Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter, they were very inspiring, and I do apologise for the 'character in mortal peril', but it is fun!
Many thanks to Lily Moonlight once again, for reading through and catching my typos. The M/S is for you!!
Chapter 21
Out of the Dark, Into the Rain
Everything is muted, silent. His vision is blurred and nothing will focus and the world seems to spin in circles that are ever decreasing. He knows he is speaking, shouting even, but he has no idea what the words are that fall out of his mouth and into the air, they are simply little bubbles of noise.
Danny runs down the corridor, his shoes seemingly on fire and the sound switches back on, Flack can suddenly hear and it's as if word and noise are being thrown at him in some foreign language that he doesn't understand. Danny is calling for Stella over the radio and Flack remembers that she is at ground level. He looks to where Danny has gone and then back at the scene in front of him and at the moment it is a scene, because if he calls it anything else he won't know what to do.
He hears Mac's voice calling and his heart lunges from his chest into his stomach. Mac's sitting with Angell, crouching down next to her. Angell's eyes are closed and for a moment Flack's heart is torn from his chest, some malignant being stamping it into the ground. He feels his feet sticking to the floor, the soft carpeted floor and can't move.
"Don, she's alive," Mac says. He is tearing the arm of his shirt off with one hand, while keeping the other pressed onto the top of her leg. Flack knows he is trying to apply pressure, trying to stem the blood loss. "The bullet's nicked the artery in her leg, that's why there's so much blood."
Flack has seen the blood. The whole room appears to be swimming in red. He looks up and sees a girl, her head on the desk, but he is unmoved by it. His eyes transfer back to Jess and he sees Hawkes with her now, Hawkes and Mac, trying to stop her losing so much blood.
Trying to stop her dying.
He manages to move closer, manages to move towards her face, her beautiful face, where he crouches, his hand immersing itself in her hair.
He has never before felt so helpless.
There is another voice in the room. Everyone else is still in the corridors, trying to get the rest of the people out of there. Before the gunshot, before his life stopped, they had twenty-eight people accounted for, only a handful still inside.
He feels Mac looking at him. "The ambulance is on its way. You need to stay with Jess." Mac stands up and Flack feels panicked. "I've got to go and see what's happening. Hawkes is here. He may need you to help."
Flack nods, and begins to feel reality creep back into him. "How is she?"
Hawkes looks up from the tourniquet he has made to stop the blood from draining the life out of Jess. "She's as good as I can get her without surgery."
"Is she going to live?" Her skin feels cold beneath his hand. He remembers that skin being so warm and soft; moving under his touch, responding to every finger print he left on her.
"The bullet's more than nicked her femoral artery. It's a major vein, Flack and she has lost a lot of blood already. However, Mac was quick. It's possible that because of his speed there's still enough blood in her to keep oxygen to keep vital organs fed," Hawkes' eyes are not filled with science, they're filled with fear, but Flack knows that he will only speak the truth. If there was no hope to cling onto, Hawkes would never have given it.
"Fucking Rachael McKinsey," Flack says. He cannot feel relief, yet he needs to feel something to keep himself alive. He wants to stand up, to run and follow Danny and find the bitch that has put his girl within death's grasp, and he knows that when he sees her, when he sees the woman who has done this, he will shoot without thought of the law or his life. "I need to find her."
Hawkes shakes his head. "I can't stop you," he says. "Only because I can't take my hands away. But you need to stay with Jess, Flack. Don't leave her now."
Flack knows his feet will not allow him to walk away from her, and he feels his own bones sink lower to the ground as if planting him next to her.
"Stella and Danny have gone after her. They're two of the best, you know that. They'll get her." The words float round the room like flies, their buzz echoing in his head.
He looks at Jess. She's pale. He touches her lips with a finger; they feel dry and cold, but he can feel her breath on his hand; short, shallow breaths, but they're there and he knows she's still alive.
"Where the hell's the paramedics?" he says, glaring at Hawkes, who isn't looking at him, but at the hole in Jess' leg that the bitch has put there.
"Don, you need to calm down," Hawkes says, one of his hands moving to Jess' ankle where he checks her pulse. "It's only been a couple of minutes."
