Unbeknownst to the thug at the other end of the pistol, the sparkle of unyielding determination returned to the prisoner's cerulean eyes where there was only surrender a moment ago. Just before the third and final shot resonated through the silence of the room, Elizabeth fell back along with the chair driven by a surprising force, delivering a swift kick to Lonnie's weapon-holding hand. In the very same split-second the trigger finished its curt track, sending the lucky bullet to an unintended course and straight into the stunned Maurice's neck.
She could hear the man's choked gurgles as her own head hit the ground with a loud thud. Lonnie watched with open mouth as his friend slowly descended to his knees, unable to even scream in pain, then spread out on the floor face first in his own blood.
"M... Mo? I didn't... it was this damn sonova..."
His free hand curled into a fist, eyes flaming with fury as he bored the hard tip of his boot into Elizabeth's stomach.
"You happy now, you little whore!? You thought that'd save you? Huh!?"
Another kick went to the same place, drawing a muffled cry from the woman.
"Just you wait, sister. No messing around this time." He reached deep into his pocket to retrieve the rest of his ammunition; he could barely load his gun with fingers still shaking from anger.
Elizabeth suppressed the nausea and focused on the attacker. She could already feel a tear forming right behind him. When Lonnie finally managed to stuff in a couple more bullets to be sure, he raised his weapon with a straight arm and a firm hold unlike the inattentive stance he took before, pointing right to the middle of the woman's forehead.
"This is it, hon. I've had just about enough of you," he said as he cocked the weapon.
She allowed herself a gloat and a sly little smile. "Funny. I was just about to say the same."
The man only had time for a puzzled look before the grey aura engulfed him. He perplexedly glanced behind his shoulder to see a frighteningly tall contraption with long insect-like legs, two large tanks hanging on the sides of its masked driver. The searching lights settled on the dumbfounded Lonnie, drawing an ear-screeching alarm from the unreal vehicle.
Elizabeth closed the tear on him.
Although no one had her at gunpoint anymore, she was still lying on the floor, hands still tied, her hair almost reached by the slowly expanding pool of blood around the dead Maurice.
She was quite certain the man had been still playing with his knife when the errand shot marked his end, and she searched the room with her eyes for where he might have dropped it.
There, at the door.
After some awkward scrambling with the chair, Elizabeth managed to crawl close enough to get the grip between her teeth. She was relieved somewhat that only the tip came into contact with the crimson liquid. Careful not to let it fall from her mouth, the woman leaned forward to the right armrest and started sawing the rope around her wrist as best as she could, the blade leaving fresh bloodstains on the already battered blouse.
A silent clock in her head counted the remaining minutes. Freeing herself proved to be more complicated than she hoped, the knife had slipped out from her hold twice before her right arm was released at last. There could not have been more than seven minutes left from the rebel leader's scheduled departure. Being able to use the tool properly this time, she made short work of the other binding and could finally stand on her feet again.
Having the blade cleaned with her ragged skirt before putting it in her belt, she quickly ransacked the room for her lost weapons, hoping her captors were fool enough to have left them nearby.
While the crossbow was nowhere to be found, turning over the weathered cases soon revealed the air grabber. Diving into the midst of danger without firearms was lunacy, she decided, but with merely a few minutes left, there was no time for caution anymore.
Elizabeth sprinted out the door and towards the service bay, air grabber in hand and feet still bare save for the tattered bandages around the thin stockings. Through the muddied windows she soon got a glimpse of the ramp connecting the ruined dock with the mighty submarine, men still carrying over heavy barrels filled with content she did not want to guess about.
Noises of hasty lading between curses could be clearly made out from past the corner, and she was not planning on slowing down even when the thugs came into her direct line of sight, puttering with a particularly big wooden crate in the middle of a puddle. They did not have time to turn their crowbars against the stampeding stranger, for Elizabeth summoned a miniature storm cloud above them with not so miniature lightning striking down from it. The shock transferred to both of the screaming minions through the puddle with ease; the woman just raced forward before they even hit the ground with a splash.
The ramp was now close enough for her to see Atlas standing by the vessel's entrance, herding in the men with the barrel. He stopped in his tracks when his eyes met those of the rapidly approaching Elizabeth. She could not hear what he was shouting into the cargo hold next, but the panic in his frantic movements could not be missed.
