Chapter 14: The Corridor

The security chief's bullet took a chunk out of the podium an inch from Astrid's ear.

She fired once.

He dropped his rifle and went down with a hole through his shoulder, roaring.

"Hit the floor!" she shouted to the room. "Everybody on the floor!"

Three hundred people obeyed.

Guards on the walls were shooting at muzzle flashes now, and the flashes were their own.

Astrid got an arm under Vaughn and hauled him up.

He was heavy and slick with blood, and he tried to walk on his own.

"Stop it," she said. "Lean on me."

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding on my dress."

"It's a borrowed dress."

"Then you owe someone an apology," she said, and dragged him through the stage curtain.

Behind the stage a service corridor ran the length of the building, lit by one red bulb.

Two guards stood at the far end with their rifles up.

She dropped Vaughn against the wall, rolled out and shot the left one in the knee and the right one in the thigh before either could aim.

They fell and screamed.

She kicked their rifles away and kept moving.

Another guard came around a corner, and she put him on the floor with the butt of her rifle.

Another came behind him, and she shot him through the arm.

She did not kill them.

She had killed twelve men on Devil's Isle, and she found that tonight she did not want to.

"You're sparing them," Vaughn said behind her.

"They have mothers," she said. "Walk."

The corridor ended at a steel door.

It was locked, and she put a round through the lock and kicked it.

It opened on the loading dock, and on a black van with its side door already slid back.

"Took you long enough, Majesty," said Duncan from the driver's seat.

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