Page 63 of Baby Take Me Home

“Stop,” the second henchman said. He grabbed the extinguisher out of my hand and tossed it out of reach, then snaked a pistol through the partially open doorway and aimed for Magellan while watching me.

I held up my hands and feigned compliance until he shifted his gaze to my colleagues. Then I crouched, twirled, and kicked his pistol out of his hand. He reached through the door and struck me in the side with something, I wasn’t sure what. Not the extinguisher. Maybe a metal rod or some other hard object. I dropped to the ground, then spotted my awards lined up along the left edge of my desk.

I tried to remember the weight of each one in my hand and decided the lion-shaped Newcomer Award statue would be the heaviest. While the second henchman pulled his friend off the desk and out of the way, I grabbed my weapon of choice and pressed my back against the wall, as far out of his view as I could get.

“I did it!” Magellan yelled from where he was crouched with Jim and Stacy behind my desk. “The article is live!” My colleagues wooted and high-fived.

I remained still and waited. When henchman number two reappeared in the doorway, he had another gun in his hand, this one trained once again on my colleagues. I leaped up from my crouched position, drawing my arm back as I did so. I smashed my metal lion into the center of his face and he staggered backward.

There were more people dressed in black in the hallway. I tried to grip my award tighter in preparation for the next battle, but my hand was weak and the metal statue slipped out of my fingers. Pain exploded in my side where I’d been hit earlier, and I fell back against the wall and slid to the floor. All of the fight was knocked out of me, but no matter what happened next, the article was out in the world.

We had already won.

CHAPTER 27

TJ

I wasin the lobby of the building, weaving through the last few stragglers evacuating, when all hell broke loose on my comms.

“Two hostiles have set up a zip line from the building behind The Sun,” Penn yelled. “Hostiles approaching the windows on the fourth floor.”

I heard gunshots, then breaking glass.

“Two hostiles have breached the fourth floor,” Jensen said. “Repeat, two hostiles on the fourth floor.”

My cell phone rang. I answered, knowing it was Ashlee.

“We’re in trouble,” she said. “Someone’s on the fourth floor and I’m pretty sure it’s not you.”

“Fuck me,” my teammates shouted.

In the distance on her end, I heard someone call out, “Fire department!”

“Do not open that door!” I said. “I’m in the building, almost there.”

My comms cut out and my cell phone went dead. I was on the second-floor landing, taking the stairs two at a time when the comms kicked back in.

“Did they take down our system?” I asked Jensen.

“Just for a second,” he answered. “Those fuckers are good, but I’m better.”

“Li, I’m approaching from below,” I said as she approached from the top of the building. We met on the fourth floor landing in the stairwell.

I nodded and she drew her sniper weapon in front of her and entered first through the fire door. With my pistol drawn, I followed right behind her. Halfway down the hallway in front of us, one of the hostiles was on his back, dead to the world, whether literally or figuratively I didn’t know. The second had just turned away from his unconscious friend and back toward Ashlee’s office with a gun in his hand. Li aimed, but before she could squeeze the trigger, he stumbled backward and tripped over his friend, landing on the floor beside him.

Li pumped a tranq dart into each of them while I rushed ahead to the office. Ashlee’s editor and two of the writers were crouched behind the desk. Ashlee and the writer who was her nemesis, Magellan, were along the wall beside the door. He was crouched beside her and his hands were covered in blood.

“Ash!” I pushed the desk out of the way and knelt beside her. I moved Magellan’s hand and saw the small, precise wound leaking blood. “Ashlee’s been shot!” I shouted into the comms. “Penn get the hostiles contained so Doc can get in here.” I pulled off my tee shirt and balled it up. “Meet me on the roof. Jensen—”

“Medivac chopper already en route,” Jensen said.

I pressed my tee shirt over her wound. Her eyes fluttered and she smiled up at me.

“We did it. We sent the article. I’m safe now.”

“That’s right, baby, you’re safe,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’ve got you now.”

She closed her eyes and went limp in my arms.