THWACK, TING! THWACK, TING!
The noise caused Parker to turn and look down the corridor behind her. A security guard, the one she had dubbed "Grouchy-pants" when they had cased the place the week before was shooting at her, his bullets bouncing off the metal pipes running along the wall. She hadn't heard any pops from the gun being fired. What kind of security guard uses a silencer? She thought.
As she turned left at the corner she heard him call out on his walkie, most likely for backup.
Parker reached up and tapped her earbud twice to take it off mute.
"Guys, we're blown, get out as soon as you can." She muted it again and took off down the hall as fast as she could. She held the briefcase full cash out in front of her so it wouldn't bang against her leg. She heard the boys respond in her ear that they were almost done.
Her exit was the loading dock just ahead of her at the end of the hall, through a locked door. She was two yards away from it when the guard's voice rang out behind her.
"Freeze!"
She skidded to a stop two feet from the door. She froze, her mind racing over all possible escape routes. She stymied her instinct to call Eliot for help. He was all the way in another wing of the building with Hardison. And Hardison was supposed to have had the trickier exit. The building they were in spanned two city blocks, Eliot would never make it in time to help her, and it would leave Hardison exposed. The digital files he was pulling from the servers were more important than the $100,000 in her briefcase.
"Turn around, drop the briefcase."
As she slowly turned, she pulled her lockpicking tools from her belt with her free hand and hid them up her sleeve.
She faced the guard. He shined a bright light in her face that made her squint. He was slowly walking up the hall towards her. Twenty feet away and closing. She couldn't make out his features with the light in her eyes.
"I said drop it, I won't ask you again." His voice was gruff and course, businesslike.
She dropped the case with a thunk. She slowly backed away from the advancing guard until she reached the door. She pulled both of her hands behind her in what she hoped was an inconspicuous way and began to pick the lock.
"You sure you don't want to just let me go?" She said. "I could make it worth your while, there's a lot of money in that briefcase."
She didn't expect him to say yes, just wanted to keep him distracted.
In her ear, she heard Eliot's voice, "How much longer, Hardison? The guards are closing in."
"Just give me 30 seconds," Hardison said.
The guard gave a short, humorless laugh. "Trying to bribe me, or stall me?"
This guy was too smart for his own good. She was seconds away from having the door open.
"If I was trying to stall you I would offer to make out with you." She gave him what she hoped was a flirty smile. The lock popped open with a soft click. Now, she had to just get through the door.
The guard was now ten feet from her, and she could see his close cropped hair cut and square jaw. He had cold eyes.
"Like I would ever make out with thieving scum like you," he said.
Hardison's voice sounded in her earbud, "I'm done. Where are you, Eliot?"
"I'm coming to you." She could hear sounds of fighting with Eliot's response.
Parker slowly turned the handle and opened the door a half inch. She saw the guard's eyes narrow.
"Hey! Stop!"
She opened it another inch, should she just throw it open all at once and push through?
"I said stop!"
She didn't hear a pop, but she saw the muzzle flash, and a second later she felt a white-hot pain tear through her abdomen. The force of the shot pushed her through the door and onto the ground of the room beyond.
She had enough piece of mind to pull her legs out of the way and slam the door shut. As she did, she saw that the bottom of the door had one of those metal bolts that attached to a hole in the floor to lock it. Without even thinking about it, she pushed the bolt down.
She rolled onto her back and let the pain wash over her. Her whole left side was on fire. Her head was spinning, and she was barely able to keep from throwing up.
She was vaguely aware of the sound of the guard pounding on the door. She could hear voices on her earbud. She tried to focus on them.
"Parker? Parker, are you there?" Hardison sounded a little panicked. "We're three minutes from our exit point, are you on the way with the van ?"
The van. She was supposed to get to the van parked outside the loading dock and drive around to the exit Eliot and Hardison would take. That was the plan. The crux of their carefully laid plan that they had spent weeks preparing.
She needed to get to the van. Could she even stand? Her limbs felt filled with lead. After what felt like an eternity, she was able to roll onto all fours. The room dipped and spun. Her clothes were wet and she saw she was kneeling in her own blood. There was no way she would be able to drive the van to the rendezvous point. But if she could just get to the van, then they wouldn't have to come looking for her.
"Parker, girl, answer me!" Hardison said.
She took a deep breath and tried to steady her voice as much as she could. She took her comm off mute.
"I got held up. I can make it to the van, but I won't make it in time to drive it around. Can you guys meet me there?"
"We can get there. Are you okay?" Eliot said.
"I . . . I got held up. See you there." She muted her comm and let out a moan. She didn't want them distracted and worrying about her. She just wanted them focused on their exit which would be even harder now. This building had a lot of well-trained guards. Her current condition was evidence of that.
She crawled over to the half flight of concrete stairs that led to the loading dock and half-fell-half-crawled down them. Then it was just ten agonizing feet to the door that she had propped open earlier in the night.
Outside the night breeze washed over her face as she made her way to the van. She reached up and opened the sliding door, the action causing a whole new wave of pain to hit her. She pushed herself up and into the floor of the van and shut the door.
She lay on her back on the floor of the van in semi-darkness, the only light coming from a few of Hardison's computer screens that he had left on. By her right hand she felt something soft and she grabbed it. Hardison's scarf. She brought it up to her nose and breathed in the familiar scent of him. She should probably use it to stop the bleeding, but she couldn't summon the energy.
She began to wonder if the guard would come around to the loading dock from another door, and she hoped the boys would find her first. Then it became hard to focus on anything but the pounding of her heart and the throbbing of her side. Her vision began to go dark, she breathed in the smell of Hardison from his scarf again. She willed herself to stay awake, but felt her mind slipping away. . .
