Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

Madigan.

My fingers tightened on the M-4 despite its having been fired enough to make the metal scorching. It looked like I wouldn’t be able to free my friends, but there was still something I could do.

I spent several precarious minutes trying not to get shot while sending my senses outward to weed through the myriad of thoughts in this compound. At last, I found the ones I was looking for, and for once, he wasn’t singing something to himself. Madigan was implementing emergency security procedures that had never before been needed, all while rushing to get to a safe place in the facility.

I focused on his thoughts as if they were a homing beacon. Then I used the straps to hang two M-4s around my neck before I yanked up a large thermal control unit. Holding the metal machine in front of me, I flew toward the opposite corner of the enclosed space, wincing as more rounds found their mark. Still, none of them were near my head. I couldn’t fire back while holding the bulky unit, but it was an effective, if crude, bulletproof shield.

I also used it as a battering ram when I shoved it above my head and propelled myself upward at the same time. Debris hampered my vision, and my lower half took the brunt of gunfire as I forced myself through concrete, wood, and steel to the next level above me. It took longer since this section was far more reinforced than the other one I’d blasted through. Then, amidst a cloud of dust and insulation particles, I looked for Madigan. He wasn’t here, but from his thoughts, he was close. Before I could leave to search for him, a new set of guards rushed up to the single doorway. Without hesitation, I chucked the demolished coolant machine at them.

With the supernatural speed I’d used, it made a smear out of the ones it hit, but sadly, that was only a few of them. The rest poured through the door while opening fire.

I tried to escape by smashing through the nearest wall and ended up splatting against it as though I were in a cartoon. The room I’d forced my way into had steel walls that had to be two feet thick and its single door sealed shut with the ominous sound of heavy locks. When I tried to force my way through the roof next, I had the same dismal results, with an added detriment of cracking my skull hard enough to daze me.

This was no ordinary office. With its lack of furniture or other fixtures, plus its incredibly thick steel walls and door, it had to be a panic room. The only way out was down, and a glance into the hole I’d made showed almost a dozen guards with weapons aimed right at me.

Son of a bitch, I’d trapped myself in Madigan’s panic room before the bastard made it in here!

“Switch to silver ammo,” a helmeted guard barked, to the accompanying sound of multiple magazines being slammed home.

Uh-oh. I tried to jam their weapons with my borrowed telekinetic abilities, but it didn’t work, probably because my head still really hurt. I didn’t think all the cracks in my skull had knit back together yet, and I didn’t want to know what the wet, sticky thing was dripping down my neck.

“There’s no way out, suck head,” the same guard spat. “Stand down.”

Suck head? That made me laugh, which sent alarms to the part of me that could still think. Do what he says, or they’ll kill you, that part urged. You’re in no shape to fight, and they’ve got you cornered.

True and true. But when I spoke, I didn’t say “I surrender.” Instead, I said two other words.

“Fuck you.”

Death didn’t scare me. It was my way back to Bones.

Then I tensed, about to attack and take as many of them with me as I could, when a frantic voice burst through their com system.

“This is Falcon 1. Specimen A1 is loose in Section 6!”

Wasn’t Specimen A1 what the other guards had called me? Huh, same as the steak sauce . . . I shook my head in aggravation to stop that useless line of thought. Heal faster, brains!

“Negative, Falcon 1. This is Falcon 7, and I have Specimen A1 contained in Section 13,” said the one who’d called me suck head.

“Falcon 7, I’m looking at A1,” came the emphatic reply.

“You can’t be, the bitch is here,” my guy snapped, sounding pissed.

My haziness lifted, either because my head finally finished healing or because I was the only one who knew how two people could swear that I was in different places at the same time. When I laughed again, it wasn’t in a dazed way. It was with relief.

Denise was here, and from the screams that came through on the next transmission, she was kicking serious ass.

“I’m telling you A1 is here, and we’ve also got an unknown hostile tearing up Section 11. They need backup, now!”

Helmeted heads began to swivel between me and the guard that I’d deduced was this unit’s leader.

“What the fuck?” someone muttered.

I didn’t know who this other “hostile” was, but I knew a good distraction when I saw one. I flung myself up and sprang off the roof to maximize velocity as I plowed into the guards. The impact killed two on the spot, but the others opened fire. I pulled one of the dead guards on top of me, using him as a shield as I lunged toward the rest, snapping ankles and then necks when they fell.

The sealed room that had trapped me now trapped them. The guards below began to fire through the hole, but they hit their friends more than me. Plus, with the extensive Kevlar the guards wore, my dead body shield kept the bullets away from any vital spots, though my arms and legs sizzled from all the silver pumped into them. I ignored the pain, concentrating on finishing my task. For all I knew, one of these guards had fired the shots that killed Bones, so I was merciless in my actions.

Snap. Crush. Tear.

I repeated those until nothing around me moved. Then I shoved bodies into the hole to stop more bullets from peppering the room and ricocheting off the steel walls. When that was done, I let out a victory howl that ended when I realized I’d won, but I still couldn’t get out of the room unless someone opened the door.

Maybe I could get someone to do that. Seized with an idea, I grabbed the nearest dead guard and spoke into his communication system.

“Denise,” I shouted. “You’ve gotta find a way to open this door!”

“Who the fuck are you?” the voice on the other end snapped.

I didn’t care enough to answer. I heard background noise from him, which meant Denise should have been able to hear me, too, if she was still near this guy. From the fierce sound of fighting, she had to be.

Then a different voice blasted from a com device on another body.

“ALL units to Section 13! Situation critical!”

Aw, hell, Section 13 was where I was. The guards below must’ve called in the fact that I’d demolished the soldiers in the panic room.

“Hurry up, Denise!” I yelled into the com. Then I began to gather up M-4s that had the most ammo left before pausing to pull a Kevlar vest off a dead guard. Much more manageable than taking his body with me.

“I repeat, situation critical!” screamed the panicked voice through the com. “Hostile sighted and . . . oh God. What is that? WHAT IS THAT?”

I pulled on the blood-spattered vest, wondering what Denise had shapeshifted into this time. From the sound of the guard, could’ve been a Tyrannosaurus rex . She’d made it to my floor fast, too. Just moments ago, she’d still been in Section 6, wherever that was—

The thick titanium bolts around the door snapped back into the walls faster than they’d deployed. Then it didn’t open; it crashed inward, flattening a body beneath it with enough force to make something that looked like raspberry jam spurt from its sides.