"Trina," Jade sounding very serious. "If what I think is going on here is right, we need to get out now."
Jade drapes Tori's arm over her shoulder, dragging the girl. The three of them exit. They race down the hallway and stop when about a dozen vampires appear at the end, blocking their exit.
"Trina, run." Jade turns to her. "Go!"
The older Vega runs away with everything she has. Jade gently puts her girlfriend down on the floor, propping her back against the wall. She kisses her forehead reassuringly.
"If you want either of them," Jade threatens the rouge bloodsuckers. "You're gonna have to go through me first."
Trina comes across a stairwell leading all the way to the lobby. She opens the metal door carefully and shuts it quickly when she spots moaning, pale bodies ascending the steps.
Her eyes spot something across the way.
The elevator.
She takes a deep breath, understanding it was the only way out for her.
Abernathy leaps onto the roof of Schneider Memorial.
"It ends here."
He tears open a ventilation grate and jumps inside, landing in an elevator shaft. After landing on a passenger car, Abernathy pries a set of doors open with his bare hands and crawls out.
A deafening thud makes Trina scream aloud. The whole elevator shakes.
"What was that?"
Trina then notices that elevator has topped moving.
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Panic was swelling in Trina's chest. She stretches out her arms, touching wall to wall. She tries the buttons and none of them were working.
Stuck.
Immediately she was a little girl again. She was on the police station for a police ride along with her dad. Being seven, Trina naturally wandered off when someone asked her dad a question. She stopped at the elevator. There wasn't one in school or home, so Trina never rode one before. She thought she was tall enough to press the buttons.
One push and the doors opened with a ding sound. Trina jumps into it, minding the gap. She greedily tried all the buttons, thinking they would stop on every floor. After seeing the top two floors above where she got on, a power failure happened at the precinct.
David Vega spent hours looking for his little girl. He was panicking but Trina was in even worse shape in that dark, metal box. She was never timid of small spaces but that experience made her deathly afraid of elevators.
Now there she was, trapped once again in a tiny room suspended with a cable.
Trina began to sweat profusely. She was starting to hyperventilate.
"Hello?"
Nothing.
"Please, help! Hello!"
Trina grows tired of hearing nothing and bangs on the door.
"Hello?" she shouts at the top of her lungs. "Anybody? Anyone out there?"
A knocking startles the shit out of her, retreating to the back. Metallic banging makes Trina grip the handle in fear.
The doors slowly get propped open and she makes eye contact with Beck.
"You okay?"
The wind gets knocked out of him when Trina tackles him, landing hard onto the floor. Her panic was subsiding but her breathing remained inconsistent. On top of her rescuer, Trina couldn't help but notice how handsome he is.
"So…I guess you're oka…"
Trina kisses him hard enough to bend back his front teeth. He looks back at her stunned.
"I'll just take that as a yes," he smiles.
"I'm sorry," brushing a brown lock past her eye. "I was…" She laughs nervously. "Just wanted to say thank you."
"Maybe I should rescue pretty girls from elevators more often," he quips.
What did he just say?
Her mind snaps out of Cloud 9 and gets off him. Beck gets back onto his feet. Once vertical again, he extends his hand.
"Beck."
She grins like a goon and takes it. "Trina. Trina Vega."
Why the fuck did I say my last name? What is this, a job interview?
His tone gets serious as he touches her shoulder. She swoons from the physical gesture.
"Did you say 'Vega'?" he asks.
Oh, my God. He recognizes me from TV!
"As in Tori Vega?"
Of course.
"Yeah," Trina replies. "She's my sister."
"Where is she?"
"She's on the fifth floor with Jade."
"Good," grabbing her arm and walking forward. "Take me to them."
What the hell?
The pair charge up the stairs, Beck nailing vamps as they go. Brave, focused, strong. Trina feels herself falling more and more in love with this man.
They come through the door leading to the fifth floor and fly down the corridor before finding…
About seven dispatched vampires. Standing on them like a warrior in victory is Jade with Tori over her one shoulder.
"What took you so long?"
Beck nods at Jade. "Impressive."
"So," Trina trying to ignore the carnage inches from where she's standing. "What do we do, now?"
"More of them?" Jade asks.
"Lots," Beck responds. "The main lobby all the way up to here is infested. Even I can't hack through them all."
Jade shakes her head. "There has to be some place."
Trina thinks for a minute. "Wait, I know. I went here once when I broke a leg. They took me to physical therapy. It's a big open room where half the walls and ceiling are windows."
Jade curls her mouth and looks at Beck.
"Is it on this floor?" Beck asks.
"West wing, but yeah."
Furrowing her brow, Jade says "Let's do it."
The massive room was as Trina described it. Sparse furniture and various pieces of equipment. But the biggest thing was how high the ceiling was and where it abruptly ends, given the odd configuration of the roof and a series of giant glass panels cascade down at an angle.
Beck tries to open the windows but they're not set up for that.
"Okay," he sighs. "Just going to have to shoot ourselves out."
"You think you can break that glass?" Trina asks.
As if in response, a big panel over their heads shatters into bits and a dark figure lands with an enormous crack, as it destroys a table upon impact.
Abernathy looks up and smiles.
"Checking out, so soon?"