The Collected

telegraphed it by tensing his shoulders, it might have worked. But by the time his elbow reached the point where Daeng’s gun had been, Daeng had already taken a step back, out of the way.

Harris didn’t give up, though. He whirled around, his fist flying out and catching the tip of Daeng’s chin. Leading with his shoulder, he knocked Daeng to the side and started running for the door.

Orlando’s shot went wide but Daeng’s flew true, his bullet puncturing Harris’s back before exiting the other side.

Momentum carried Harris forward another few feet before he toppled to the floor.

“?Dios mio!” the nurse cried out.

Orlando gave him a quick look. “Remember what I said about moving.”

The nurse nodded rapidly as he pulled his arms and legs toward his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Daeng reached Harris first and shoved him over onto his back. The man’s breathing was ragged, but his eyes were open.

“That’s a nasty wound,” Orlando said as she moved in next to Daeng. “Good thing we don’t need him for anything else, because he’s not going to be around much longer.”

“Still too long, I think,” Daeng said.

“True.”

“May I?”

“Absolutely.”

Daeng stepped closer so that he was looking directly down at Harris. “Look at me.”

Harris’s gaze jumped around.

“Here,” Daeng said, pointing to his own face. “Look at me!”

The man did so.

“You killed my friends and have been torturing another. That’s why you are on the floor now. That’s why you can barely breathe. And that’s why I am the last thing you will ever see.”

Daeng’s gun, already aimed at the man’s head, fired.

The nurse let out a yelp, but quickly covered his mouth with his hand.

“You all right?” Orlando asked Daeng.

He nodded and headed back to the hospital bed without saying a word. Orlando followed.

Romero had barely moved, his face even paler than before.

“There are consequences for every action, Mr. Romero,” Orlando said once she was standing beside him again. “You understand this because you were trying to pay back the men who attempted to kill you. I can sympathize to a point, but the problem is, those you went after are our people. No one goes after our people without consequences.”

“If you are going to kill me, fine. Kill me.” He tried to pump his chest out as if he were making it a target.

“Whether we kill you or not isn’t up to us.”

“Who, then?”

“The man you’ve been calling Quinn.”

Quinn and Nate raced down the stairs, back into the cellblock. Quinn was glad to see all the cell doors open, the rooms empty.

“Janus is probably trying to get out of the fort,” Nate said. “Which means he’ll probably head down to the wall exit.”

“The others are there. They won’t let him through.”

Nate threw open the door at the end of the block, and started to step into the intersecting hallway. “Yeah. We can trap him between-”

A loud crack echoed down the other corridor and through the doorway.

Nate yelled out in pain as he thrust himself back into the cellblock, hugging his left arm to his chest.

At first Quinn thought it had been a gunshot, but then he saw the wound on Nate’s forearm-a long red mark, not unlike those on Nate’s back.

A whip.

“He’s not downstairs,” Nate said through clenched teeth.

Quinn moved around him so he was closer to the threshold. “Which way?”

“To the left somewhere.”

Nate lowered his arm, fighting the pain.

“You going to be all right?” Quinn asked.

“Fine,” Nate answered quickly.

Keeping the suppressor tight against the wall, Quinn thrust his gun through the doorway and aimed it roughly in the direction the whip had come from. He let off three quick shots, spreading the fire from side to side.

There was a whoosh as the whip lashed out again. The tip hit his gun, missing his finger by less than half an inch. He shot again before pulling the pistol back.

“Together,” he told Nate, as he popped the nearly empty mag out of the gun’s grip and shoved in a new one. “I’ll take high.”

This time, they both swung their guns around and opened fire. When they heard the whoosh, they pulled their guns back. As soon as the whip cracked, Quinn rushed out into the hallway.

Janus was twenty feet away, using the corner of another passageway to stay out of line of fire. He was pulling the whip behind him, getting ready to strike again.

“Drop it!” Quinn ordered.

The whip flew out, and Quinn pulled his trigger.

Instead of a whoosh and a crack, there was a whoosh and a thud as the whip fell to the ground. Clutching his hand where his middle finger had been a moment before, Janus disappeared around the corner.

“Come on!” Quinn said to Nate, and started after the big man.

The narrow hallway Janus had been hiding in went back only fifteen feet before jogging right, so the big man was already gone when Quinn rounded the corner. At the next turn, Quinn slowed just in case Janus was waiting there to jump him, then stepped around it, his gun held ready.

What he found was a well-worn staircase leading down, but no Janus.

Quinn turned on his mic. “Orlando, Janus is heading your way.”

“My way?” she said after a short delay.

“We think he’s going for the exit in the wall. Send Daeng out to-”

“We’re not in the room.”

“You’re not? Then where are you?”

Another delay. “On our way there now.”

“What about the others?”

“The others are there and armed. And I’m pretty sure they’d be happy if Janus suddenly showed up.”

“Okay. We’ll meet you there.”

Though he wondered why Orlando and Daeng weren’t with the freed prisoners, there was no time to think about it at the moment. Still taking point, he and Nate ran down the stairs, and followed the passage until they came to the widened area outside the room Peter and the others were waiting in.

Janus, bloodied but obviously not broken, was trying to pull the door open. He raged and pounded against it when it didn’t budge, and yanked the handle again.

Quinn and Nate stopped a few feet into the room and raised their guns.

“I believe it’s locked,” Nate said.

Janus whirled around, panting like a bull in a ring, his eyes angry and wild.

“Calm down there, buddy,” Quinn said. “Nothing you can do now.”

Janus shifted his gaze from them to the door and back. “Let me out! Let me go!”

“That’s not going to happen,” Quinn told him.