Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

Karin eyed the door hinges, feeling her pockets for any sign of a tool that might pry them free…racking her brains for the memory of anything she might have glimpsed on her way through the building. Her penknife would break at the first application.

Doubt crept into the boy’s expression.

“Hey,” Karin said. “I’m Karin. What’s your name, kid?”

The boy sniffled. His face was filthy from the standard mix of kid tears, snot and grime. Karin had the sudden thought that Longsford would have someone clean him up. He obviously had a backup crew who knew about his recreational activities. And someone else had probably dumped that body so carelessly, someone panicked by pressure from the feebs. Longsford had been doing this for too many years to get such a simple thing wrong.

It would explain why the ex-boxer and his pal had been so insistent at their first meeting on Ellen’s farm, and so persistent afterward. They hadn’t just been sent on a blind errand; they understood the stakes.

“Atilio,” the boy said, prodding her from her thoughts.

“Okay, Atilio. Just hang tight. I’ll think of something.”

Yeah, like a call to 911. I was just walking past, Officer, and I heard someone crying inside. So I broke into the Fortress of Solitude and I found this kid and oh, by the way, I’m outta here! And say, can you delay your arrival till I can climb my way back out of this building and make myself scarce? Leaving this terrified kid by himself till you get here?

And yet she’d already used too much time. Even if she had no reason to believe anyone would arrive so soon after the last guy had been here, she’d just taken too much darned time.

“All right,” she said out loud. “I’ve got one thing to try. If this doesn’t work, kiddo, I’ll make the call and take my chances.” She pushed away from the mesh door and went to check out the CO 2cylinders. Yep, the gauges all read empty. Just as well. She gave one an experimental heft and discovered it weighed half as much as she did. But she’d been hauling fifty-pound sacks of feed for a year now, and knew how to use leverage to her best advantage. She played with her grip on the awkward thing, knowing she’d have to rest it on her forearm behind the cast and knowing the whole exercise would be useless if she didn’t get up enough speed.

Screw breaking the lock. She’d try to warp the door enough so that skinny little kid could wiggle his way out. “¡Al revés!” she said, hoping she was telling him to move back away from the door. She gestured wildly at his hesitation and he slowly complied, clearly not quite understanding her intent. She only hoped he’d get the idea once she came charging at him with her modern-day battering ram.

And then, suddenly inspired, she pulled out her cell phone. The photos it took might not be high quality, but they’d do the trick. She snapped several of Atilio huddled in his cage, a few of the equipment to help establish location, and stuffed the phone back into the breast pocket of her field jacket, making the mental note to take pics of the creepy boy’s room on the way out.

Atilio said something querulous and Karin muttered, “Hold on, kid,” as she bent over the cylinder.

Oh. My. Gawd. Her first effort to lift the thing garnered her nothing more than a grunt. “Okay, Florentius,” she said, figuring the patron saint against ruptures was her best bet. “It’s you and me…” And with a loud grunt of effort, she got the thing off the ground, staggering back and forth as she tried to find its balance point. Her cast scrabbled against cold gray steel and she shifted the cylinder onto her forearm with no little effort-and then it started to tip forward.

Rather than lose it and start all over again, Karin mustered a warrior’s battle cry and staggered into a run. The brief image of Atilio’s startled face, the rush of looming mesh…stunning impact. She immediately lost her grip on the cylinder and flung herself sideways, out from beneath it. Her head and ears rang and when she hit the floor it wasn’t quite where she’d expected it to be.

And then, finally, silence.

She lay facedown on the cold, hard concrete, and when she opened her eyes she discovered just how dirty the floor was. Gross. Slowly, she pulled her knees beneath herself and climbed to her feet, patting herself for lumps and bumps. Everything seemed to be in its proper place. “Hey, Florentius! Way to go!” She straightened herself out and checked Atilio’s cage.

She barely had time to register that the impact of her improvised self-powered missile had indeed warped the door when he slammed into her, wrapping his arms around her low waist with all the strength of a full-grown bear. “Hey, hey!” she said, delighted; she knelt to hug him in return. “Let’s say we get the hell outta here, huh?” She stood, held out her hand to him and wasted no time navigating through the machinery and past the freezer. There she told him to wait and ducked inside Longsford’s creepy playroom, snapping a few quick phone pics.

When she emerged, Atilio was gone.

“Hey,” she said, trying not to raise her voice too loudly, or let the sudden tight anxiety come through in her voice. “C’mon, kid, where are you?”

He whimpered. She found him crouched behind the roller conveyer, and relief washed through her body in a startling wave of weakness. “Don’t do that to me, kid,” she told him, but froze as he pointed frantically at the door.

I am so not meant for slinking. She wasn’t used to checking doors or keeping an eye out for sly intrusions. She was used to being on the front line, bold as brass and running the show. It hadn’t occurred to her to check for movement at the window before emerging from the special little room.

And yeah. There it was. Movement. While she stood out in the open like a deer in the headlights. Too little too late…she dashed for the wall beside the stairs, where the angle was too sharp for anyone to see her through that window.

It occurred to her then that if Longsford’s men had arrived, they ought to be fussing about that window. They ought to be putting their keys into the lock and bursting in to take charge instead of rattling around the door in an experimental way. Huh.

She glanced over to catch Atilio’s eye and put her finger to her lips. He stared back, deer-in-the-headlights. He did, at least, stay put and stay quiet as she moved closer to the stairs…close enough to catch a muttered French phrase of badness.

She hadn’t known she could grin quite so broadly until this moment. She leaned toward the door and said, “Pssst. Hey, little boy. You wanna cheap deal on some watches?”

The door noises stopped. “Karin?”

“You got my phone message?”

“Your what-?” She caught a glimpse of his head as he shook it. “No. I’ve been keeping an eye on the tracker, just in case you went back for it. I got back into the car at the gym and saw the thing was on the move…I just followed you here. What’s going on? How the hell did you get in there?”

He’d kept an eye on the tracker. Bless you. “How about we get out of here first? I’ve got a friend with me. An unwilling young visitor, let’s say.” She paused long enough for him to work through his favorite phrase all over again, then said, “I came in through that window. I’m sure we can get Atilio out that way, but there are stairs on this side of the door…I’m not so sure I can get up to the window.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, his words determined. The voice of a man who truly believed he could make things work if only he tried hard enough. “Did you try kicking it in?”

“I thought a little quiet glass-breaking would draw less attention,” she said, not mentioning that she didn’t think for a minute she’d get through that sturdy metal door and wasn’t so certain he could, either. “But heck, now that you’re here-have at it.” She turned back to Atilio. “It’s okay, kid. He’s our amigo.”