“Put the other mods in your pocket,” he said as opened the waist pack. Within it were three enormous stainless steel syringes, much like the kind used to marinate meat and hefty enough to deliver a load of the thick SuperMod goop. I took two and dropped them into the side pocket of my pants, heart already beginning to race in anticipation and dread. “Once I’ve made the cut I’ll give you the knife so that you can administer the other doses if needed.”
“Got it. I’m totally ready,” I lied.
Either he believed me or it didn’t matter to him. He set the point of the knife halfway between my belly button and my sternum then, without a lick of warning, drove the two-inch blade in to the hilt. I gasped and stiffened at the sharp burn of pain, then clenched my teeth as he pulled the knife to make the gash wider.
“Almost there,” he murmured. He removed the knife and slipped the first syringe into the gash until only half its length and the plunger protruded. “Hold that there.”
As soon as I had it, Pierce moved to Andrew and hauled him to his feet.
“I’m cutting the zipties,” he growled, “but if you fuck with me again or try to run, our agreement is null, and your ass is mine. Understood?”
Andrew gave a tight nod. “Understood.”
Pierce pulled a much larger knife from a sheath on his belt—the same knife he’d used to kill the two guards in the holding area. “Good deal. I suggest you take cover behind the bin when the shooting starts.”
Andrew paled, but he nodded again.
Pierce lifted his chin. “Let’s roll.”
Chapter 33
We pushed the bin fully into the elevator and readied ourselves to fight our way out. The metal syringe buried in my gut felt like ice in my fingers, and I forced myself to breathe deeply and keep my hand steady.
“We’re going up one floor and then out,” Pierce said in a low voice, holding the door until Andrew could hunker behind the bin, and I could crouch on top. “No other choice since this elevator only goes between these two basement floors.” His mouth twisted in annoyance. “She’ll have her team waiting for us, but the one possible bright spot is that there are probably only a dozen or so left.”
“Only a dozen.” I laughed weakly. “Awesome.”
He nodded toward the syringe in my hand as the elevator began to rise. “Show time.”
“Right.” The word came out as a squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Right,” I said, then took a deep breath and pressed the plunger.
I felt nothing for a second. And another. And—
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I gasped. Warmth raced through me as if every neuron in my body was waking up for the first time. My vision snapped into razor sharp focus, colors intensified, and every noise grew distinct. The thud of Andrew’s pulse. The hiss of Pierce’s breath. A shift of flesh in the bin beneath me. The scrape of fabric against metal above me, and a bolt sliding back. I jerked my eyes up to the outline of the service hatch, and my lips pulled back from my teeth. “Zombie Super Powers, Activate,” I breathed.
I surged up from the crouch and slammed the palm of my hand into the hatch. It flew open and smacked the unlucky security guard in the chin on the way, giving me a split second of advantage, which I seized along with his collar. He scrabbled for purchase, but gravity remained on my side as I used my weight to pull him down through the hatch and to the floor. Also on my side was the sudden stop when I smacked his head into the corner of the bin, and it took only two more Angel-assisted skull-meets-industrial-plastic blows to split it. I dug my fingers in and ripped his head open like a kid tearing into a Christmas present, yanked the brain out of its nice warm home, then lifted the lid of the bin and dropped the brain in.
“Breakfast in bed, y’all!”
Pierce’s eyes rested on me as I resumed my perch on top of the bin, but he seemed to approve of my actions. He turned toward the door as the elevator stopped, grip tightening on the knife in his right hand. Muted growls and wet sounds of slavering came from within the dumpster, and I smiled. Hungry zombies were hungry.
“He had this,” Andrew said.
I looked down to see him still cowering behind the bin, his face flecked with blood from the guy who turned into breakfast. In one hand Andrew held a canister about five inches long, with a pin still in place. Smoke bomb or tear gas, I figured. Maybe a flash bang. Whatever it was, I
’d stopped the bad guy before he had the chance to use it. One point for Angel.
“Thanks.” I plucked the thing from Andrew’s grasp and handed it off to Pierce, then focused on the elevator door. My blood hummed through my veins, and the scent of the men outside coiled through the widening opening.
“Six,” Pierce murmured, but I was already in motion. I leaped from the bin, pushed off the right side of the elevator door to launch myself at the first guard on the left. He tried to shift the aim of his tranq gun, but I grabbed his head and snapped his neck before his finger could tighten on the trigger. Beside me, Pierce moved quickly to bury his knife in the chest of a guard. He wrenched the blade up and threw the man aside as my guy dropped. A blond man with a scraggly soul patch fired a real gun at me but the bullet simply grazed my hip. I leaped forward and snapped a kick hard into his knee, spun and smashed my elbow into his face, wrenched the gun from his hand, then spun back again to ram the butt of it into the throat of a third man.
I held back a manic laugh. No way would I be able to pull off these moves without the mod. Everyone seemed to move so slowly. Taking them out was like dancing through people trapped in mud.
Pierce broke the wrist of another guard even as a round took him in the thigh. Unfazed, he slashed his knife across the shooter’s throat. The last standing guard brought a tranq gun to bear on Pierce, but I dove at him, grabbed him by the face and smashed the back of his head into the wall. He slumped to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the cinderblock.
I swung around to deal with the next opponent, only to see that there wasn’t one. Six guards littered the floor, at least three quite dead, with the others definitely not posing a threat anymore.
Pierce cleaned his knife on the shirt of one of the guards, straightened and slid it back into its sheath.