Laurann Dohner - Fury

It was dead. Shit. More gunfire outside drew Ellie’s attention. In horror, she witnessed one of the security guards being struck by a bullet. He flew backward, sprawled on top of the hood of the security car then his body slumped to the street. He didn’t get up or move. The second security guard kept firing but he was outnumbered. A cry of anguish came from Ellie when bullets tore through the remaining security guard. His body spun from the impacts, blood bloomed over his face and chest before he fell out of sight behind the car.

Ellie reeled, horrified. The intruders laughed and two of them high-fived each other. They turned to face the building and approached, coming right at her. Shit. Ellie grabbed the emergency bar and slammed it down. It had been added as an extra lock in case security cards were stolen or someone managed to torture the code from a guard. They would need both to bypass the lockdown security measures to gain entrance.

“She don’t look like no animal,” one of the men stated loudly, glaring at her.

Another man, the biggest of the four, pointed his gun directly at Ellie and yelled, “Open up.”

Ellie knew the glass would hold. The building had been designed to withstand an assault. She raised her middle finger while pressing down the com button with her other hand to give them the ability to hear her clearly.

“Screw you. It’s bulletproof.”

“You fucking animal,” one of them shouted. He pulled a handgun, aimed at Ellie’s face and fired.

She flinched but the glass didn’t break. It left a small mark but it didn’t even crack. “This is just a meeting building and you can’t gain entry,” she explained. “You might as well beat your chests, you stupid apes.”

She knew she pushed them but as long as they stayed where they were, making threats, they couldn’t hurt someone caught outside. She hoped security would show up soon to arrest them before they realized she just wanted to distract them.

“I’m also not an animal. You should go look in the mirror if you want to see one.” Ellie gave all four of them a dirty look. “You’re a walking zoo, boys.”

The one with the shotgun cut loose with his weapon. Ellie winced and flinched from each loud blast. She released the button on the com but it barely muted the sound while the man kept firing. A few marks appeared but the glass held. She hated that she’d gotten an up close and personal test of bulletproof glass effectiveness. The jerk with the shotgun stopped firing.

Ellie remembered the wireless security camera and took a few steps back. The camera hung high on the wall and pointed down at the entryway. She kept her attention trained on it while frantically waving to get someone’s attention. She held up four fingers and then mimicked a gun with her fingers, moving her thumb to stimulate firing. She pointed to her watch to indicate it was happening now. She hoped someone at the security office who watched that camera had played charades before since those cameras weren’t wired for sound. She touched her arm where the guard patches were and sliced her finger over her neck to tell them two guards were dead, hoping they understood all that.

The men opened fire again at the windows, this time in unison, perhaps thinking multiple-weapon attack would break it. Ellie covered her ears to protect them from the loud noises. She backed farther from the windows and tried again to relay what intruders were doing for the camera.

The gunfire suddenly stopped. Ellie turned her head and watched the men form a huddle to talk. One of them broke away to run toward the vehicles. She wondered why he went to the security guards’ car and climbed into the driver’s seat. If he thought stealing one of the employee identification cards would help them get in, he would be disappointed.

Ellie had a bad feeling when grins split the men’s faces. They looked downright gleeful when they moved out of the way. The man behind the wheel of the security car started it and positioned the car on the street to point at the dorm. Her stomach churned, a sick feeling pitting there. She knew what he planned to do in that moment. The driver stomped on the gas. The car lurched forward, jumped the curb, and barreled up the sidewalk that led right to the double, glass doors.

“Shit!” Ellie screamed as she stumbled back.

The sound hurt her ears when the car crashed into the doors. She ended up flat on her ass on the floor. She watched smoke rise from the damaged front-end of the car as the engine died. The glass doors held but as her gaze lifted upward, to her dismay, she realized the impact had created a good five-inch gap of buckled doorframe at the top.

“Oh God.”Ellie muttered, stunned.

The windows hadn’t broken but the building holding them in place had. She continued to sit there until the three men pulled their buddy out of the trashed car. He looked dazed but the airbag had saved him from severe injury. The four men studied the damage to the top of the doorframe, grinned, and then started to push the smoking wreckage away from the dorm. They maneuvered the car off the sidewalk and onto the grass, clearing the way for another vehicle assault.

Ellie struggled to her feet and ran for the house intercom system. She knew those men were about to use the truck to push those doors completely down to gain entry. She hit the com button. Her heart threatened to explode from terror but she tried to keep her voice calm.

“Locking down emergency doors,” she stated clearly. “I repeat, locking down emergency doors. Get to safety now,” she ordered the women. “Go to the third floor. Everyone run, damn it. They are breaking into the building. I won’t hit the secondary emergency doors until the last minute but move it.”

She released the button and wrenched open the emergency panel box under the com system. On the second and third floors were steel doors for the stairwells, the elevator, and there were also steel shutters that would cover the windows. It was a last-ditch emergency resort in case the lower floor was breached after lockdown. The interior doors that divided the levels were ten inches thick, weighed thousands of pounds, and the exterior shutters were bomb proof. They would also seal off the floors inside the elevator shaft.

Ellie twisted her body enough to view the damaged wall section over the front doors but could still reach the panel. One of the men climbed into the big pickup truck, verifying her worst fear. The men laughed while they talked, having a good time plotting how to kill her. She grimaced and hoped they’d bullshit for a bit longer while her women moved to a higher floor. She knew time was up when the driver’s door closed, the truck engine roared to life, and it drove right over the body of a dead security guard. The driver maneuvered the truck to line up with the doors. Damn.

“Ellie?” Breeze’s voice came from the com speaker. “We’re all accounted for on the third floor. Get up here now.”

Relief swept through Ellie. “Are you sure you are all there? Are you positive? Sky and Blue ran in last.”

“They are here,” Breeze assured her. “Get up here with us or I’m coming down there to get you.”

“Protect yourselves. I’m safe,” Ellie lied.

She wished she could go up there with Breeze but someone had to activate the emergency doors from the panel where she stood. Whoever had designed the building had made that a flaw, in her opinion, as she stood there knowing how vulnerable it left her. They should have installed trigger panels for the blast doors on all the floors.

She punched the three digit code into the emergency panel and twisted the key. A loud siren blasted through the house in fast bursts. She knew steel doors and shutters slammed down on the upper floors of the building. The women would have been safe on the second floor but she wanted them higher up and harder to reach, just in case those men found a way to breach an interior door. She hadn’t thought the dorm could be broken into but she’d been wrong. She wasn’t taking any chances by making anymore incorrect assumptions.