"Don't you dare run now, Atlas!" she shouted, loud enough for even the whales beyond the blue depths to hear.
Seconds before she finally reached the lower end of the ramp, the submarine's door sealed shut.
"No!"
She knew there was no way to open it from the outside now, and though pounding on it for a while would have certainly helped with the rage rising in her heart, it would be of little use. The massive monster of black metal began to detach itself from the shoddy corridor with a deep humming to make one's bones rattle, causing the whole building to tremble along.
Elizabeth was quite sure they did not bother to seal the dock properly before engaging in the premature manoeuvre. Sure enough, the slowly receding submarine gave way to the free flow of sea water, sparing barely a moment for her to jump away from the deadly stream. Now standing ankle-high in the cold ocean, she helplessly watched as the monstrosity turned to leave for Rapture with her Little Sister on board.
Not being able to hold back a broken, inarticulate cry at her inability to get to the girl in time, she hit the thick glass with her fist.
"I failed you, Sally," she sniffled. "I'm so sorry."
She turned around to face the shambles that were once a pristine maintenance facility for the fanciest of bathyspheres in Rapture, the water slowly rising up to her knees. It seemed only minutes ago when the two of them sat in this big, empty hall, racking their minds to come up with a means to escape this doomed place.
Halting her quiet sobs, that certain plan suddenly popped back into her mind.
"The bathysphere at the Pavilion!"
Elizabeth launched herself towards the stairs that led to the elevator, vaulting in and out of the water as efficiently as possible. She paid little mind to the two violently coughing men she shocked to unconsciousness earlier, now reawakened by the ice cold surge.
The elevator ride back to the upper levels felt a thousand times slower than on any other occasion so far. She reviewed her planned route back to exact location she first arrived at with Comstock, trying to recall every corridor and every turn to determine the shortest way to her goal.
Once the cabin reached the top, softly clicking into its place, Elizabeth impatiently milled around for the seemingly endless seconds until the doors opened. If any living soul would have been around in the frighteningly silent hub space, they would have seen an off-white blur of a woman bursting out of the elevator, flashing towards the exit like her life depended on it. She raced out of the Bathyspheres Deluxe, not surprised that the man with the guitar had long been gone, and had to endure another sluggish elevator ride until she reached the level of the daycare.
A crawl in the vent system led her back to the maintenance lift for a last, maddeningly slow ascend. The first obstacle she hit was the intact wall dividing the tunnel and the toy store, now remembering it was only through a tear-induced hole that they managed to progress. Hoping that the the dark alleyway would guide her to a familiar location Elizabeth pressed forward, coming out in the showroom a few twists and turns later, grateful for even this small shortcut.
The air grabber was put into good use for the remainder of her rampant run towards the tram station, hopping on and off from hooks through the Electronics section and above the electrified puddles. She could finally catch a breath for a few minutes while the tram slid out of the Housewares Department, yet again forced to wait until it arrived at the mall's central building.
The ice bridge Comstock had put in place was still just as solid as it had been two days ago. "Ah, the birthday girl's finally here!" shrieked a box-headed splicer standing on the other side with a bloodstained club in his hand. "Come now, your mother and I were looking all over fo- Umph!" his head collided with the business end of the air grabber that shattered the wooden crate on impact, the woman not even skipping a beat in her march.
Not paying any mind to the collapsing attacker, she felt an immense wave of relief upon seeing the bathysphere still in its spot with the door opened, like it was only waiting for her to return.
She closed the creaking metal door and started to look for the navigation panel, fiercely hoping that the fuel would be enough for a journey back to the coordinates in the transport's log. Elizabeth had no idea where that trail would lead to, or where Cohen had their unconscious bodies thrown into the vehicle, but if it got her back to any place in Rapture then she deemed it good enough.
Following a button press, the metallic sphere came buzzing to life, the dim lights filling the cabin as it began its descent into the ocean, leaving behind the dreaded Department Store at last.
She exhaled deeply a fair amount of times, one hand on her chest still trying to calm her lungs down from all the running. The submarine was faster and way ahead of her, probably leading with a whole hour. But unless she could tear in an engine triple the size and attach it to the tiny vessel, there was little else that could be done about its leisurely speed. She decided to use the time for as much rest as she could get, for she was sure that rescuing Sally from the ensuing chaos would test her endurance to its limits, if she could still succeed at all. Finding a health station on the way would also be for the best, she decided; her feet covered in the dirty, blood-soaked and wet bandages were quite the sorry sight. The rags were carefully replaced with new strips torn from her skirt until she could properly tend to it.
