Danvers is running my way.

I jab at the close-doors button over and over and over. I’m gripping my gun tight, hoping I don’t have to use it because I already feel bad enough about getting the other guy, but as Danvers draws closer and the stupid elevator refuses to listen, the awareness is setting in. I’m going to have to shoot him. Hopefully just enough to get him to stop chasing me and not enough to kill him, but how do I guarantee that? How do I⁠—

The doors finally move.

They’re sliding closed at the rate of slug flopping over a garden path, and I’m so fucking sweaty with panic I’m not sure how I haven’t dropped my gun already.

Danvers isn’t close enough, and he lifts his gun and gets off a shot right before the doors seal between us.

So he doesn’t catch the way I wail in pain.

A fiery burn rips through my shoulder, and I glance down to find red quickly bleeding out across the white T-shirt.

My friends fur-ever T-shirt.

That bastard.

Before he can get the doors open again, I drag my good hand down every button and finally suck in an inhale as the elevator moves. Good luck to him guessing which floor I’m getting out on.

My shoulder is in goddamn agony, and as soon as the doors open on the first floor, I run. I tear down one corridor to the next, and as I spot a window to head for, movement on my left makes me stop.

Lars is holding open the door to the stairwell as St. Clare steps inside.

“Close that!”

Lars hurries to do it even as St. Clare’s jaw drops.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

I ignore him, grab the potted plant right by the window, and throw it as hard as my injured shoulder will allow. The glass gives way easily—and it’s lucky we’re not on a higher level where this wouldn’t have been possible.

“Out. Now.”

Thankfully, neither of them questions me.

Lars goes first. Jumping from the first floor onto the cement like some fucking terminator, he then turns, and when I shove St. Clare ahead, Lars is ready to break his fall.

I’m not at all feeling woozy as I set the safety on my gun, tuck it into my jeans, and then give a quick plea to the universe that I’m not about to go splat.

Before I can do much more than that, I hear the door to the stairwell open behind me, and I jump.

There’s a second of weightlessness, and then my feet slam into the pavement, and I pitch forward, just able to catch myself before I go face-first into cement.