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The line went dead, cutting him off. I turned back to my colleagues just in time to see Magellan nudge the desk aside and reach for the door handle.
“Noooo!” I shouted, but it was too late.
Two burly men dressed in black, including ski masks, pushed the cracked door open wider.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher out of Magellan’s hands and clocked the first intruder in the face. He went down like a ton of bricks and slumped over the edge of the desk, halfway wedged in the doorway.
“Hit send!” I yelled.
Jayna sat frozen.
“Hit send!” I shouted again. “Magellan!”
At the sound of his name, he leapt into action, literally jumping onto and then over the desk. He rolled Jayna’s chair to the side and crouched in front of the computer, typing furiously.
“Stop,” the second henchman said.
He grabbed the extinguisher out of my hand and tossed it out of reach. It glanced off of Jayna’s head and she grunted and slumped against Magellan. Before I could launch myself in the direction of my friends, our attacker snaked a pistol through the half-open doorway and pointed it in their general direction while keeping his eye on me.
I held up my hands and feigned compliance until he shifted his gaze to my colleagues. Then I crouched, twirled, and kicked his pistol out of his hand. He reached through the door and struck me in the side with something hard, I wasn’t sure what. Maybe a metal rod. I dropped to the ground, then spotted my awards lined up along the left edge of my desk.
I tried to remember the weight of each one in my hand and decided the lion-shaped newcomer award would be the heaviest. While the second henchman pulled his friend off the desk and out of the way, I grabbed my weapon of choice and pressed my back against the wall, as far out of his view as I could get.
“I did it!” Magellan yelled from where he was crouched with Jim and Stacy behind my desk. “The article is live!” My colleagues wooted and high-fived.
I remained still and waited. When henchman number two reappeared in the doorway, he had another gun in his hand, this one trained once again on my colleagues. I took a cue from Magellan and leapt up from my crouched position, drawing my arm back as I did so. I smashed my metal lion into the center of his face, and he staggered backward.
There were more people dressed in black in the hallway. I tried to grip my award tighter in preparation for the next battle, but my hand was weak, and the metal statue slipped out of my fingers. Pain exploded in my side where I’d been hit earlier, and I fell back against the wall and slid to the floor. All of the fight was knocked out of me, but no matter what happened next, the article was out in the world, so we had already won.
* * *
TJ
I was in the lobby of the building, weaving through the last few stragglers evacuating when all hell broke loose on my comms.
“Two hostiles have set up a zip line from the building behind The Sentinel,” Penn yelled. “Hostiles approaching the windows on the fourth floor.”
I heard gunshots, then breaking glass.
“Two hostiles have breached the fourth floor,” Jensen said. “Repeat, two hostiles on the fourth floor.”
My cell rang. I answered, knowing it was Ashlee.
“We’re in trouble,” she said. “Someone’s on the fourth floor, and I’m pretty sure it’s not you.”
“Fuck me,” my teammates mumbled.
In the distance on her end, I heard someone call out, “Fire department!”
“Do not open that door!” I said. “I’m in the building, almost there.”
My comms cut out, and my cell phone went dead. I was on the second-floor landing, taking the stairs two at a time when the comms kicked back in.
“Did they take down our system?” I asked Jensen.
“Just for a second,” he answered. “Those fuckers are good, but I’m better.”
“Li, I’m approaching from below,” I said as she approached from the top of the building. We met on the fourth-floor landing in the stairwell.
