The Ark

23.

Delta's reactions were the quickest. She flipped the desk onto its side and pulled me behind it instantly. I glanced around, dazed, trying to blink my eyes back into focus. My arm prickled where fragments of the professor's door had bitten into my skin and my head was buzzing with the unrelenting ringing in my ears.

I pushed myself into a crouch, keeping low to avoid the laser shots pulsing through the door. Delta was returning fire blindly over our flimsy desk barrier—keeping our assailants stuck in the hallway without a clear line of sight.

Rus was slumped on the floor beside us—out cold. There was blood dripping from his forehead where debris had caught him in the explosion. I did my best to pull his dead weight under the cover of the upturned desk, but he was heavier than I would have expected for someone so small.

I rooted through the duffel at Delta's feet and found a spare taser. I cursed myself for not bringing my PEP after I had changed into my normal clothes.

Bellowed demands through a loudspeaker eclipsed the ringing in my ears, sounding muffled at first, growing clearer as Delta's panting beside me also came into focus.

"Professor Finnlay. You are under arrest for suspected involvement with The Alliance and harbouring a wanted fugitive. Come out with your hands up. I repeat. Professor Finnlay. You are under arrest for—"

Delta pulled a flash grenade from her pocket and hurled it through the doorway. The bang echoed through the room from the corridor, along with part of the blinding flash.

"Grab the duffel, we have to get out of here," she instructed, reloading her gun. As she rose to her feet, I tugged on her arm.

"What about him?" I jerked my thumb in the direction of Rus.

"You're my priority right now." She glanced at him and winced. "Plus, it doesn't look like he's in great shape anyway."

Guilt knotted in my throat as I slipped the duffel over my shoulder, glimpsing back at the professor. I didn't like the thought of just leaving him there, unconscious and unguarded.

Before I could try to change her mind, Delta pulled me out the wreckage of a door. Her flash grenade had worked. Six men stumbled around the corridor, blinking blindly in an attempt to regain their senses. They looked to be a mixture of Forcers and campus security.

"Quick, before it wears off," Delta said, pulling me into a jog and taking the lead toward the elevator. Frustrated grunts and roars chased us down the corridor from the stunned men and she picked up her pace.

I pushed my aching muscles as fast as they could go, willing myself to keep up with her. The gap between us grew larger as each of my jerky strides failed to match hers. I needed a power patch, but had no time to find one in the duffel.

I flinched as sudden flashes of light and pulses of heat flew up the corridor. Echoed shouts and bootsteps from the Forcers, told me they'd regained their senses and my stomach dipped. Delta pulled her pistol from her waistband and twisted, returning poorly aimed fire over her shoulder as she tried to keep her pace ahead of me.

A shot grazed past my ear, the heat singeing my hair and sending my heart into a frenzy. I wasn't sure if it had come from the Forcers or one of Delta's rouge shots.

"Keep going!" she shouted, slowing to a stop several paces ahead of me and taking aim at the Forcers.

I kept running and caught up to her, just as another flash lit up the corridor. Delta's eyes went wide as the shot hit her, slicing straight through her shoulder. I came to a skidding halt, my limbs frozen and my chest tight as she crumpled to the floor.

Her breathing was fast and shallow. The beam had gone clear through her shoulder, carving a neat, smouldering hole next to her collarbone. I looked through it to the blood smeared glass at her back and felt bile creep up my throat. The smell of burnt flesh brought back glimpses of Ty's lifeless body at my feet.

"Delta?" I dropped to me knees, my hands shaking as I tried to pull her up. 

"Go," she hissed through clenched teeth. "You lead. I'll follow." With a heavy grunt, and what must have been a lot of adrenaline, she rolled to her knees and staggered onto her feet.

I glanced behind us, nearly knocking Delta over as I frantically tried to help her along. Two Forcers were sprinting toward us, their heavy footfalls making the glass floor shudder.

There was no way we were going to make it out.

We limped futilely toward the elevator, but they were on us in seconds.

Delta let out a raspy cry as the first forcer grabbed her, wrenching her from my grip. I fumbled with my taser, ramming the charge into the second Forcer's throat as he took hold of me. He stumbled backwards and I dropped to the ground, scrambling desperately back to my feet and going after Delta.

She was screaming and thrashing around in agony as her captor squeezed her shoulder, his fingers inside the open laser-wound. I launched myself at him, latching onto his back, raining fists down on his head and tearing at his ears like a wild animal—but it was no use. It was like he was made of stone.

Hands closed around my neck, crushing my throat as the second Forcer ripped me from his colleague's back. I kicked wildly at the air, gasping as he dangled me in a chokehold out in front of him. My head began to pulse with the lack of oxygen and the trapped breath in my lungs made my chest burn. Tears spilled down my face as bursts of neon filled my vision.

There was another blast at the end of the corridor as something detonated. The explosion echoed down, cracking the glass underfoot. A wall of smoke and hot air rolled over us as the whole tenth floor shuddered.

Two hooded figures emerged from the clearing plume. Even with my fading vision, I could make out their holo-masks—macabre, neon blue smiley faces. Their mouths stitched into frozen grins under dead eyes.

The Alliance.

They sprinted toward us, approaching unnaturally fast. In a blink, the first Alliance rebel had punched my captor in the face—leaving me to fall into a gasping heap on the floor.

I shrank down, backing away as the Forcer and the rebel exchanged blows above me. My eyes flew to Delta, who had collapsed after the second rebel had attacked the Forcer that had held her captive.

"Delta," I rasped, her name chaffing my bruising throat. I crawled over to her. She flinched as I pushed her hair from her eyes. She was still alive—barely conscious.

I had to get us out.