It was immature and vindictive, but I couldn’t help it. “Now do we need guns?”
“St. George?” The dark-haired girl, Faith, shrank back, her eyes huge and terrified. “The Order is here?” Her gaze darted to the entrance of the stairwell, as if armed soldiers could burst through at any time, then flickered to the edge of the building. “We have to fly,” she whispered, edging away from the other girl, toward the sudden sheer drop at the end of the floor. “They’ll kill us if we don’t—”
“No!” Riley whirled around. “No flying. We don’t know where St. George is, or what they have out there. They could be watching the building right now, waiting for us.”
“I’ll risk it.” The girl stopped, but looked on the verge of panic. “It’s the Order! We have to fly. It’s better than dying.”
“Faith, stop.” I didn’t dare step forward, lest I scare her into plunging off the roof right then. “Listen to me. That’s what they want. This is one of their tactics, send in the ground team to force the targets into the air. Like hunting quail.” She blinked at me, glassy-eyed with fear. I wondered if any of this was getting through to her. “There’s probably a team of snipers scanning the roof right now,” I continued, gesturing to the buildings around us. “If you fly, they’ll shoot you down—”
The whirl of helicopter blades interrupted me, a guttural whine in the silence. Faith flinched, her gaze going to the sky, but Ember darted forward, grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back…just as a spotlight beam sliced over the floor, passing inches from where they’d been standing. The rest of us ducked down and pressed against the walls, melting into shadow, as an unmarked black chopper circled the building once, then wheeled lazily away.
Ember glared after the helicopter, eyes flashing, as Faith whimpered and huddled close to her. “Well, there are the snipers,” she said. “What now, Riley?”
Shoved against a wall with Ava, Riley growled a curse and looked at me. “Any brilliant thoughts on getting out of this?”
“Back through the building,” I said. “It’s a big hotel. They’ll probably have more than one unit sweeping the floors, coming in from different angles. If we can get past the ground teams, we’ll have a chance of making it out unnoticed.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we go through them.”
Riley swore again. “All right,” he growled. “Go, then. We’ll be right behind you.”
The helicopter swung around again, and we held our breath as it went by, spotlight crawling over the walls and floor. I waited until it passed, watched it glide around a corner, then darted for the stairwell entrance. I heard the others scramble after me, and hit the door handle without slowing down, bursting through the frame into the building.
We quickly descended the stairs, myself in the lead, Ember close behind me. Ava and Faith followed, and Riley brought up the rear, watching our backs. Our footsteps echoed throughout the stairwell, unnaturally loud in the stillness. Each time we passed the entrances to other floors, my nerves jangled, wondering if this time the door would burst open and a squad of soldiers would step in to kill us.
A body suddenly rounded the corner and lunged up the stairs, making Faith shriek. Not a soldier, but a civilian in a white tank top, a baseball cap perched sideways on his head. He stumbled, nearly running into me, and I barely stopped myself from driving a fist into his throat.
“Shit, man!” The civilian glared at me wide-eyed, then shoved past, lurching up the steps. “Move, a-holes! Fucking SWAT team is everywhere.” He scrambled past Riley, who gave him a disgusted look, then continued up the stairs, his footsteps fading into the darkness.
Ember took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They’re in the building,” she breathed as we started down the steps again. “How close do you think they are, Garret?”
Two floors beneath us, a door opened.
I jerked to a stop and whirled around as flashlight beams pierced the darkness below. “Go back!” I ordered, hearing booted feet ascending the steps behind me. “Everyone, get back! They’re here.”
Shots rang out, sparking off the walls and railing, and Faith screamed. We fled back up the steps, hearing the soldiers give chase, spatters of gunfire echoing up the stairwell.
“This way!” Ahead of us, Riley paused at the entrance to the twelfth floor and wrenched the door back. “We’re sitting ducks in here. Everyone get out. Go, go!” Ava and Faith quickly ducked through the open door, and the rest of us followed, emerging into a narrow, unfinished corridor with empty rooms lining the walls. A maze of hallways, dark and empty, stretched out to either side.
The soldiers were still coming. Without hesitation, we ran, rounding a corner just as the door behind us opened and our pursuers followed us into the labyrinth. I heard a soldier calling for backup, informing the rest of the squads where we were, and knew the entire strike force would be swarming the floor in a matter of minutes. The rest of them would be sent to guard doors, exits, stairwells; anywhere we might try to escape, they would be waiting for us. A cold lump settled in my stomach. Getting out of here was going to be difficult, if not impossible.
After a minute or two of running, when it appeared the soldiers weren’t right on our tail, Riley ducked into an open room, and the rest of us followed. “Okay,” he panted, leaning against a wall, “this whole thing has gone completely FUBAR. We need a new strategy, quick.” He looked at me. “Suggestions, St. George? What are they doing out there?”
“Right now, all squads will be converging on this floor,” I answered, peering into the hall to make sure the soldiers were not close by. My mind raced, trying to think of a plan, to counter whatever they were going to do. “They’re going to try to cover all the exits,” I went on, ducking back inside, “but if we find another stairwell before they have a chance to get here, we could possibly slip past them and get to another floor. It’ll buy us some time while they’re searching for us up here. The challenge will be finding an exit that isn’t guarded.”
“One problem at a time,” Riley muttered tiredly, and pushed himself off the wall. “First thing, let’s try to get off this floor before the rest of the bastards arrive. Any ideas?”
“There’s another stairwell at the west end of the building,” Ava said, surprising us. She stood beside Faith, looking pale but calm in the face of approaching death. Unlike the other hatchling, who was frozen in absolute terror, her eyes huge and staring. “I saw it when we first came here. We could try to reach it before St. George does.”