Page 83 of Bolo's Curveball
I grinned, but it slipped off my face as a door banged open. We’d been quiet out here for too long and people were starting tocome investigate. Bullets hit sheet rock, peppering it over us as we ducked back into the open apartment door.
The girls screamed again and dashed out of the building. Thank fuck. My ears couldn’t take much more.
“We’re not going to have much time before someone starts calling the cops,” Relay gritted out as more gunfire spewed in our direction.
“I know.” I waited for a break in the shooting, then ran across the hallway and slammed into the door adjacent to the first apartment we’d come to. It gave way like it was made of cardboard. Loser ass contractors had used the cheapest fucking materials to build this place.
My pistol was already in my hand and I shot the man who came out of the back hallway pointing his own gun in my direction. We were having to make split second decisions on whether to shoot or not. It was a good thing we were fucking professionals. Reminded me of the drills they used to put us through back in the day, when we were still in the military. They set up a screen with scenarios like this and a plastic gun with a sensor in it.
Anytime you pulled the trigger it counted it as a kill. You had to decide whether the people coming at you were shitbags, innocent people needing protection, or whether the situation was too hazardous for you to engage the threat. I loved doing those drills. We’d had one guy who was terrible at it. He’d ended up shooting a mall full of civilians.
He’d eventually been washed out of boot camp—not an easy thing to do in the military. They’d honestly take just about anyone and just kept cycling you back through until you passed. This fucker was so bad at decision making—not to mention his qualification scores on the gun range were abysmal—that when he’d gone through with us it’d been his fifth time. He was doneafter that. Couldn’t say I blamed them. You couldn’t unleash someone like that on any population.
I cleared the rest of the apartment then went back to the door. Relay had already taken out the three fuckers shooting from the end of the hall.
The silence was occasionally broken by gunfire from above us. “You ready?” I asked.
He nodded, so I holstered my nine mil and set the shotgun at my shoulder. If they were going to hide in these apartments like roaches instead of coming out to face us, we were going to take the fight to them. It just meant I had to go in with non-lethal force once more.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed as I kicked open doors and we cleared out apartments. Any citizens we found we sent out the back door into the parking lot.
“Last door,” I muttered. “Ready?”
“Go.”
Fuck. They were everywhere. I shoved my shotgun behind me, letting it dangle from the sling and pulled my pistol as I moved out of the way. There were at least ten guys in this place. It was a bigger apartment than the others, like they’d made the other apartments smaller to build this room into a larger space. There wasn’t any furniture in here. Just tables with machines that were whirring and clacking. And duffel bags. They lined the fucking walls, stacked on one another. There were so many my damn eyes nearly crossed.
One of Relay’s rounds ricocheted and hit one of the bags, sending money spewing out of it.
I grunted as a bullet grazed my arm before embedding in the wall behind me. They’d been ready for us, listening to us coming closer and closer.
The window to Relay’s left exploded inward and OD came crashing into the room, followed by Merc and Drifter. It didn’t take long after that to mop up the fuckers shooting at us.
I looked over at them. “Talk about a fucking dramatic entrance.”
“Why use the door when you can go through a window?” OD asked with a grin.
“You took my damn kills,” Relay muttered.
“You needed the help,” Merc grunted.
“The fuck I did. You owe me now.”
“If you guys are here, that means we’ve been here too damn long,” I told them. “We need to get out of here.”
“Crowd outside is getting antsy,” Drifter said in agreement as he bent to look outside the broken window. “Couple are on their phones.”
“Shit,” OD muttered. “Drifter-”
“Upstairs is cleared,” Strike said as he walked into the apartment.
Flir’s eyes lit up when he saw the room. “Well, damn. That’s what they’re doing here.”
“What?” Relay asked with a scowl.
“Later,” OD said, shaking his head. “Drifter, Flir, go grab the SUVs, park them out in front of us, close as you can.”
They climbed out the busted windows and ran for the parking lot. The windows had some kind of privacy film put over them, before they’d been shattered, to make sure none of the neighbors could see what The Collective was up to when they used the apartment.
