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He nods. “Let’s do this.”
We both roll away. The girl is still screaming, and probably terrified. But we need to shut the shooting down before we can get her out of here. Bishop pops up and squeezes off some cover fire. I thunder out the door and start bolting down the stairs. Bullets pepper the steps behind me, but I roll into the shadows.
I’m up a half second later, laying down some more fire. I see Bishop literally hurdling the railing and monkey-swinging his way down the decking posts.
“Fucking gorilla man over here,” I mutter. I lunge around the corner, just as a man pops up. I lay that fucker out cold. Another bad guy goes down from Bishop, and then we’re on them. We each pop one more, and then that’s it.
I’m panting, adrenaline burning through my veins.
“What the fuck was—”
We both hear the screaming, and Bishop and I turn and run back up the stairs. We practically smash through the ruined glass door. The girl is hugging herself, shaking and screaming in terror.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I growl. I kneel and she flinches. “We’re not going hurt you,” I say quietly.
“We’re here to help,” Bishop says gently.
She swallows and glances at both of us, hugging the towel around herself. “Thank you. I…I…”
She can barely form words; her breath is hitching so much. I try and smile to calm her.
“Who are you?”
Bishop taps my shoulder. When I turn, he shakes his head with a hard look. “Tanner,” he grunts.
I sigh. “Yeah I know.”
He’s gotta call it in. This is way past a security breach now. I turn back to the girl, but she suddenly looks up at Bishop’s badge, and her face goes white.
“No!” she screams, scurrying back away from us in pure terror. “No!”
“Hang on, miss,” he growls. “Hang on, no one’s going to hurt you. I’m just going to call this in—”
“No!”she screams again, bloodcurdlingly. “No, I—please don’t! Please!”
Fuck, she’s begging, and it’s not the begging of someone who doesn’t want to be arrested. It’s begging out of pure fear.
We both glance at each other and frown. “Listen,” I shake my head. “I’m Tanner, this is Bishop, and we’re the good guys, okay? We’re going to call the police, so that we can—”
“You can’t do that!” She gasps, her face white as snow.
I frown. “Look—”
“The police—” she swallows, her eyes wild. She looks past me up at Bishop, seemingly terrified.
“He’s a good man,” I say quietly. “You have my word.” She slowly nods and swallows thickly
“The cops are trying to kill me.”
The ruined bathroom goes silent. I glance at Bishop. I can tell we both want to roll our eyes. Because this just started to sound flat-out crazy.
“Right,” I say slowly. “Well, why don’t we—”
“I know you think I’m crazy,” she whispers, her eyes feverishly darting between us. “But I have proof. The Santa Marina cops are trying to kill me.”
I look at my friend again, and he frowns in confusion. “Miss, those men out there weren’t cops.”
“No, they were the cartel.”
