The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(110)

The metal groaned, and I watched it flex inward. I pulled out my final magazine and set it down in front of where I knelt. “Short, controlled bursts,” I reminded them. “When they get in, try to plug the door with their bodies.”

Harry and Gregory nodded, shouldering their rifles. I took a deep breath to clear my mind, and then followed suit. The door continued to flex open, the blue-gray paint flaking off the surface as it warped underneath. The top hinge ripped, the rod in the middle of it clattering free.

The sound stopped suddenly, and then the door came flying right toward us. I ducked down, but Harry got caught in the shoulder. The bearded man cried out as he fell over, the door landing partially on top of him.

I began firing at the hole even before I was fully looking at it. Sparks flew as I hit the wall, but I adjusted fire and shot the woman stepping through in the chest. Her body crumpled, but another woman was already there pushing past her falling form. Gregory got her with a single shot to the head. We continued to fire, the loud sound of the gunfire ringing in my ears, making it difficult to hear anything.

The third woman tripped over the first woman as she fell, but the fourth woman wasn’t where I expected her to be in the doorway, so I almost missed her as she swung up and over the third woman, landing hard on her feet and then rushing forward. Gregory fired, but she sidestepped him and then kicked me in the chest.

I staggered back a few feet, the breath knocked out of me. Doubling over in pain was a reflex, but it was one that could get me killed. So I straightened and moved, ignoring the panicked signals being emitted by my internal organs. I managed a small gasp of air as I scooped my gun off the floor. Gregory was kicking the woman off of him, having disabled her in close combat, and he turned to confront the next woman coming in.

I had started to fire, when the sharp sound of a thud against the second door behind us had me whirling. The hand wheel shook, but the wrench held fast, locking it in place. The shake stopped, and I turned back to the fight in time to see Gregory being lifted off his feet by one of the wardens, his face purple as he gagged for breath. I leveled my gun at the woman and fired, catching her in the side. She fell, and Gregory dropped to his hands and knees, his hands around his throat.

I started to fire at the next person, but then ducked when I heard the sound of metallic rending coming from behind me. Whirling around, I saw that the door had been ripped outward this time. I squeezed the trigger to fire at the next woman as she came through, and my gun clicked empty. With a curse, I ejected the magazine and reached for the spare, stopping when I realized I had left it on the floor earlier.

Then she was on me, her hand configured into an openhanded tiger paw technique. I recognized it, although I had never tried it out. I dipped under her sweep and landed a stiff hit with the butt of my rifle to her ribcage on my follow-through, using her momentum to my advantage. She let out a sharp chuff of air as she flew by, and I danced back, my eyes sweeping the floor for the magazine.

I saw it sticking out from under Harry’s leg, and bent over to grab it. I straightened, slapping it in and turning to fire at her as she was getting back off the ground. Then I fired at the one rushing for Gregory, and at the next one coming through the first door. I expected yet another, but the areas beyond both doors appeared clear—although who knew for how long.

Then I moved over to Tim, kneeling next to him and putting my back to the console.

The air around the doors seemed still, but I didn’t trust it. “Status, and I need your rifle.”

Tim didn’t pause in his motions, didn’t even seem to acknowledge me as his fingers flew across the keyboard. “Almost there,” he whispered as he shifted his weight to one leg and nudged the rifle propped up against the console. I reached around him and pulled it over, dismayed that it wasn’t the same type as mine.

That meant our ammo wasn’t interchangeable. A shadow crossing the light from the door to the left caught my eye, and I swung my rifle around to shoot at it. Gunfire came from their side too, and then suddenly died as my bullets found their mark.

“Viggo!” I turned and saw Alejandro looking just past me back toward the right. Gregory lay on his stomach, his eyes wide open, glossy. I stared at the bullet hole in his head, my heart clenching. He had been right there fighting next to me. I had just been joking with him less than an hour ago.

“Alejandro,” I croaked. “You got that door covered?”

“I do. I got a rifle, too.” The old man’s voice was grim, angry, and hard. He knew what I knew—we were probably not coming out of this room alive. I tightened my grip on my gun and thought of Violet, hoping she wouldn’t be too angry with me for too long.

Tim didn’t falter beside me, the rapid click of buttons being pressed filling the room. I heard gunshots come through in the door I was looking at—the one that led to the other vat room—and noticed the still mostly intact door lying on Harry. In the chaos, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, but I couldn’t risk helping him just yet.

Taking advantage of the lull in battle, I gripped the detached door and began to pull it toward Tim, intent on giving the young man as much cover as possible. Alejandro watched me in confusion, and then I saw the hard understanding come into his eyes as he realized I was trying to protect Tim until the bitter end.

I propped it up at an angle between the floor and the wall, and it covered most of his torso and one of his legs. His head was still very much in view, but it presented a small target that most people didn’t instinctively go for in a firefight. Hopefully it would buy him some time if I wasn’t able to cover him.