The blonde ducked below a desk, pausing to make sure there were no footsteps following her. After a couple moments, she looked over and saw her last target waiting for her at the end of the row beside the emergency exit. After a bit of posturing, she shimmied over to the photocopier beside the wall, pausing again to observe her surroundings.
"Rendezvous has been made with Ivan on the top floor," Antonio reported into her earpiece, "We are heading towards the elevator."
She reached into her backpack and pulled out her last device. After turning it on and syncing it with her remote, she reached around the back of the photocopier, and attached the device along the part of the wall where the structural beam supported the entire building. Once it was in place, she brought her fist to the side of her face, with her thumb pressed to her finger to activate the microphone.
"My last device is in place, this floor is complete," she checked in as she slipped her backpack on, "On my way to rendezvous point."
"I am en route as well," Toris quickly replied, "I'm under heavy fire, this may get tricky on our end."
The woman checked her surroundings again, before preparing to move along to her rendezvous point. As soon as she went past the door to the emergency exit, she stopped and placed her ear to the door. Hearing footsteps in the stairwell on the other side, she quickly leaned back against the adjoining wall, and prepared her gun to fire. As the door opened, she turned to fire at the person, only to find a familiar face doing a similar corner check and pointing his tranquilizer gun at her in return.
"Ludwig, what are you doing up here?" she hissed, "Why aren't you helping the others escape?"
"I came to find you, Madeline," Ludwig explained, "I think you might be in danger."
"No shit, I'm in danger," she retorted as she kept moving down the hallway, "Officers could show up and shoot us at any moment."
"Come back this way, Madeline," Ludwig insisted as he pulled back on her hand, "We can take this stairwell out of here."
"That's not happening, Ludwig," she refused, pulling back hard enough to loosen his grip, "My rendezvous point with Toris is just over here, like we planned without your interference. You can either follow me, or leave without me."
She turned to keep walking, rolling her eyes skyward at the sound of footsteps behind her as Ludwig caught up again.
"You might be walking into a trap," Ludwig warned, "The others downstairs claim that Ivan and Antonio betrayed them, and I think they might be doing the same to you."
"They would never betray me," she dismissed as she did a corner check at the end of the hallway, only to see Toris rushing around the corner at the other end, followed by gunshots.
She pulled Ludwig behind her and rushed to join Toris at his side, before the three ducked into the nearby cubicle. As they rushed to catch their breaths, she saw Toris do a suspicious double-take as he noticed the third member of their group.
"What the fuck is he doing here?" Toris inquired.
"He decided to come up here on his own and try to rescue me," she explained, watching as Toris also rolled his eyes while raising his wrist to his face.
"Rendezvous has been made," Toris relayed into his microphone, "Ludwig is with us, he came upstairs to find her."
"See if you can dump the extra baggage," Ivan paged, "We don't have time to deal with this."
"We need to get to the last cubicle before the elevator," Toris explained as she leaned out to check their surroundings, waiting for two police officers to go by down the hallway before making the call.
"We're clear at the moment, move now!"
Toris left the cubicle first, and she grabbed Ludwig by the collar to drag him with her as she followed. As they rushed down the hallway, they heard officers quickly approaching and preparing to fire. Once they reached the last cubicle before the elevator, Toris used the corner as a shield to hide behind, and began firing back at them with his own gun. Avoiding Toris's aim, she wheeled Ludwig around the corner and down into the protected area behind the cubicle panels.
Once the two of them had gained position in the cubicle, she reached around blindly with her left hand and removed an item from the back of her belt. Shouting was heard to their right, promptly followed by gunfire from the second direction. She watched as Toris turned to join them, only to have a barrage of bullets hit him in the chest.
"Toris!" she shouted.
All expression fell from his face as Toris collapsed to the ground. Ignoring the risk of being shot, she pushed herself forward, grabbed his shirt with her right hand, and dragged him into the cubicle. His limp body landed on her, and she quickly moved him to the floor, maneuvering him onto his back as she dropped the item beside them on the ground. She hardly had to glance at the wounds to know he wouldn't last.
"I'm sorry," Toris gasped, "I failed you."
"No you didn't, Toris," she assured, "You fought valiantly, that's the best I could ask for."
Toris took a few deep, painful breaths before attempting to speak again.
"It was an honour working for you, Mat-"
Before Toris could finish his sentence, his eyes rolled back and his body went limp. She tried shaking him frantically, but he did not reawaken.
"What now, Madeline?" Ludwig asked, as they heard shouts for the surrounding officers to hold their fire.
She looked up and glared at Ludwig with displeasure, grabbing the item from the floor with her left hand and moving it to her right.
"Your game is over, Mathilda, you are surrounded," a familiar voice shouted from the group of officers to their right, "Drop your weapons, and come on out with your hands in the air."
"Mathilda?" Ludwig whispered in confusion and suspicion, glancing between her and towards the voice, "Why did my brother just call you Mathilda?"
Looking dead in his eyes, she reached her left hand forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt to pull him closer. With her right hand, she twirled the item into position, pressed the button to make the needle come out, and stabbed it into his neck. Ludwig cringed in pain and shock as she hit the last button on the needle, injecting a triple-dose of the tranquilizer serum into his bloodstream.
"That's my real name, dumbass," she hissed.
Watching the shock appear in his eyes before they rolled back into his head, she gave him a subtle push backwards so that his unconscious form was propped up by the cubicle. She immediately went back to work, rolling Toris's body over and removing the two devices from his belt. She removed the pin from the first device, and threw it to the right of the cubicle.
"We are just boarding the elevator," Antonio paged as she removed the pin on the second device and threw it over the left side of the cubicle, "It will ring when it hits your floor, be prepared to run for it."
"Toris has been shot dead by the police," she answered, crouching into position, "Ludwig has been knocked out, I'm in the cubicle closest to the elevator. Smoke bombs are deployed, I'll be coming in hot."
Just as she finished the transmission, a bell was heard, followed by the sliding of the elevator doors. Knowing it was her moment, she barreled out of the cubicle and into the smoke cloud. She could hear shouting from the officers followed by gunfire, but the smoke kept them from seeing that she was on the move. As she reached the floor's lobby, she could finally see Ivan standing in the doorway of the open elevator.
"Hurry, Mathilda," he urged as she reached him.
Ivan allowed her to crash against his own body as they both entered the elevator, and she looked over to see that Antonio was repeatedly hitting the close button. She glanced out to see a figure rushing through the smoke towards them, and recognized Gilbert just as he got close enough and raised his gun towards the closing elevator doors.
BANG!
DOING!
Ting!
As she felt the elevator begin to move, she looked towards her feet, and saw the bullet on the ground that caused the final clank against metal. She then looked to her side, where a bullet-sized dent had formed along the elevator wall only a foot away from her. She finally glanced between her faithful lover and her loyal bodyguard, and began to chuckle with them in relief.
Gilbert's shot had missed.