Page 16 of Alpha Infected
“Help!”
Hazard froze. “Did you guys hear that?”
“Yeah,” Ice agreed with a frown creasing his brow.
“Help!” the whisper came again. “Over here!”
They scanned the area looking for the source of the voice. Hazard found it first. Down the hall, a bathroom door was cracked open and a woman’s small brown face peered out at them from behind it.
“Major,” Hazard softly called out. When he had his squad leader’s attention, he nodded toward the woman. Hazard led the way as they cautiously made their way over to her.
“Hang back,” Ortiz ordered before she moved forward alone to check out the situation. “Ma’am.”
“Thank God!” she cried out. “We’ve been in here since yesterday and didn’t know how we were going to get out.”
Ortiz raised a finger to her lips, signaling for the woman to talk softly before she spoke again. “We?”
The woman pushed the door open a little wider. To the team’s collective surprise, there were about twenty-five traumatized looking people crammed into a women’s restroom.
“We ran in here when that nightmare out there started. We were all too terrified to come out but when we heard gunfire, we realized rescue must have arrived.”
“Is anybody in there bitten or scratched?” Ortiz asked.
The woman vehemently shook her head. “No. None of us.”
Ortiz nodded. “Give me a second,” she said before she fell back to speak with the team.
“Fucking hell,” Hazard swore. “I can’t believe there’s survivors in this place.”
“Do we take them with us?” Jax asked.
Ortiz’s answer was immediate.
“No. It’s too risky. That many people moving will attract another horde. And we can’t be worried about defending them when we’re trying to get to the antidote.”
Jax flicked his gaze toward the woman anxiously waiting. “They aren’t going to like it.”
“Too bad,” Ortiz said with her typical pragmatic gruffness.
She returned to the bathroom to speak with the woman again.
“Sit tight. Our mission isn’t to rescue survivors. But we’ll send the calvary to get you out. Stay back from the door andkeepquiet. Understand?”
The woman’s eyes went huge with horrified shock.
“You’re leaving us here?”
“If you leave that bathroom now a lot of you will probably die. There’s too many of you for the four of us to protect from the infected roaming the building. Stay, wait for a rescue team, and you’ll live. You’ve got water and toilets. You couldn’t be in a better place to ride this out.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Hazard spied Ice restlessly shifting his shoulders. “Clock is ticking, Major,” Hazard reminded her. They needed to get that cure, preferably before Ice turned.
Ortiz stepped back. “Close and lock that fucking door,” she ordered the scared woman. “Now.”
Tears spilled down the woman’s cheeks, but she obeyed Ortiz’s order, slowly shutting the door.
“Jax, mark it so the rescue team knows where to find them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
