“Get ready to make a run for the back of the sedan. Stay low and focus your shots on targets to the left side of this car. You should be screened from any gunfire on the other side. Empty your gun and pick up one of theirs,” said Devin, nodding at the dead guy lying behind the SUV. “They probably have something that packs a bigger punch in the vehicle. I’ll buy you some time.”

“What does that mean?” she said, before popping up to squeeze off three quick shots.

A furious maelstrom of bullets answered her gunfire, a few skipping off the pavement underneath the car—miraculously missing their feet. The car dropped several inches, its tires flattened by the latest fusillade of supersonic projectiles.

“They’re right up next to the car,” she said. “We won’t make it.”

“I’ll draw their fire down the left side,” said Devin. “You empty your pistol at anyone you see. You’ll make it.”

“But you won’t. We stick together,” said Marnie, winking at him. “That’s the plan.”

A bullet creased his left shin, dropping his knee to the pavement. Marnie grabbed his shirt and kept him from falling forward. He raised his pistol over the trunk and fired a few blind shots, hoping to dissuade anyone creeping along the side of the car.

“I got you into this,” he said. “I’ll get you out. Get ready to run.”

“I don’t think either of us is getting out of this, but I’d rather go down trying,” she said before extending her pistol around the shattered taillight next to her and blindly emptying her magazine.

Screams erupted from her side of the car, once again answered by more gunfire than they could hope to repel with one pistol remaining between them.

“Let’s go,” she said, taking off.

Devin grabbed her wrist and yanked her back, having heard the screech of tires somewhere nearby.

“What the hell are you doing?” she said.

The volume of gunfire passing over and next to them doubled instantly, muzzle flashes appearing from the corner of the nearest building at the intersection one street behind them. More tires screeched, this time clearly coming from the intersection ahead.

“Our backup arrived,” said Devin.

He quick-peeked around the side of the car with his pistol, seeing two masked figures. Both of them fired their submachine guns over the hood at Berg’s newly arrived associates. One of them noticed him and started to swing his weapon back in Devin’s direction, but it was too late. Devin pressed the trigger twice, punching two holes in his face, before shifting aim and firing the remaining six bullets center mass—knocking the second shooter flat. A short burst of bullets fired from one of Berg’s people stitched across the guy’s torso just moments after he hit the street.