I ran like hell, glad my job allowed me to wear sensible shoes. I heard feet thundering after me and one of the men shouted, “I’ll go this way!” I turned right to run down the hall passing the bathrooms and then I’d make two more rights to be back in the hallway with Lucas’ office. As I turned I tripped over a pair of legs sprawled out across the width of the hall. I tumbled and felt carpet-burn across my palms as I tried to stop myself going down and again on my knees when they hit. I wondered if she felt any of the skin-peeling burn.
I turned back and saw the body of a young woman, blood drying around her nose and mouth. Her eyes were stained red with burst vessels. Some poison Sam used. Why the hell we kept that nasty crap in the arsenal of the good guys is beyond me. ‘Course the good guys were also waterboarding and sleep depriving and hell, us good guys invented the car battery on the testicles. U.S. Government agencies have invented more ways to torture someone than Atilla The Hun. And when you’re talking targeted assassination, we wrote the book. So am I really surprised we kept highly concentrated neurotoxin at the DEA? Not especially.
Damn, that girl died young though. She could have been me ten years ago. Before I went bad. And now seeing my bad side outside of my body like this, I finally realized how far I’d fallen. No time to cry over it now, though.
I rose to my feet again. I felt blood run down the inside of my pants from the scrapes on my knees. The fabric of my pants already started to darken with blots of my blood. I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw the guy who had been holding the body hot on my heels. The woman lagged far behind. Guess my cardio training was more regimented than a paralegal. Daddy used to say watching me outrun boys was his favorite pastime. Lucas hated when I crushed him in the first 10K we ran together by over a minute ten.
All I had to clear were two more right turns. As I neared the next corner, conference room boy was there. I skidded to stop, feeling my lungs burn for the first time.
He stood blocking the hallway, arms out in a wrestler’s stance, his jacket off, sleeves rolled up and his tie tugged down a few inches. I saw blood spots on his shirt, probably where he tried to help someone.
We stood for a second, waiting for the other to make a move. Our standoff took place outside the glass wall of the conference room where we first met. It reminded me of a fishbowl with all the water drained out. Dead fish cluttered at the bottom waiting to be flushed down the toilet.
I got hit from behind. The other, very eager, man tackled me. He crashed into my back and I could tell he hadn’t pulled up his forward momentum in the slightest. He drove me forward and into the glass conference room wall. It wasn’t made for an impact like our two bodies at full force.
The wall shattered. Thousands of pebbles of safety glass exploded from the panel we hit. As we passed through the first pane, his body hit the panel to his left and my body hit the panel to my right and two more shattering pops fired tiny diamonds of glass in every direction.
The sound was impressive. A sharp crack and then the whole window would explode all at once like someone pressed a button. I guess they made them so there wouldn’t be long sword-like shards of glass, but instead they created glass grenades sending shrapnel in all directions.
I fell on top of two bodies. They cushioned the impact a little. He crushed down on top of me and I lost my breath for a second. I tried to suck air, but got only a mouthful of glass pieces when I opened my mouth.
I rolled and put my hand down on the carpet. It landed on a wet spot, dark with blood. I spit glass and tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t allow it. My attacker came down with his forehead against the edge of the eight foot long conference table. The dark wood table had rounded edges which probably saved his skull from caving in. He was knocked loopy though.
I found a small pocket of air in my lungs and stood in a hunched-over crouch. My roadblock in the hallway went fetal. The shower of glass turned him into a coward and he shrank into the floor with his arms wrapped over his head and a glass mosaic in his hair.
I moved down the hall while I could. The woman did not follow. My shoulder ached, so did the back of my head. I knew Sam would be able to feel those. I wondered for a second if the impact and sudden shock of pain would make her drive off the road. I guess I’d know it if she did. Crushed in the wreckage of a car is something I’d feel for sure.
Lucas’ desk drawers were organized as ever. The keys to the Smart car were exactly where I knew they would be. No searching, no detective work needed. I stuffed the keys in my pocket and headed back for the elevators the short way.
Back through the open office area I found the woman. She stood frozen, like she’d seen a grizzly bear or something. She made no aggressive moves.
“I didn’t do this,” I said.
She stared at me, her body tense and ready to flee.
“I didn’t. I’m going to stop who did though. Right now I need to save Judge Randolph’s life.” I don’t know why I felt compelled to explain myself. The idea of so many people thinking I’m a mass murderer didn’t sit well with me, as if it sits well with anyone. “I didn’t kill anybody. I’m not killing you, right? And I could if I wanted to.”
This didn’t seem to reassure her. Time to forget about what anyone else thought about me and get the hell out.
I dodged a few crumpled bodies and made it back out to the elevators. I heard voices before the doors opened and ducked around the corner.
The elevators dislodged six police officers, guns drawn. They rushed into the main office, crouching down, fanning out and taking a quick survey of the layout. I slipped out and slid into the elevator while the doors closed around me. As the doors slid shut I thought I heard a woman’s voice say, “She went that way.”
SMART STUPID CAR
The tiny electric car drove annoyingly slow. As I ambled through traffic I kept finding new pieces of glass in the folds of my clothes and brushed them away. I knew where the judge lived from when Lucas took me to a Christmas party at Randolph’s house last year. I remembered the neighborhood because I made Lucas promise me we’d move there someday. He laughed and said something like, “At my salary?”, but hey, you gotta have goals, right? A fairly self-righteous type, Randolph held his own Christmas party ever since the state sanctioned end-of-year celebration had been tagged a Holiday party. Don’t know why it surprises me a judge could be judgmental.
There wasn’t a whole lot of hope in me getting to the Judge’s house before they did, but it was worth a try. I failed twice already at stopping Sam in her massacre. I needed one in the win column. Plus, not doing everything to save someone’s life is not something Good Samantha would let happen.
I came to a red light with four cars ahead of me. I knew I had some time so I shut my eyes and tried to get an update on Sam’s whereabouts. The pictures were really fuzzy and far away but I could see her still driving. All had not been lost yet.
I felt a sudden urge to pee. How long had it been? No idea. My sleep had been terrible, I hadn’t eaten and now I needed a bathroom break rather urgently. I wondered if she felt the same thing. I had no idea how in tune we were. I was fairly sure if I got my period right then she would have too. The thought reminded me I’d missed my birth control pill. Oh well, not like Lucas would ever touch me again when all this was over. All I could hope for was to keep him alive so he even had the choice.