Chapter 5 - The Trigger and the Escape
My fingers wrapped around the textured grip of the weapon.
I didn't think. I didn't remember if Miller had taken the safety off. I didn't care about recoil, proper stance, or sight alignment. I raised the heavy black steel with both hands, aimed it straight up at the blue surgical scrubs looming over me, and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The gun kicked violently in my hands, the flash blinding me for a split second in the red darkness.
Luke let out a sharp, wet gasp. The long steel syringe slipped from his fingers, shattering against the floor as he stumbled backward, clutching his right shoulder where a bright bloom of dark blood was rapidly spreading across the blue fabric.
"You... you shot me," Luke gasped, his voice filled with genuine, childlike astonishment, as if the laws of physics had personally betrayed him.
"Get out," I snarled, scrambling to my feet, bringing the gun up with two hands, resting the front sight directly between his glass-covered eyes. My body was trembling, my left hand screaming with broken pain, but my grip on the weapon was solid as granite. "Get out of this room before I put the next bullet through your skull."
Luke stared down the barrel of the gun. For the first time since I had met him, the clinical, god-like calm vanished from his face. In its place was something raw, ugly, and pathetic: fear.
He took a step back, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his respirator mask rising and falling in rapid, shallow hitches.
"You're a monster, Clara," he spat, his voice trembling with rage. "You're destroying a breakthrough!"
"One," I counted, pulling the hammer back with a heavy CLICK.
Luke didn't wait for two. He turned, burst through the ruined door of Room 412, and vanished into the smoke-filled, red-lit hallway.
"Mommy!" Addie shrieked from under the blanket, sobbing hysterically.
I dropped the gun onto the bed, pulled off my torn jacket, and wrapped it around my daughter, snatching her into my arms. "I've got you, baby! I've got you! It's over! Mommy's got you!"
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway.
"POLICE! CLEAR THE HALLWAY!"
A squad of tactical officers in heavy black body armor, armed with assault rifles and flashlights, swept through the smoke, their boots clearing the doorway of Room 412.
"Medic!" the lead officer yelled, seeing Detective Miller unconscious on the floor. "Officer down! Secure the room!"
Two officers dropped beside Miller, checking his pulse, while a female officer ran to my side, taking Addie and checking her for injuries.
"He went down the south stairwell!" I screamed at the tactical team, pointing toward the hallway. "He's wounded! I shot him in the right shoulder! He's wearing blue scrubs and a respirator!"
"Team two, move on the south stairwell!" the captain shouted into his radio. "Target is wounded and armed with chemical agents! Authorize lethal force!"
As the officers charged out of the room, I fell back against the hospital bed, holding my crushed left hand against my chest, weeping as Addie buried her face into my neck.
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He was hit. He was bleeding. His ghost-like invisibility was gone.
Now, he was just a hunted animal bleeding out in the dark.
