Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

“Oh, I’d say that I really want to fight you,” she said as she rounded on him. “And don’t think that just because I’m a woman I’ll be as easy to deal with as the two guys you just killed. Unlike them, I know what I’m doing.” Her eyes scanned his body, assessing her opponent, looking for weaknesses. There was no fear, no wariness. She was used to combat.

“Lady,” Mace said, backing away from her. “I’m sure you have skills.” Hell, he could see it from the way she held herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet, holding her fists up in front of her. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”

There was no warning—she just flew through the air at him, pummeling him with a barrage of fists and feet. Unlike Keiko, this woman really did know kung fu, plus several other martial arts by the looks of things. And although Mace didn’t have those sorts of skills, he knew how to fight, and he had abnormally fast speed while he did it. The problem wasn’t that they weren’t well matched, it was that she was the wrong opponent.

He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Look, I don’t have any issues with Freedom. If you lot want to fight for the right not to have shit installed in your brains, more power to you. I’m just trying to get out of this building alive. And, to tell the truth…” He paused, feeling like a fool, but carried on anyway. “I don’t hit women.” There. He said it. Surely she’d cut him some slack for his stance.

Instead, she smiled slowly, spun, kicked high, and hit him on the side of his head.

Clearly, this was not going well.

…

Keiko was sitting on the steps, staring a hole through the door and mentally shouting at Mace to hurry up, when she heard the first gunshot. She froze in place, her ears straining for a clue as to wh

ether it was Mace or Freedom. Unfortunately, she didn’t have his freaky auditory implants, and all she could hear was silence.

Until the next shot, then a third and a fourth.

It had to be Mace. Four cameras. Four shots. As quietly as she could, she got to her feet and padded over to the door. There was a thud against it, one that made her jerk back, pressing a hand to her racing heart.

“Mace?” She called his name in that strange half-voice people use when they do and don’t want people to hear at the same time.

There was a grunt on the other side of the door, then some murmured words she couldn’t make out. What if he was out there and he was hurt? What if it wasn’t him at all? Quietly, she pressed her ear to the thick steel door and listened. Nope, that didn’t help. It sounded like there was a scuffle going on in the corridor, but other than that, she was still in the dark.

Should she open the door a crack and see what’s happening? What if it was the terrorists? Then she’d be letting them inside. She pressed a hand over her fluttering stomach as another thud made the door shudder.

A voice called out. It was muffled, but it was clearly Mace. He was out there, and he was in trouble. A rush of adrenaline made her hands tremble as she unlocked the door. She felt like every cell in her body was standing to attention, battle ready and waiting for the signal to pounce. It was a heady feeling. One that could easily become addictive.

Slowly, silently, she pushed the door open a crack and peeked out into the corridor. And what she saw made her jaw drop. Mace-the-massive was getting his backside handed to him by a whirling dervish of a woman.

He stood in the middle of the corridor as she danced around him, striking out as she did so. And all Mace did was block her blows. And even then, he missed several because she was relentless in her attack. There was a bruise blossoming on the side of his face and blood trickling from a spit lip. But the look of pure helpless frustration in his eyes was the most shocking thing at all.

“Stop it,” he told the woman. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then put your hands behind your back so I can secure them.”

“I’m not doing that, either.” He seemed at a loss for a second, and then he huffed out a breath. “Can’t we just talk?”

Keiko gaped at him. Talk?

The woman laughed and kicked the side of his knee as she slammed her fist into his face. Mace lost his balance, roared, and reached out for his opponent, wrapping her in his arms in an attempt to restrain her. He held her with her back pressed against his front, his arms pinning hers to her side.

“I said I don’t hit women,” he growled. “That doesn’t mean I won’t tie you up and store you somewhere for Enforcement to find.”

The woman let her head fall forward, then swung it back hard, catching Mace’s chin. At the same time, she stamped down on his instep and jerked forward, shaking herself loose from his hold.

She circled him once again. “I can do this all day,” she said with a cold smile. “It doesn’t bother me that you won’t hit back.”

Well, it bothered the hell out of Keiko.

If Mace wasn’t going to fight the woman, she would have to step in for him. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the woman’s skills, so she couldn’t go out there and slap her around, which meant she needed a weapon. Something solid that would knock the bitch out when Keiko swung it at her head.

Turning back into the stairwell, Keiko intended to run up to the apartment and grab the first thing she spotted that would work as a club. But before she could take the first step, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. There was a laser gun on the corridor floor, not far from her feet. Pushing the door wider, she bent down, sneaked a hand out, and grabbed it, dragging it back into the stairwell with her.

The door slid silently closed as Keiko considered the gun. It was heavier and a whole lot more complicated than she’d thought it would be. There were buttons all over the damn thing, and none of them were clearly labeled. Would it have killed the manufacturer to write “death” beside one and “stun” beside another? Why the hell were there so many of them? How many things did a gun have to do?

With a huff of frustration, she examined it closely. Which one would stun? She didn’t want to kill the woman, she just wanted to stop her from hitting Mace. Maybe the blue one? Lightning was blue, wasn’t it, and that was as electric as you could get? Red had to be danger, like death, right? She had no idea what yellow meant. Maybe it was the flashlight button.