Page 122 of Fatal Pattern

Barclay’s shots kept coming. Wild. One-handed. The rounds landed two feet wide. He had one working eye and a shoulder Blade had pulverized. He couldn’t hit her if she stood up and waved.

But he could hit Stryker. Stryker was a stationary target.

She picked up both stones.

Lord, I need a David and Goliath here. Please.

Wells’s gun went quiet. He was reloading.

She hurled the small rock into the steel beams overhead. It rang hollow and loud.

Wells’s eyes went up. His hands paused on the reload.

She stood and threw the big chunk at his face with everything she had. The concrete connected. The magazine spun away across the floor.

Tori came out from behind the pillar at a dead run, boots loud on the concrete.

Barclay fired, but his shot went wild.

“Wells.”

He looked up.

She fired two shots. Center mass. He stumbled back, hit the wall, and slid. His wide eyes found hers.

“Impossible,” he whispered.

The agent over by Blade snatched his knife off the ground.

“Blade!”

Blade’s head came up. Groggy. His hand came from behind his back with his gun. He fired from the ground.

The agent standing over him dropped.

“Sebastian!” Barclay was beside Wells. Pistol gripped in his good hand, he patted Wells’s slack face. “No. Sebastian, no.”

“It’s over, Barclay.” Tori stared at him down her sights.

“You,” Barclay snarled, getting to his feet.

His gun came back up, aimed for her. He fired three shots, fast and wild.

Tori kept moving. Her ears rang with the shots.

Click. Click. Click.

The pistol’s slide locked. Empty.

He threw the gun at her and she dodged it, closing the distance in three strides.

She jabbed once, the impact running all the way to her elbow. Then she drove her right leg forward, hip rotating through the arc. Her boot connected with his midsection.

The teep folded him. Barclay went down backward, then rolled, grappling for Wells’s gun. She kicked the pistol into the dark and stood over him with her own Glock pointed at his face.

He looked up from flat on his back. His eyes were wet and his mouth was working, but whatever he was trying to say had already left him.

“You should have died with them,” Barclay finally spat out.