*
Quinn's hopes had risen when she'd heard that Tim had escaped; they'd leapt higher when Verran said there were a couple of deputy sheriffs up in the lobby. Now they soared as Verran and Alston walked out.
That left only one man to get past. But big, blond Kurt was the most formidable.
She spied on him through her lashes: For a moment he stood at the door to the hall, watching Alston and Verran head for the first floor, then he closed it and approached her. Quinn closed her eyes.
'C'mon, baby,' he said, his voice close as he shook her shoulder. 'Wake up and play. Ol' Kurt's got something for you. Something you're gonna love.'
Quinn repressed a shudder and willed her body to remain limp as his fingers moved to her throat and began unbuttoning her blouse.
'You're too fine to waste without a little taste. Ol' Kurt's gonna get some of you before you become a french fry.'
He opened her blouse and pushed up her bra. Quinn locked a scream in her throat as his rough palm cupped over her left breast and squeezed.
'Mmmm, they ain't big but any more than a handful's wasted, right? C'mon, honey. Wake up. Ol' Kurt wants you to know what's happening. He ain't into humping corpses.'
He leaned over her and began nuzzling her neck as he unbuckled the belt on her slacks.
'Wish the hell you were wearing a dress,' he mumbled against the flesh of her throat.
Quinn couldn't take any more. She came unglued. She opened her eyes and saw his ear an inch away from her lips.
In a panic, she bit it.
She more than bit it. She locked her teeth onto the earlobe and ground down with every ounce of strength in her jaws. She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and held on, rising off the couch with him as he reared up, howling in pain, trying to beat her off. Despite the pounding impacts of the blows, Quinn held on. Her rage and terror were in control now and refused to allow her to let go. Finally, with a violent shove, he broke her grasp and sent her sprawling against the console.
He leaned against the wall, groaning in pain, blood running down his cheek and neck from under the hand he had clasped over the side of his head.
'My ear! You bitch! You bit my fucking ear!'
Quinn felt something soft in her mouth. She spit, and gagged when she saw a bloody earlobe splat on the counter. Thoughts of AIDS skittered fearfully across the surface of her mind, but vanished in the urgent need to get out of this place and away from this beast.
Quinn tried to dart past Kurt but she wasn't quick enough. His hand caught her arm and he whipped her around, sending her sprawling back onto the couch. He came toward her with his right fist balled, his arm cocked, and murder in his eyes.
'You just made the biggest fucking mistake of your goddamn life!'
Quinn screamed and raised her arms to protect herself, then gasped in shock as a familiar face appeared over Kurt's shoulder.
*
Tim was pushing his legs as fast as he thought they'd safely carry him—he couldn't afford to fall now—but when he heard a faint, high-pitched scream that sounded like Quinn's voice, he ditched all caution and broke into a tottering jog.
He reached a door marked ELECTRONICS, threw it open, and saw Kurt, the big blond son of a bitch who'd punched him in the nose. His back was to Tim, but there was no mistaking him. He was leaning over a woman on the couch. Her blouse was pulled open, one breast was exposed, her mouth was all bloody, and she was screaming.
Quinn!
Tim almost lost it then. Any other time he would have leaped on Kurt's back and begun flailing away at him, but he knew he hadn't the strength to do much more than annoy him. Restraining himself, he uncapped one of the syringes in his hands and slipped up behind Kurt. As he raised it over the exposed back, he prayed this dose worked a little faster than the one he'd emptied into Doris's pleural cavity. With a grunt of effort, he drove it into Kurt's chest and pressed the plunger almost immediately.
But the needle struck a rib and bent, jamming the plunger. Kurt let out a howl and straightened up. He whipped his right arm around as he turned, leading with his elbow. Tim tried to duck but his reflexes weren't up to it yet. The flying elbow caught him on the side of the head, sending him sprawling against one of the consoles. The remaining syringes slipped from his grasp as the room dimmed and wobbled.
'Well, I'll be damned!' Kurt said. 'Look who it is: the asshole from Ward C.'
With the whiteness of his rage-contorted face accentuated by the glistening crimson smear painting his left ear and side of his neck, Kurt was a fearsome sight as he closed in on Tim.
'You've got no idea how much I'm going to love kicking your trouble-making ass!'
Tim looked around for the syringes and spotted them on the floor by his feet. If he could get to one, maybe he could inject Kurt in the belly. But as he reached down, Kurt's right fist caught him with solid uppercut to the face that knocked him to the floor. His vision swam and he lost sight of the syringes, of Quinn, of everything but the berserk monster looming over him.
*
For a few heartbeats, Quinn couldn't move. One moment she'd been cowering on the couch, waiting to be bludgeoned by Kurt's fists, the next Kurt was turning away from her, and battering Tim.
Tim! He was down now, huddled against the wall, virtually defenseless as Kurt began kicking him. She had to do something.
As she rose from the couch, she automatically tugged her bra down over her breasts, but she left her blouse unbuttoned. She needed a weapon, something she could use as a club—or a knife. She noticed a syringe dangling from the back of Kurt's shirt. As she watched, it slipped from the fabric and fell to the floor.
Quinn spotted a number of other syringes scattered on the floor and her mind began to race. Obviously Tim had brought them. He'd tried to inject Kurt with one. What was in them? A sedative? A poison? Or...
...9574?
Of course!
She snatched a pair off the floor, uncapped both, dropped into a crouch, and crept up behind Kurt where he was viciously driving those big boots into Tim's slumped, defenseless body.
'Stop it!' she screamed as she plunged one of the needles to the hub into the back of his thigh and emptied it.
It wasn't an intravenous injection, but if nothing else it would stop him from kicking Tim.
Kurt grunted and lurched around, clutching at the back of his thigh. Quinn tried to jab him with the other needle but he took an off-balance swing at her and she had to duck away.
And then she saw that the door was wide open and the path to it was clear.
She ran.
'I'm going for help, Tim!' she shouted as she passed him.
Tim lay slumped on the floor, a still, bloodied form. She didn't know if he heard her or not, wasn't sure he was still conscious—or even alive. A sick, cold anger added its own power to the terror already fueling her feet. Kurt had hurt Tim. She'd get him for that.
Heavy, pounding footsteps behind her shattered her little fantasy and yanked her back into horrific reality. She had a good lead on Kurt but she didn't know where she was going. The elevator was out of the question.
She lost a few steps as she slowed, reading the signs on all the doors. And then she saw the EXIT sign. She lost more ground pulling open the door, ground that Kurt did not lose because he caught the door before it closed —
—and he grabbed Quinn as she reached the first landing.
He snagged her ankle and wrenched it back and up, trying to topple her. Quinn clung to the railing with her free hand and twisted around to look down at him. With the blood oozing along the side of his neck and soaking into his collar, and with a grin as triumphant as it was ferocious, Kurt looked like an escaped lunatic. He had her now.
