Two gunshots rang out to his left, much louder than the shooting from out in the corridor. He dropped to a crouch and turned toward the gunfire. “Jo!” he called out.
“You shot me! I’m gonna—” a rough voice said as Reese inched closer.
Another gunshot barked and Reese heard the unmistakable heavy, wet, thud of a body as it hit the floor. “No,” he breathed.
Reese slid to a stop around the corner of a pile of firewood. Jo stood over the bodies of two men, one naked from the waist down. She held a massive revolver in her shaking hands, arms outstretched and still pointed down at the men on the floor. A pool of blood spread from under the bodies. She noticed it and stepped back.
“Jo,” Reese said slowly. Her shirt and shorts were smeared in blood and torn in several places. The right side of her face was one massive bruise and a chunk of gray-brown hair had been ripped from her scalp over her left ear. “What happened?” he breathed.
Jo looked up from the bodies, a haunted, wild look on her face. Her eyes focused on him and Reese watched as she came back to herself. She shivered, then cracked a weak smile. “They…”
Reese rushed to her side and took the weapon from her limp grip. “I found you.”
She nodded and smiled. “Nothing gets past you…”
A massive explosion shook the building and the noise alone made Reese and Jo stumble into a stack of children’s toys. Reese winced as his wounded shoulder slammed into a box of dolls with glassy eyes. “Why did they steal these?” he muttered.
“They’re idiots, that’s why,” Jo said as she tied her loose, greasy hair into a quick knot at the base of her head.
Screams and gunfire crackled on the other side of the flag at the entrance to the conference room. Reese crouched and sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
Jo looked at him. Her nose was caked with dried blood that covered her upper lip as well. “I can’t smell anything. Really?”
“Sorry,” Reese muttered. “Smells like smoke.” He looked down at the bodies at their feet. “What did they do?”
“Called me an Aggie,” Jo drawled. “Can we talk less and escape more, please?” asked Jo when a round of gunfire erupted nearby. “That was way too close—you know how to get out of here?”
“Yeah,” Reese replied. He raced around the pile of dolls and paused at the conference room entrance. Someone fired a shotgun and shouted for help, just on the other side of the flag. Reese pushed his back against the wall and waited while Jo found her first aid bag and checked that everything was still there.
“At least they didn’t take the antibiotics …so,” she said as she slung the bag over her shoulder, “we just walk out there? Don’t seem like a very good plan to me,” she muttered.
Reese frowned. “Hey, who’s doing the rescuing here?”
Jo looked at him out of the corner of one bloodshot eye. “Took you long enough.”
The green, white, and orange flag next to Reese’s head twitched as a bullet punched a hole through it and sparked against the far wall.
“Tommy! Milo! Get out here!” someone hollered out in the corridor. “We need help! The pigs are here!”
“They’re everywhere, I—” called another voice.
A burst of gunfire cut off the speaker, and the flag flipped aside as a large man backed into the room. He leveled his rifle and fired a three-round burst back out into the corridor. Jo screamed at the noise, but Reese barely heard her. He didn’t know who the man was, but he knew he wasn’t one of the people who came with Lieutenant Decker, and the gothic tattoos on the guy’s neck indicated he was with the Scavengers.
“Hey!” he yelled as he aimed out into the corridor. “They got Manny! Leave him and help me!”
Reese aimed the pistol he took from Jo at the man’s head and squeezed the trigger.
The rifle clattered to the floor before the body.
“I just killed that guy,” Reese breathed as he looked at the pistol in his hand.
“Just takin’ out the trash,” Jo replied evenly. She grabbed the abandoned rifle on the floor and peered out into the hallway. After a quick check to see how many rounds she had left in the magazine, she reinserted it and pulled back the charging bolt. “Now, which way do we go to get out of this nightmare?”
Reese swallowed. “Follow me.” He ducked under the flag and stepped into the hallway. Smoke billowed overhead, like a black snake that writhed along the ceiling. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t stopped all the gunfire. Rifles and pistols crackled and barked back and forth. Someone rushed past Reese and knocked him back into Jo, who cursed, and barely managed to keep them both upright.
A woman and three teenagers ran by, their eyes wide. “How do we get out?” she yelled.
“That way! Go straight, the exit is the last hallway on the left,” Reese explained.
“Tell the others!” she called over her shoulder and herded the teenagers ahead of her. “The whole building is on fire!”
Reese yelled at her back as she ran off. “What others?”
“Them others!” Jo called. Reese turned—at least twenty more people barreled down the corridor toward him. Gunshots erupted behind and to either side of the group. Several fell and disappeared under the stampede.
“The prisoners—Decker must have released them,” Reese yelled over the din. “Let’s
