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It's fine. Keep going.
Chance ducks in my direction, and I’m bumped to the side, finding myself behind a pillar. His breathing is as hard as mine, his hand brushing over the wound on my leg.
Our eyes meet for a precious second. “You still good to go?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Ethan, are you still with us?” he asks his brother.
“Yeah,” Ethan mutters from behind Chance.
Chance glances around the pillar, his body pressing against mine. I soak in the strength coming from him as he opens fire on the enforcers. Only when it’s clear does he grip my arm and yank me from our hiding place. We run for the stairs, too many bodies blocking the elevators.
As we make our way up the stairs, I leave drops of blood on the steps. Glancing behind me, I see Skater. He took a bullet to his shoulder but seems to be okay. One by one, my friends come up the stairs, and when I’m sure no one else was shot, I feel relieved.
Dad looks rattled, though. He’s probably never seen this level of violence, and it must be a shock to his system. Still, he keeps up with us, making me proud of him.
When we reach the fourth floor, I’m surprised it’s not guarded.
“Are all the guards on the emissaries' floor?” I ask.
“Maybe they don’t think we’ll shut down the program?” Chance replies. “Keep in mind, they’re used to being in control. I don’t think they considered that we’d attack them.”
“That’s just arrogant and stupid,” I mutter, noticing I only have one clip left. “I’m really low on ammunition.”
“Me too,” Raze says.
Everyone checks how many clips they have, and it’s disheartening to see we probably won’t have enough to get to the emissaries. Not if they have half an army guarding them.
Gathering at the door that leads to the fourth floor, I can see the worry on everyone’s faces. We’ve come too far to turn back.
“We have to come up with another plan,” Chance says. “We don’t know what kind of firepower we’ll face on the seventh floor.”
“Are there any laboratories in this building?” I ask. “Maybe we can make more bombs?”
Dad shakes his head. “Unless there are flammable cleaning supplies we can use, there’s nothing I can think of to make a bomb.”
“Shoot,” I mutter.
“The surveillance cameras,” Mom mentions. “Can we access them to see what’s happening on the seventh floor? For all we know, the emissaries aren’t even in the building.”
“True,” Idris agrees.
Everyone looks at Dad, who starts nodding. “I can access the cameras from the mainframe.”
“We need to hurry,” Kenzo says. “If the emissaries are on the seventh floor, they’re expecting us any second. If we don’t show, they might realize what we’re up to and send enforcers and insensates to stop us.”
Bracing ourselves for an attack, Chance shoves the door open and moves into the hallway, his gun held firmly in his grip, ready to fire.
We all rush into the hallway, and finding no armed forces protecting the computers, we let out a collective sigh of relief.
That’s one win, at least.
“Where to?” Idris asks.
“This way.” Dad takes the lead, and we follow into a maze of computers. The air is freezing, making the gunshot wound to my leg pulse with pain.
I start limping, and it draws Chance’s attention. He wraps his arm around my lower back, taking some of my weight off my leg.
“I’ll check the wound as soon as we get to the mainframe.”
The deeper we move into the room, the colder it gets. I can’t keep my body from shivering, but I don’t mention the room temperature, seeing as the others aren’t complaining.
We reach a big black box that’s half the size of a container. Dad scans his keycard, and doors slide open, revealing flickering lights, wires, a monitor, and a keyboard.
Dad enters a password, accessing the system.
“Let me check your wound,” Chance says.
Taking hold of my hips, he helps me to sit on top of a counter. The fabric of my pants is soaked with blood.
Chance glances at Dad. “Joseph, give me your lab coat.”
Dad quickly shrugs out of the coat and throws it toward Chance before continuing with whatever he’s doing.
Chance uses a utility knife to cut a long strip of fabric off the coat, and when he wraps it around my leg, tying a tight knot, I clench my teeth and focus on what Dad’s doing.
“I’m in,” Dad says. On the monitor, there are hundreds of tiny blocks, all showing different footage.
Dad types some more on the keyboard, then only four blocks are singled out, giving us a clearer view of the seventh floor.
There are twenty insensates stationed in the hallway, watching the elevators and staircase. Inside the office space are seven enforcers, one for every emissary.
“It’s much less than I expected,” Idris mutters. “Clearly, they weren’t prepared for the war to come to them. Stupid fuckers.”