Flack feels as if time has decided to run differently for him. He looks at the woman lying beside him, her body limp and lifeless, her eyes closed as if in some deep sleep from which she can't awake. He is reminded of Snow White, her black hair against white cheeks, lying asleep waiting for the coffin to be jolted and dislodge the apple from her throat.
There is more noise outside and he hears screaming and a loud shout. He remembers, just minutes and a lifetime ago, thinking about a second switch, and now he knows there is one.
-&-
Danny runs down the corridor, following a whisper of blonde hair. He knows he has to be quick, that Rachael has too much of a head start on him, and he hopes that someone has alerted Stella.
He stretches his legs up the stairs, taking four at a time, his hand on his weapon. He will shoot, that he knows. No longer are they in the dark about Rachael's capacity to kill. The door outside swings open, she has only just gotten out. He hears the sound of a motorbike revving up and wishes his own Harley was here. The rain begins to fall, large heavy drops that punch his skin and lend him a reality check. The city dulls a little greyer, and he hopes for some light to brighten it once more and then his thoughts transfer to Flack, and his darkness, and he knows he needs to find Rachael McKinsey for him.
"Danny! Get in the car!" Stella shouts, already there. He pulls himself into the vehicle, his heart pounding, his senses wired. "How's Angell?"
"Not good," he says. "Looks like her femoral artery's been severed. There was a lot of blood, but some may have been from a vic in there."
"Flack with her?"
"Yep," his answer is short as he tries to see where Rachael is heading, but she's weaved her way out of the traffic already. "We've lost her already." He wants to punch something, preferably Rachael McKinsey.
"I know where she's heading," Stella says. Her expression is grim and tight, but she exudes a coolness that he knows means there can only be one outcome. They will catch her.
-&-
There are three of them, the last three. Somehow, they haven't already been found, but here they are now, in the office used by David Rostow. Mac doesn't need to think. Two of his officers are two levels down with a detective who is unable to move; paramedics will soon be entering the building; he has three officers inside doing a final search. If the switch is pressed the people inside will have around 180 seconds to exit before the gas gets so thoroughly into their systems that they will simply shut down.
For him, there will be no choice.
He raises his weapon, ignoring the shouts of the three and a scream from one of them.
"In the next level there won't be scum like you!" one of them hollers.
"Step away from the switch," he says. The hand moves away from it.
He might be able to get them out alive.
"Why did you come here?" he asks them. Right now, Stella and Danny are pursuing one of the most psychopathic murderers he has come across. Right now, Stella and Danny were at risk themselves. Right now, he wanted to be with Stella. He felt a surge of something electrical and knew the source.
"It was a better life," is the answer. He looks at the three; skinny to the point of emaciation, eyes sunken but still with a blaze of madness, devotion to their leader.
"Is it still? Is being starved and drugged a better life than the freedom you had outside?" His weapon is still aimed.
"Freedom from what? Freedom in a hell where we are imprisoned by time and a society that demands a robot instead of an individual?" The hand quivers near the switch. He has a clear shot, and he knows that as soon as the bullet has left the gun, the two others will be safe. They will leave the building, as will his officers, and then as will he.
"So this place was a sanctuary from problems you couldn't face sorting out? Rostow's dead and Rachael's in police custody," he says, wishing the latter was true. "There's no safe haven any more down here." He pauses, watching the reaction. His words were goading, wanting the man whose hand was about the press the switch to be on the verge of pressing it, then he could shoot and get them out of there. "What if Rostow was lying? What if this is it, this is the only life you get. Then that's it – you'll have ended it. Not just for yourself, but for all the other people who haven't chosen your death. Rostow said you had to go willingly."
"And those that wouldn't he let them go," the man's hand comes down again. "Except he didn't. He had us…" Eyes glass over with memories that the brain was trying to suppress and Mac see the cracks begin to form. He looks at the other two and gestures for them to leave. An officer is behind him and leads them out. Mac takes the chance and drops his weapon. He takes the few steps over the man and places a hand on his back, escorting them both into the daylight for the first time in months. For Mac, realisation has come just in time.
The light is blinding.