Author's Note: Aaaaaaand one more chapter after this one and I'll be wrapping up this fic. :)
X
Spike barreled through the first door that he had opened upon arriving in the room. At the same time, the doors to the System Maintenance room were thrown open and a group of armed men crashed into the room. Spike turned on his heel and fired a few warning shots before slamming the door shut and jamming a chair beneath the knob. He could hear the men piling up behind the closed door and he hightailed it as fast as he could up a flight of stairs. The image of the woman's body flying backward, thrown by the blast of the gun, still hung heavy in his mind. But he didn't have time to process it, not yet. Years spent hunting criminals and bounties had hardened him. He knew how to compartmentalize, for the time being.
He opened a door on a staircase marked 104 and quickly closed it. He had seen the confused faces of the workers staring back at him. He didn't know how fast the news of the break-in would travel, but he did know that the sight of his sweaty face beneath the flashing red lights would raise suspicion in anybody that he encountered. Breathing heavily, he flung himself up another flight of stairs. With one hand he grasped the metal railing, and with the other, he yanked the stumbling woman along. Her voice croaked as she muttered the same words over and over again. He stopped just long enough to slap her across the face before shaking her shoulders.
"I shot-"
"Shut up!"
"I shot her. She's dead, she-"
"I said 'shut up!' " He said, striking her again. "We don't have time to think about that right now. We gotta run, you hear me? Just keep running!"
The woman stopped and ground her heels into the ground. The force of it swung him around and he grabbed the banister for support. She was standing on the platform below him, looking up at him with horror-stricken eyes set in a blood-splattered face. There was the sound of something breaking and then a door being slammed open. Men's voices filled the stairwell and he grit his teeth impatiently. He reached for her again and she shook her head wildly. Her shaking hand rose to her face and gingerly touched her wet cheek.
"You don't understand," she whined in a voice much unlike her own, "even if I prove to a judge that I was framed, I still killed Angela."
"Patricia!" Spike roared. He swung over the banister and stumbled to a crouch before her.
"Listen to me," she said backing away, "That's three deaths to my name all over again. No matter how you put it, the System's going to label me a serial murderer again."
"No time for that now," he said and grabbed her around the waist. He lifted her over his shoulder and swung around to fire a shot at a guard who had appeared around the corner. The guard jumped back and then reappeared. The bullet barely grazed Spike's shoulder and he began to run. He turned to fire again and discovered that his gun was out of bullets.
"Shit," he said. As a last resort, he flung the empty weapon and hit another guard square in the face. It was a desperate move that saved him a few precious seconds. He eventually reached the landing marked level 107 and shoved the door open. Cold wind blasted across his face and he realized that he was outside, on the top of the System Maintenance Building. He put Patty down and rushed to close the door behind him. Desperately, he glanced around for anything to hold it shut but there was nothing. The rooftop was bare save for the single shelter housing the doorway that was pressed against his back. The door gave a jolt and he shoved back by bracing both hands on the metal. The voices behind the door became louder as one-by-one the guards reached the metal shelter. He looked over at Patty who was crouched on her hands and knees, her eyes wide and bright as the moon in the sky above them.
"Hey, why the long face?" He said good-naturedly. The guards pounded the door, sending red-hot spikes of pain along his back. "Everything's gonna be just fine. Here!"
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the mobile device that he had turned on earlier. He tossed it to her and she caught it reverently with both hands.
"What is this?" She asked. The door opened a few inches and Spike quickly jabbed a fist through the crack. The unlucky guard howled and withdrew his bloody nose, causing the door to close once more.
"It's a recorder. Well, sort of, it does a lot of different things," he said through his teeth, "point is, I recorded the whole conversation with Angela, including the part about her being guilty and all. That right there is all of the proof you need."
"But how did you know to start recording?" Her voice was lost over the sound of the howling wind and he struggled to hear her. There was a heavy thumping noise from below them, growing louder and louder by every second.
"I saw her marriage certificate in your apartment!" He yelled. "I noticed that her last name was Lee and it raised a few red flags."
"Spike! Did I ever tell you that I love y-"
The door burst open and Spike quickly scampered away from the barrage of security guards. He wrapped his arms around Patty and forced her into a crouched position beneath him. The lights from the guards' flashlight exploded in his face and he squinted against the onslaught. He couldn't see much but was somehow sure that there were about a hundred different guns pointed their way.
"Don't shoot!" He tried to cry but his voice was whipped away by the wind. The thumping got louder. "We're unarmed! We're unarmed!"
There was an explosion of sound and wind. Spike forced Patty's head down and buried his nose in her hair, waiting for the bullets to shred through his body. But there was nothing but the alarmed cries of the guards and the thumping noise which by now was right above him. His heart gave a leap of joy, for he knew that sound well enough.
He looked up and turned his face towards the underside of the Bebop, which was hovering above the rooftop. He could see the shocked faces of Faye, Jet, Ed, and Ein through the window. A hatch at the bottom of the ship slid open and a ladder swung free a few feet away from the rooftop. He jumped up and yanked Patty off of the ground.
"Ready to make a leap of faith?" He asked her and began to run, her wrist clutched in his hand. When he was a few feet away from the ledge she stopped and threw her body backward.
"Come on, what're you doing?" He reached out and closed his free hand on the bottommost rung of the ladder. A bullet flew past him and severed one of the cords holding the rungs together. She put her hand on his wrist and yanked her body backward again. The Bebop began to rise and soon he was dangling in midair, one hand holding the ladder and the other holding Patty, who was still on the rooftop.
A strange thing happened then. For reasons she would never understand, she looked up and caught Faye's eye. The two women stared at each other for a brief second before Patty bit her lip and nodded. Faye's eyes widened but she understood what Patty was trying to say.
"Jet," she said, turning to the man holding the wheel, "gun it! Now!"
Smoke blasted from the back of the Bebop as Patty bit down on Spike's arm as hard as he could. The man cried out in surprise and pulled his hand away, letting her go. The Bebop lifted at an impressive speed and hurled away. And the last thing that he saw was the guards descending upon Patty like a pack of hungry wolves.