For the rest of the journey, she laid back on the damp cushions and tried not to go insane.
After a good hour-and-a-half had passed, the bathysphere was approaching the outskirts of the sparkling underwater metropolis, then swam towards a dark beehive of a dock Elizabeth recognized as Neptune's Bounty.
Of course, the beating heart of the smuggling ring. Cohen sure knows his way around.
Emerging from the inner pool, the opening door greeted Elizabeth with a sight that reminded her of a busy marketplace before a thunderstorm. Nets full of wriggling fish hanging unattended from giant hooks, piles of crates in disarray, like if the workers left their usual tasks unfinished and went home in the middle of a busy day. Only two of them were still in the lower wharf, hurling around cargo as if they were looking for something very valuable, until one stern-faced man in a blue jumpsuit noticed the newcomer.
"What ya doin' down here, miss? Get back to yer place in Olympus Heights or whatever and wait until this mess gets sorted out, 'kay?"
He apparently made more out of her ragged clothing than she would have in his place.
Elizabeth feigned surprise to not arouse suspicion. "Why? What happened here?"
"Bastards from Fontaine's place came swoopin' on one of them fancy restaurants with a goddamn submarine. Shot fuckin' torpedoes into the place, I'm tellin' ya!" he depicted with wide-eyed terror, arms flailing in the air. "Where they got that blasted thing from I'll never know. They're probably swarmin' Rapture right as we speak. I ain't goin' out there with no guns!"
As if on cue, the man's younger and less burly partner lifted a tommy gun that he picked from one of the smaller crates, padded out with a dozen bibles. "Found 'em!"
"Now that's more like it!" He rejoined his friend and took an offered pistol from him, throwing another look to the woman.
"We could escort you a while, lady. Safer that way," he said with genuine care in his voice.
"That won't be necessary, thank you," she declined, being more interested in their earlier statement. "Do you know which restaurant has been attacked?"
"The one with the... uh... which was it, Stan?"
"The Kashmir," mumbled the younger man.
"Yeah, right, the Kashmir." He turned to Elizabeth again, a bit sheepishly this time. "Listen ma'am, I ain't forcin' nothin' on ya, but I won't have such a pretty thing get killed by some mob out there." He stepped closer to her, handing over the pistol grip first. "Take it. It's loaded. That twirling thingy looks dangerous alright," he said, glancing at the air grabber on her side, "But I'll sleep better if ya had this."
Elizabeth hesitated for a few seconds before accepting the weapon with a slight nod. "It can't hurt, I guess."
The worker grumbled approvingly then turned to leave the wharf on his armed friend's side through one of the winding alleys. The woman rolled the cylinder out to verify the man's claim, finding six anti-personnel rounds neatly filling all the spots. She booked this strange event in her memory as one of the precious few occasions when she encountered kindness from anyone in this godless city.
A muffled stamping from one of the corners roused her from thoughts, and she reflexively pointed her freshly acquired pistol to the origin of the noise. She quickly withdrew it however when the offender proved to be a brunette little girl in a light green dress, so petrified of her reaction that she dropped something she had been carrying.
A relieved sigh parted Elizabeth's lips as she put the gun away from the child's sight. "I'm sorry, little one. You startled me a bit there," she apologized, slowly advancing toward the girl with an outsretched hand. "I won't hurt you. Do you want me to take y-"
The child broke into a wild run away from her in mid-sentence, racing back into the corner, up the crates and into the vent she supposedly came from.
"Nice one, Dimwit," she chided herself with one palm on the forehead. It did strike her as odd that a child would wind up alone here of all places, using the vents like a Little Sister would while visibly not being one of them if the pair of big brown eyes were anything to go by.
She started yet again when the object on the ground came to life, sizzling with static followed by a clearly audible sentence.
"Would you kindly pick up the radio, please?" she heard a feminine voice asking, and so she obeyed, bringing the device to her mouth.
"Uh... Hello?"
"Fräulein Elizabeth, I assume."
The Lamb was struck by these long craved but still unexpected words, and for this one moment, the weight of the world on her shoulders felt just a tiny bit lighter.