Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,59
the SUV. It was still mostly intact, though it was burning, a small fire on the hood keeping the guards from going into the front seat, which looked to be filled with smoke.
The gate hung off the front about four feet on either side, but it had bent badly upon impact and mangled it further. One of the guards was barking orders at another, but my hearing had suffered from the explosion and my ears were ringing enough that I couldn’t tell what he was saying. I watched three of them point in our direction, and I heard the whistle of gunshots over my head.
I reached down and drew my pistol, firing two quick shots, more to discourage them than anything; I wasn’t likely to hit them at this range. Something big moved to my left and I realized with a shock it was Scott, running across the road. He jumped, sliding down the embankment next to me and I was following him a second later, running away from the road, Reed just behind me.
By unspoken agreement, we cut a ninety degree path away from the road for a couple hundred yards before halting. None of us were breathing heavy, and I stopped to listen. Behind us, I could hear the shouts of guards; with our superior speed, we had left them behind. Also, I could have sworn there were some coming from our right, toward the perimeter fencing. “We need to head this way,” I said, pointing away from the fence.
“You don’t think maybe we should get out of here for now?” Reed’s head was swiveling around and suddenly his eyes widened. “Never mind, I hear it now. Guard squad coming from that direction.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If we’re gonna escape we’ll need to run parallel to the fence for a while. But I don’t want to try and get out of here until we know a little more about this place.”
“This place has some stiff security,” Reed said, pointing back the way we came. “That’s not just a sweep team; they don’t get armed with rocket launchers. This is a serious installation, and they clearly mean to keep whatever’s here protected. We may want to retreat and come back with more forces because with just the three of us, this could get really ugly.”
I heard the logic behind his words, knew he had a good point, but I heard Ariadne’s words echo in my head, about Omega and fighting blind, and as I thought about it, something occurred to me. “If M-Squad is stuck down in Kansas, our only backup will be human agents. Not good enough to assault this place without a lot of casualties.”
“Yeah,” Reed said, “but it would be us plus them. Right now, it’s just us.”
I thought hard about what he said. “But it’s our responsibility.”
He let out a long sigh. “I get the feeling you’ll be the death of me, Nealon.”
“There are worse reasons to go,” I said to him with a wink. He grimaced and I shrugged; guess I can’t pull it off like Charlie can.
“You got your gun?” I asked Scott, who stood behind me, looking dazed. He nodded, reaching under his jacket to pull out his Beretta. “You might be able to take them out at range with your powers; I can’t.”
“Gun’s gonna be more effective than a blast of water at the range we’re dealing with,” Scott said. “But they look like they’re carrying submachine guns and rifles, so they’ve got the advantage over us.”
“Yes, let’s all not get shot,” Reed said. “That sounds like a winning strategy.”
“I have a backup gun.” I looked at Reed. “Do you want it?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’ve never used one; I’d probably end up shooting one of you. Besides, I’m gonna see if I can make things a little more hostile in here for gunplay, maybe level the playing field.” He closed his eyes for a moment and the wind picked up around us, howling through the trees. I heard the branches stir and bend, and a strong gale nearly knocked me over. Reed’s eyes opened. “Sorry about that,” he said to me. “I can control it well enough if I’m paying full attention, but since we’re gonna be running, you might get hit by a few unintended breezes.”
The wind was roaring now, I heard branches cracking and falling through the forest, and the shouts of the guards were inaudible under the rushing of the tempest. “This way,” I said, struggling to be heard