Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson

I promised I would, wanting to squeeze his hand, not being able to because his skin tore as easily as tissue paper.

By the time I moved to sit on my own hospital bed, Kirk didn’t even notice. He stared into space, his red eyes blank, the muscles of his face slack. The parts of his brain that made him who he was were gone, liquefied by the virus. Only the illness’s final stage remained.

Death.

That word echoed through my mind as I witnessed the last moments of Jonathan Kirk.

“When it comes to survival, violence often isn’t the best option,” said The Instructor. “But when you choose to use it, strike hard and fast and destroy your enemy. There is no winning and losing in a fight, only living and dying.”

The room smelled like a slaughterhouse.

There was a sink, and I did my best to wash Kirk’s blood off me.

I checked myself for new bruises.

Didn’t find any.

Chilled, I pulled my hospital gown around my naked skin. My hands trembled, events of the past day catching up to me, overwhelming me. Tears brimmed my eyes, turning the world into a blurry mosaic of white and red.

I blinked them back.

Focus.

I am ice. Cold. Hard. A blow torch couldn’t thaw me.

The camera eye stared down from the ceiling. The heart monitor had been turned off, the room silent now except for the drip of Kirk’s blood on tile.

And a soft hiss …

A soft, smoky hiss, coming through the overhead vent.

I scooped in a breath, held it, then staggered and collapsed to the floor.

The hiss continued, long after my lungs had started to scream for oxygen. But I was damn good at holding my breath, and soon the tone of the sound changed to the hum of a ventilation system at work.

I let my air out slow, made my lungs take in big, deep breaths like I was asleep.

A short time later, the door opened, and four people in full, pressurized hazmat gear lumbered into the room. I heard the soft sound of wheels, as if they were pushing a tray or gurney, and the suck and release of their SCBA.

“Put her on the bed. I need some blood.”

The voice was muffled, but I could tell it was the same voice that had spoken to us over the intercom.

“Then where do you want her?”

“In the room with the girl.”

“And him?” another asked.

“You can clean that mess up later.”

Two sets of hands lifted me from the floor and dropped me onto the mattress. I caught a glimpse through my lashes, a tray filled with needles and vials. One of them grabbed my arm and wrapped a rubber tourniquet around my biceps. I felt the sting of a needle on the inside of my elbow, then a clumsy shifting as they filled tubes with my blood.

“Okay, got it. I don’t want her waking up. Stick that IV back in and get her sedated. And tie her hands to the bed rails this time. No sense in taking chances.”

I would have preferred to let them take me to Julie before making my move, at least then I’d know her location, but I couldn’t let them put me under. Still if I could bide my time, take them by surprise, hope that some left to perform other jobs, I’d have a better chance. If even one stepped out of the room, I’d increase my odds by twenty-five percent.

I stayed put, picturing the room around me in my mind’s eye, cataloguing what tools were at my disposal. Once the man at my bedside replaced the catheter in the back of my hand, he would have to reconnect the drip. For a second, he would be facing away from me, and that’s when I would make my move.

He stuck the needle in the back of my hand, and I braced myself against the pain. For several seconds he poked and jabbed, searching for a vein. Finding none, he slid the needle out and tried again.

Still no luck.

And no one had left the room. Although my eyes were closed, I could hear four distinct respirations, four sets of shuffling movement. I didn’t know if these guys were medical personnel, lab techs, or soldiers, but judging from the skill set of the one prodding me, I was leaning toward soldiers. They would know how to fight.

But when he stuck the needle in for a third time and started digging around, I knew I couldn’t take it any longer.

Focused on poking the hell out of my left hand, my torturer didn’t see my right until it was too late.

I brought the heel up fast and plowed it into his nose, driving upward.

CBRN suits are designed for soldiers to wear in combat. Hazmat suits, like these, were not.

The face shield collapsed under my blow. The guy made a grunting noise and flew backward, hitting the floor hard.

A human being’s reaction to a swift violent assault is to freeze. Like a deer in the headlights, the body biologically seeks to hide in plain sight in hopes the predator will pass them by. It takes years of training to shorten this natural reaction. Even then, training wasn’t the same as engaging in the real thing.

I’d engaged in the real thing more than I liked to think about.

I was moving before they’d realized the first man was down.

Grabbing the stainless steel IV pole—a solid bar with some serious heft—I pulled the adjustable portion from the bed and started swinging.

The second man hadn’t had the chance to turn around, and I hit him hard in back of the neck, connecting with the cervical vertebrae. He went down immediately, leaving me with only two to go.

The odds were getting better.

I went after the third.

He managed to step backward, making my next swing miss. Then threw a right hook. The move was clumsy, the suit slowing him down, and I blocked the blow and retaliated with an elbow strike that dented his face mask and exploded his nose, coating the inside of his visor with blood.

The fourth man—the oldest of the group—ran from the room.

The first man had staggered to his feet. He came at me from behind with a bear hug.

I drilled the back end of the pole into his gut. He doubled over, choking and gasping.

I went after him again, clanging him in the head with everything I had, putting him out before man number three tackled me from behind.

I sprawled forward, hitting the floor on hands and knees, the brute landing on top of me. Air was sucked from my lungs. He grabbed my hair, lifted my head with a yank, then smashed my forehead against the tile.

Sparks of light blossomed behind my eyes.

I had to get him off me. One more hit to my brain pan and I wouldn’t be able to function.

Face pressed to the cold floor, I willed the dizziness back and searched for something I could use as a weapon.

There.

I reached out my hand, skimming it over the tile until I hit something slick and wet—the remnants of Kirk.

Then I snaked my arm back to the hand tangled in my hair. The hazmat suit was thick and strong, made in layers to keep out the smallest biological agents, viruses. But the gloves were attached with nothing more than duct tape.

I sank the bloody IV needle into the meat of his wrist.

A bellow echoed through the room. He released my hair and scrambled off my back.

The door opened, and the man who’d fled stepped back inside, a pistol in his gloved hand.

“Dr. Pembrooke! She put an infected needle in my arm,” the one I stabbed began to scream. He didn’t move,