Infection Runs Deep

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RADIOLOGY

"See you on the flipside."

The last thing that Luke said to me before we got separated. So classically him. A little snark, a lot of emotion, though hidden in his nonchalance.

"Come on, Liz, we need to get the hell out of here. We've hidden long enough." Warner extended a hand to help me wriggle out of a dead CT scanner, one useless without power. Isn't everything?

"What? No comment on the new nickname, Liz?" He elbowed me gently in the side. Letting out a soft sigh, he looked at my pityingly. "We'll find them. It'll be fine."

I don't know who he thought that he was convincing with that lie, but I nodded anyways.

"Do you think they're gone now? The assassins?"

Warner waved his hand in a so-so motion. "It depends. They could be staking us out since it's only been about an hour since the shootout." He swallowed hard. "They might have gone after the others."

I didn't know which was worse at this point. "You really think that they'd have left by now?"

"Who? Luke and Ian or our lovely new friends?" Warner started forward, glancing around the doorway to see into the hall.

Since we were in the radiology room, there were no windows. Despite that, we had to be careful. Who knows if the people after us had made it into the building.

"Both, I guess," I said, shrugging. "I'm concerned for them and us."

Warner hesitated, then leaned back against the wall and looked at me seriously. "We'll make it out of this. All of us. Ian and Luke, they're pretty resourceful. They've probably gotten out already." A long breath escaped his lips into the empty silence that usually held the hum of the scanners and the buzz of the ceiling lights. "If they did, they might have gotten away quickly enough that the assassins couldn't catch up to them. Judging by the angle of their shots, I'd wager that they were in the building across from us. Good sightlines, but they'd never make it down to the street if they wanted to keep laying down fire to keep us pinned."

"So that means they're still here." I bit my lip and dared peek out into the hallway myself. "Do you think they'd come into the building?"

Warner shifted onto his feet. "I doubt it, but I don't want to take any chances. If I were them, I'd stake out a few key entry points and wait us out. Eventually we'll need food and water. When we're tired and deprived of resources, that's when I'd attack."

"Oh," I said. That was so reassuring. Warner could see that his plan just caused me more anxiety.

He backtracked, reaching out to reassure me. "They probably won't do that. I don't know how extensive their training is."

We both knew that the words were pretty but meaningless. These were assassins, they had to be well-trained. Besides, Warner and Luke were well trained from their time under the Colonel's tenure. If the Colonel was the one that hired them...

"Should we just take our chance then? It's been long enough, right? If they were going to breach, wouldn't they have done it already?" I tossed him a nervous glance. Maybe it was commonplace for Luke and him to be under fire, but it wasn't for me. I was just a doctor. I never had bullets fired at me.

Warner hesitated. "To be honest, the answer is never clear cut. We never truly know. Sometimes we just have to make a choice." He ran a hand through his hair. "And yeah, sometimes we fuck up but that's a part of life. It's the ability to make that choice that we have to hold onto. There's going to be times where we don't have any options. So yeah, this sucks, but we can make do."