At the doorway, Jae, gun in hand. A sour frown on his face. “Stand up.” He reached a hand to Fantine.
Fantine took his hand. “You should have run.”
“You’re my daughter. You get to bury me, not the other way around.”
Fantine snatched the gun from him. “Fine, come on.” She led Jae to the elevator and slapped the call button like it owed her money. The elevator came without a sound. The doors slid open. She shoved her father inside. “Go to the main floor and call the cops.”
“What about you?” Jae held the elevator doors open.
“There are still guys here that need help. Maybe I can get a few together and we can all make it out of here.”
Jae shook his head.
“No speeches, just go upstairs.” Fantine raised the gun. “I’ve had more practice with this thing than I’d like to admit. I’ll be okay.”
Jae watched her and slowly pulled back. He reached to the elevator’s button panel and pressed the one marked M. “Fifteen minutes. Then I come back down for you.”
“Make it twenty. Those old man feet are slow.” She smiled. “Check if the phones work upstairs and call the cops.”
“I will. If you’re not back in twenty minutes, I’ll come running.” The elevator doors slid closed.
Fantine leaned against the closed doors and sighed. “Love you, Dad.” She turned and went back down the hallway. She had a gun and a plan—well most of a plan. If she couldn’t save Pete, maybe she could save some of the others, and if she played it smart, maybe she could get past Placido and his nurses. All she had to do was get a few of these donors out.
“Quick and easy,” she lied to herself, “Quick and easy.”
15
Opening the first door to her left was the only quick and easy thing about Fantine’s idea to save Placido’s victims. Inside the room, five flat panel TVs played the same porn flick on mute. The victim—her college-aged patsy from the other day—was strapped to a reclining chair with a rig set up to turn on whenever the kid’s unit did the same.
“Fucking hell.” Fantine frowned. Her disgust outweighed the adrenaline quickly and she suddenly found a severe lack of desire to touch anything in the room.
Not that the kid really noticed her. He seemed to be in a stupor. His eyes were fixed on one of the screens, but he was bobble headed. He turned his eyes to Fantine and gave her an idiot’s smile. “Hi.” Slurred speech. He drooled as he spoke. “I remember you.”
A lot of good this was going to do her.
Fantine ignored the sedated state of her damsel in distress. She shut off the machine attached to the poor sap’s privates and pulled the tube away. Walked around the back of the reclined chair and lifted the victim up by his armpits. There were wires hanging out his ass, just like Pete. She sighed, closed her eyes, wrapped her hands around the wires and pulled. The pop Fantine heard as the wires went slack made her stomach turn. “Pull up your pants, jackass.” She released him when she could tell his legs were braced.
He followed instructions—a good thing. Fantine wasn’t about to help him get sorted out. Things were desperate, but not that desperate. She imagined the shower she would take if she made it out of this. Hours under scalding hot water would be necessary.
The other rooms were in similar states—drugged up, college-aged men with tubes attached to their dicks and roofied to the gills. After collecting eight of them, Fantine managed to find two with enough tolerance to the sedatives to patrol the halls for other victims. Fantine pointed them all to the elevator and continued searching the area. Where was Placido? Hell, where were the rest of his people?
Searching the rest of the floor was fruitless. Fantine made her way back to the elevator. The rescued were all gone. She hoped they made it out—maybe even met up with her father. They’d all stand a chance together. She hoped one of them was clear-headed enough to call the cops if Jae hadn’t already. Deep breath, she thought to herself, things were going to work out. Placido seemed content to be busy with other problems. She slapped the call button to get the elevator and stood in wait. Checked the gun she’d taken from the nurse Jae killed. There were a few bullets left, but she wasn’t raring to use the thing. There were enough bodies on her conscience.
The elevator bell pinged and the doors slid open. Fantine looked up to see Placido—his face red.
“You,” he roared and grabbed her by the shoulders. Spun her around and ran her into the back wall of the elevator car. He shook with rage.
Placido hadn’t noticed the gun and she’d been smart enough to keep a grip on it, so Fantine lifted it. Braced the barrel under his chin.
“Easy, big man.” She bared her teeth. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
The elevator doors slid closed behind Placido. He furrowed his brow and took a long breath before letting go of her. Muttered a string of curses in a language she didn’t know. Fantine eyed the numbers on the digital readout above the rows of buttons for each floor in the building. It counted up from the sublevel they’d been on—six—to one. She wondered how much further to the ground floor.
The doors slid open and the two nurses from earlier stood in wait with a glass container that stood about Fantine’s height. It was filled to the lid with product.
Without hesitation, Fantine trained her gun to the container and popped off three shots. The container shattered. Its contents spilling onto the floor. Then she placed the barrel back under Placido’s chin. She heard his skin sizzle from the gun barrel’s heat—smelled burnt hair. One of the nurses was smart enough to backtrack away from the gunfire and mess. The other one—the one who seemed to know about storms earlier—didn’t have that same instinct. He lost his footing and fell onto the remains of the container a jagged shard of glass cleaving into his throat and through his chin. The blood was sudden and plentiful. The poor bastard twitched and gargled.
“Jesus,” Fantine couldn’t hold it in.
The distraction gave Placido an opening and he took it. Batted her hand to the side and delivered a haymaker to Fantine’s jaw.
Fantine’s vision blurred, her neck snapping to the side. She couldn’t hear anything—felt like she was floating. Her back was against the wall again and when the world snapped back into frame, Placido nearly had his nose pressed against hers. No, it wasn’t his nose—it was the barrel of the gun.
“This is getting tired, cadela,” he nearly spit out the last word. “It is over.”
Fantine felt water on her face. Great, she thought, tears. What a way to go. Her jaw was throbbing, she barely remembered her last name, and now she would give this piece of shit the satisfaction of being vulnerable at the end. She tried to blink back the tears, but that made it worse. Now it felt like half of her face was soaked. Her head felt cold.
Fantine blinked again. “Wait…”
Placido looked up. “Oh no…”
The water came down in a rush, taking panels from the elevator’s ceiling down with it. One managed to strike Placido on the shoulder. Fantine noticed the movement and lifted a knee into his groin, shoved him aside and ran. She nearly slipped on the mix of blood, cum, and storm water, but kept her footing long enough to gather the momentum to break into a sprint. There was a sign only a few feet away labeled Staircase A. She nearly broke her neck trying to stop long enough to catch hold of the doorknob to open it, but it was managed. The drywall behind her exploded—Placido was shooting now.
Fantine ignored it and ran into the stairwell. Water was cascading down the stairs from above. The place stank—brackish—like river water with hints of bleach. She made her way upstairs only to find herself face to face with the nurse who’d run away earlier.