"Come out, come out...where ever you are."
Andie gripped the scalpel tighter in her hands. Her breath was hot and toxic to taste as she stifled her coughing - the smoke was getting thicker. The EXIT sign across the hallway was still visible, but so was the floor.
She had to wait a little longer.
"Andie," the man called out. "Please, come out of hiding."
She peaked through the small gap between the desk and the wall to watch him. He was walking slowly and deliberately, his flat black eyes slowly scanning his surroundings.
"I love you, a bushel and a peck..." He sang calmly, flipping over a medical cart with a flick of his wrist. The medical equipment shattered over the floor, some glass sliding into her cover at her feet. She tucked her knees closer. "A bushel and a peck...it makes my heart a wreck..."
She swallowed and looked back to the door across the hall.
The smoke was thicker now - she could barely see the green glow of the words, and the floor was all but lost in her eyes. She yanked the rubber band off her wrist and wrapped her long hair into a ponytail.
This was it. If she could just get to the door -
"I'll give you a head start." The desk launched upwards around her, sending a flurry of sparks and ash into her face. "One."
She scrambled forward and thrust her way through the door and halted at the landing. The entire stairwell below her was swallowed in fire. She spun on her heel. She had no choice - the only way out was up.
She took the stairs three at a time. Just four more floors, she thought, pulling herself up the flights as fast as she could.
A loud crunching sound shook the stairs. "Two!" she heard him yell from below. His heavy footfalls on the stairs were steady and slow.
He was biding his time.
When she got to the top of the stairs, she dove into the roof access door and skidded to a halt on the rooftop gravel. Andie quickly scraped away the rocks still stuck to her that were now red, and she crawled to the edge of the roof to look down. Firetrucks and police cars were swarming the intersection below while EMTs ran around between bodies and people strapped to gurneys.
"HELP!" she screamed as loudly as she could. but twenty four stories up, her cries for aid were swallowed whole in the roar of fire licking up through the windows below her.
She straightened up and tried turning around, but fell again onto her back when her thigh buckled under her weight, and she saw the tell-tale sharp bump of a broken femur poking out under her skin.
She rolled onto her stomach and spotted a fire escape ladder on the other side of the roof. She held herself up by her arms and dragged her leg behind her towards the escape.
A concussive blast from behind her knocked her down. The door blasted outward past her in pieces, dented and hot in the center from a charge.
The man emerged from the debris and tucked a spare charge into his utility belt.
"Three," he scoffed, flicking a piece of glass of his black and grey body armor. He strode over to her slowly and pressed his heavy boot into her injured thigh.
"Well," he said, putting more weight on her leg. "Isn't this nice?"
She scrambled at the stones around her, trying to grab onto anything - trying anything to get away from him.
He leaned down and grabbed her messy blonde ponytail, craning her face upwards. His other arm shoved it's way under her ribs and hoisted her up, facing her out towards the city away from him. Her legs dangled underneath her.
"I'm not partial to San Francisco, but you can't deny that view," he whispered in her ear, walking her to the edge of the building. For a brief moment, the smoke cleared, giving them a view of the city and a blast of cold, fresh air.
They both took a deep breath.
"Beautiful," he said, planting a kiss against her temple.
A tear crept down her cheek.
"Don't cry, darling," he said, turning her around and holding her in place at the elbows. "I promise - it will only hurt for a moment. You'll wake up a new woman." He pressed his forehead to hers.
"Please!" She sobbed. "Just leave me alone. I'm begging you!"
"Shh, shhhhhh," he spun her around and clasped a gloved hand over her mouth. "It will all be over soon. And you'll wake up a new Andie."
The smoke in the air was clogging her eyes. Her breaths were coming quickly and ragged. She needed to get away - now.
"Just one hit," he said, holding a piece of the metal door he'd broke, "And you won't remember a thing."
Andie looked out over the city, took in one more breath, and drove the scalpel into his groin as hard as she could.
"ARGH!"
His grip loosened just enough - she pushed off from him and used her good leg to launch herself off the roof into the smoke above the street. She turned over in the air in the moment of weightlessness before the fall to see him, hunched over as the fiery windows flew skywards around her.
"ANDIE, NO!" He screamed.
She let out a breath she'd been holding just before she hit the ground.