Angels of Darkness

tell you to keep clenching it. Don’t. Count to three in your head and let go of the trigger. Short bursts.”
    Karina took the gun and raised it. It was heavy like a cement block. “You do realize that I can kill you with this.” She didn’t mean to say it. It just came out.
    â€œYes.” He turned his back to her and went out of the vault. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt lay by the door. Lucas pulled on the clothes and started down the hallway. She followed him. He moved like a cat, soundless on bare feet.
    They came to the end of the hallway. Lucas leaned against the wall, glanced around the corner, and looked at her. “Point and pull the trigger,” he whispered.
    â€œCount to three,” she whispered back.
    He nodded.
    There were people at the end of that hallway. People she would have to kill. It’s them or us. Kill or be killed.
    She took a deep breath, stepped into the hallway, and pulled the trigger. The gun spat thunder. Bullets ripped into four distant shadows. She thought there would be blood, but no. They just jerked and went down, screaming. She pounded the bullets into the bodies for another long breath and let go. Lucas moved next to her.
    It was a test, she realized. He had to know if he could rely on her. Well, he could. She’d kill every one of them to get to Emily.
    â€œWhat happened to letting go on three?”
    â€œThere were four of them,” she said. Movies and books told her she should be throwing up now, but she didn’t feel queasy. Her mouth was dry. It would probably hit her later, but now only Emily mattered. “I decided to take two extra seconds.”

    K arina followed Lucas through the dark passageways as fast as she could. She was squeezing everything she had out of her exhausted body. Now that the first flush of adrenaline had worn off, fatigue set in. She didn’t walk, she dragged herself forward, shot when Lucas shot, stopped when he stopped. Only the next step mattered and she gritted her teeth and managed it again and again.
    They made it to a small door. Lucas punched a code into the lock, the door snapped open, and they went through onto a concrete landing. Lucas punched the lock and the small square light in its corner turned red.
    â€œWe rest,” he said. “Two minutes.”
    Karina sank down to the concrete and he sprawled next to her. The grimy floor was like heaven.
    â€œWhy are you helping me?”
    His voice was a quiet growl. “Because I like you. And your little girl.”
    She closed her eyes, feeling the cold concrete under her cheek. That wasn’t it. Lucas was making up for his past sins, but that wasn’t all of it, either. She knew the true answer. She could read it in his worn-out face. He wanted to save her, because he wanted her to stop flinching when she looked at him.
    â€œThank you,” she told him. “Thank you for helping me.”
    â€œTime to get up.” He rose.
    She cried out as he pulled her off the floor and followed him down the stairs. An odd sensation clenched her, almost like some internal spring had compressed inside her and now begged to be released. She stumbled, and it vanished.
    One floor. The landing. They were midway down the next flight of stairs when the door below swung open.
    An icy presence clenched her mind in a hard grip. It shut her off, trapping her. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak. Time slowed to a crawl.
    The door kept opening, wider and wider. She saw inside it; she saw armed people pour out onto the landing. She knew she had to fire. Instead she just stood there, disconnected from her body.
    And then Lucas shoved her down and sprayed the landing with bullets.
    The presence gripped her mind and squeezed. She couldn’t even scream.
    Orange sparks flared on Lucas’s gun. It died.
    More people spilled into the landing over the bodies. Lucas leaped into the attackers. He smashed one out of the way, cracking the man’s skull against concrete like a walnut. The man slid down, leaving a bright red stain on the wall. Lucas ripped a woman’s throat out with his hand, backhanded another man down the stairs, and shuddered as a handgun barked. Red spray shot out of Lucas’s side. He lunged forward and broke the gunman like a twig and dived into the doorway.
    The sound faded. She was completely disconnected from her body now. Only her vision worked.
    Lucas emerged from the door, bloody, his eyes furious.