The hiss of bullets passing by her ears had her fighting the urge to jump in response. They came from her left side – the side facing her men. She listened again. The sound of bullets cracking against the concrete mixed seamlessly with the cries of her team.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Three more shots. All from the same direction. From her estimate, they were coming down at an angle, possibly from the ceiling. With her goggles in place, Alexis held her gun in the direction she heard the shot and fired blindly. She emptied the magazine and reloaded as more bullets buzzed across her ear. One coming too eerily close to her cheek that she felt the kiss of air.
Steadying her breath, Alexis stood from her perch on the floor, her back pressed against the cold concrete threatening to seep into her skin, her heavy clothes doing little to provide warmth.
With a quick glance at the floor with the night-vision goggles, she took in the massacre before her. The men’s screams had stopped, their shallow breaths fading into the background of the bullets still echoing in the hall.
“I found an exit. Go back to the room on your right. There was a false air vent that leads to a ground-level door. You’ll have to find a way to get up there, but that’s your only way out. The rest of the cartel was entering the bunker as we speak.”
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Alexis said, “I couldn’t leave my men.”
It was a creed she’d always followed, so had Heath. So, it surprised her as he said, “If you want to live, you have to. They’re almost gone, Alex. I’m not getting a reading on any of them. Now get out of there.”
She took one final glance at the men that had worked beside her for the last few weeks and whispered a prayer that she remembered.
Resolute, Alexis cleared her mind of the ambush and slinked her way back toward the room she had walked past, constantly scanning her surroundings with her gun drawn. The handle of the door pressed into her hip, and without turning around, Alexis twisted the knob from behind and slipped into the room, praying that she wouldn’t find anyone inside.
Slowly she closed the door, her hand still holding the twisted knob to avoid as little sound as possible. Alexis turned on her heels, scanned the room with her gun, and breathed a sigh of relief to find it empty.
“The room was all clear,” she relayed to Heath.
Through the earpiece, she could hear a struggle. Alexis paused, not knowing if her friend was being attacked or killed while she’s stuck in this room, helpless.
“Heath! Heath, what’s going on?”
“Sorry, Alex. Had some douche try to sneak up on me. Don’t you worry, I got him taken care of. Now, let’s get you out of there.”
The relief that washed over her was immediate and overwhelming. She didn’t want this mission to go more awry than it already was.
Knowing that her friend was safe, Alexis frantically searched for a way to reach the vent, but the room was empty. Nothing except her and the cold concrete – and her lack of height.
“I couldn’t get out this way. I have no way to reach the vent.”
Shit. She knew where there were chairs though, but backtracking seemed like her worst possible nightmare. And she knew by now that the upper level of the bunker was going to be swarmed with cartel members.
“Heath, I have to go back to the basement entrance. I can get a ch
air from that room. It was my only way out.”
Alexis heard his muffled curses before he agreed to her plan, promising to keep watch through the drone and her on-person camera.
As she exited from the room back into the hallway, she was greeted by silence. The shooting had stopped, but she didn’t doubt for a second that she was in the clear. Using soft, swift steps, Alexis strode back to the end of the hallway. The opening that she had left opened, now closed as she had heard not five minutes before. She should have turned back at that point, saved the team. But hindsight was an unyielding demon. It would devour you from the inside, leaving you rotting in regret.
The first thing she noticed as she slowly opened the door was that light illuminated the space. The once haunting square of concrete now resembled a mildewed storage room.
Voices sounded in the distance, far enough away that she should be able to grab the chair and leave without notice.
But as she stepped into the space Alexis realized that she should have known better. This entire mission was a catastrophe from the start. Why would this moment turn out differently?
The instant her hand touched the back of the chair, the series of voices traveled down from the steps. They approached the room and Alexis knew that her time was limited.
Thinking on her feet, she grabbed a second chair and lifted them both under her arms as she performed an about-face into the hallway. Alexis placed one of the chairs on the floor and maneuvered the other in front of her body, preparing to lodge it under the doorknob to buy her some time. It wouldn’t be a lot, but she’d take any few extra seconds that she could.
The men filed into the room with a woman tied up and dragging behind them. Alexis could see that the fight in her was gone and she had succumbed to the death sentence she was about to endure.
Alexis’ body flinched at the sight, and she knew if she didn’t escape that she’d be in the same position as the woman. Her need to fight took over her body.