’d ever seen—Jonas.
And he was waving.
Bear, go see what he wants. I heaved the desk again. This time, it slid right to the very edge. A few feet more and we’d all find out how well metal boxes could fly.
The guards are almost through, Cat warned. You have a few minutes, if that.
I braced myself for one more effort, but before I could do anything, the back of the desk opened and the rat threw himself out of his hole.
I grabbed my weapon and fired, but my hands were shaking so badly I got everything except Winter. He rolled to his feet and sprinted away. I kept firing; the bullets nipped at his heels but did no damage.
