Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

They shot through the lobby, almost certainly hitting nothing but air, but his only objective was to use them as a deterrent.

He heard rampant cursing, and the sicarios diving for cover.

He turned and leapt into motion, taking the stairs four at a time, making use of flexibility instilled from years and years of Muay Thai. The same agony greeted him with each step upward, but he’d discovered if he simply accepted it, it wouldn’t make him pass out. That had been his chief concern, but now he realised it was just bearable. Sure, the stairwell had constricted to a black leviathan pulsating and throbbing as it snaked upward into the unknown, but at least he could cover ground without losing consciousness.

He made it up three flights before the first gunshot rang past him, the angle only slightly too extreme to allow the sicarios below to squeeze off a decent shot.

Now.

Capitalise.

Clawing his way through the discomfort, he jerked sideways to the railing and pointed the Glock down into the abyss. He thought he made out a silhouette and squeezed a cluster of shots off — three, back-to-back-to-back. The muzzle flare showed the sicario’s head snapping backward, spraying blood over the two men behind him. His body bounced and thudded down the first flight of stairs.

Slater didn’t bother trying to shoot at the next two assassins. They were already drawing a bead on him, so he threw himself back behind cover and kept ascending.

His vision wavered, a little harder, and fear seized him.

You might actually pass out.

He searched for somewhere to regroup. He figured he was three storeys up, definitely amongst the residential apartments now, so he scoured the stairwell for the first available exit. He found it two flights up — a plain door reading Emergency Exit: do not obstruct. There was dull yellow light emanating behind the glass, and dull white light emanating overhead from an emergency light at the very top of the stairwell.

He pushed down on the handle and put his weight into it and smashed it open, stumbling through into a hallway with hard floors and bordered by decorative pot plants sitting on polished tables. A forward-thinking resident had already lit and placed candles along the length of the corridor, giving the whole space the vibe of a haunted manor.

A quiet, calm, respectable slice of Manhattan real estate.

Not anymore.

Slater made a racket as he powered down the corridor, searching for anything that might constitute an empty apartment. Numbers flashed by: 501, 502, 503, 504…

The door to apartment 505 flew open in his face.

He froze in his tracks, aware that half his clothing was saturated in his own blood, and his face was contorted with pain.

He came face-to-face with a woman in her late twenties, her features lit by the flickering candlelight. She was naturally beautiful — devoid of makeup, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She was still dressed in the remnants of smart business attire from a day at the office, with a collared shirt open at the neck under a black vest and a tight-fitting black skirt hugging her hips. She had pale skin and green eyes and long lashes and a face that he imagined would ordinarily be warm and inviting.

Now, it shifted from hopeful to reserved, then to outright fear.

‘Oh,’ she said, noting the blood all over him and the handgun in his palm. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you were a cop and—’

She was speaking faster and faster with each sentence, terrified of the potential consequences, and now she started swinging the door closed with enough verve to send a message.

Slater heard motion at the top of the stairwell.

The door was halfway shut when he lunged forward, shouldered it back open, and spilled through into her apartment.

46

She opened her mouth to scream and he grabbed her around the mid-section with his good arm.

He used the sole of his boot to gently push the door shut.

Then, just in time, he brought his good arm up and clamped his hand hard over her mouth.

She moaned into his palm, but he didn’t budge an inch.

They stayed that way, frozen in the entranceway. He could make out her features better here thanks to the handful of candles lit down the passage, resting on a pair of identical hall tables made of dark polished wood. The floor was thin carpet, cushy under his boots but not thick enough to mask the sound of footfalls entirely. So he didn’t dare move. He’d already cut it too close. If the two remaining sicarios found him like this, he didn’t fancy his chances.

Sometimes, morality spelled disaster. This woman would be caught in the crossfire and he’d hesitate before he shot at anyone if she was between them. The sicarios wouldn’t. They’d cut through her like she was meat to get to Slater.

If he was halfway coherent, he wouldn’t have bothered with secrecy. He would have let her shout for help, and when they busted through the door he’d be waiting there to shoot them in the face. But he could barely see straight. The blood had drained from his head minutes earlier, and if he didn’t sit down soon he’d drop like deadweight, passing out from the pain. He’d dislocated a shoulder before. This was nothing like that. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew a whole lot about discomfort. Whatever was happening in the socket had ratcheted his pain levels up to an unbearable height. It was affecting every part of his behaviour, from his choices to his balance.

Two pairs of thudding footsteps came closer and closer, reverberating on the other side of the door.

Practically running.

Zoning in on the door labelled “505”?

Slater tensed up. It took most of his conscious energy to keep the woman silent. She was writhing and struggling against his torso, but he clamped the palm harder over her mouth and the struggling ceased. Then he held his breath.

Closer.

Closer…

Right outside.

He had a choice to make. Take his hand off her mouth, switch