There was a brief pause in the gunfire. He hauled her to her feet and pushed her behind a huge steel vat. She could smell the chemicals, something akin to chlorine, almost like the pool she used to swim in as a child. He whispered harshly, “Stay put,” and disappeared into the darkness.

She had every intention of listening to him. The firefight was moving away from her, deeper into the plant. She grasped her Glock hard. Her fingers started to sweat on the trigger.

She heard a shuffling sound. Someone was running toward her. The footsteps coming closer. Friend or foe?

She didn’t have a choice. She had to stop whoever it was. She swallowed hard, then whipped out to her left, into Riley Dixon’s path.

He was huge, taller than Xander, bulkier and desperate. The lights above showed his face, eyes wild, mouth grim. An enraged bull on the run.

She didn’t think. She didn’t move. She held her ground and squeezed the trigger, three times, in quick succession, just as she’d been taught.

Riley’s momentum carried him right into Sam, and they both went down hard on the cement floor. He was on top of her. He must have weighed two hundred twenty-five pounds. He was big. Really big. So big he was starting to crush her.

She could hear him wheezing, and felt wetness begin to seep onto her chest. She’d definitely hit him at least once.

Center mass. She’d gone for center mass, and Riley hadn’t been wearing body armor.

He must have been stunned, or bordering on unconscious. He was laid out flat on top of her, breathing stentoriously, arms dangling to the side. She was trapped, and she started to panic.

She tried pushing him off her, but two-hundred-plus pounds of dead weight was too much to shove from the angle she had without help. Finally, she was able to wiggle out, scraping her fingers and back on the hard floor.

She wanted to call out to Xander, listened hard for the rest of the team. She couldn’t hear anything but Riley’s heavy wheezing. Out of habit, she put her hand on his neck, feeling for a pulse. It was fast, but steady. He wasn’t about to die on her.

She couldn’t see the gunshot wound, though she knew vaguely where it must be. She tugged at his shoulder, braced her feet and rolled him onto his back. He flopped over, and his head smacked the floor. It sounded like a knock against a ripe cantaloupe. Serves you right, she thought. I hope that hurt.

She skimmed her hands along his chest until she found the wettest spot. Ripped his shirt open. Without good light, she had to feel her way through the wounds. She was surprised; she’d hit him all three times. Two bullets had passed through his side. She could feel the exit wounds in the back, but one had landed more centrally, breaking a rib, which must have punctured his lung when he fell.

“Leave him be.” Robin Souleyret was standing over her, gun pointed at Riley’s head. She kicked away his weapon, and Sam heard it skitter away into the darkness.

“Did you get the canisters?” she asked.

“We did. We stopped him. The stupid, arrogant fucking bastard. Don’t you dare try to help him. Let him bleed out like the animal he is.”

“I’m half tempted to listen to you, but I’m afraid I have to help him.”

Then Xander was there. “No, you don’t. Leave him. Fletcher’s called for backup—they’ll send an ambulance.”

She wanted to argue, but acquiesced. She stood, feeling slightly dizzy. She’d just shot a man. She, who was honor bound to save lives, had very nearly taken one. From scalpel to gun, she thought dimly.

Robin was staring at her strangely. “Dr. Owens? Dr. Owens?”

Sam heard the words, saw Robin’s mouth working. But she suddenly sounded so far away, almost as if she were in a tunnel. She could hear Xander shouting, and saw his face, a kaleidoscope of horror. There was pain then, sharp and awful. It took her breath away. From far away, she heard other voices raised in alarm, but then she was floating, and felt nothing but warmth, and peace...

Chapter 54

George Washington University Hospital

SAM WOKE TO sunlight streaming aggressively through an unfamiliar window. She was on her side, facing this explosion of light, and it hurt her eyes. Groaning at the intrusion, she tried to roll away, and a fire started in her ribs and spread into her left arm, leaving her breathless.

“Sam? Samantha? Honey, are you awake?”

Her eyes began to focus again. Xander was standing over her like an avenging angel, his hair sticking out at all angles, face bruised and blackened, deep shadows of worry under his eyes.

“You look like hell,” she croaked. He started to laugh, and she slipped away.

* * *

When she woke again, she felt much more lucid. It was dark outside the window, but there was a humming white light over her head, long and strangely artificial. A fluorescent bulb. Lord, she was in the hospital. She recognized the smells and the noises, the faint beeping of her heart monitor. Her hand went to her face. She felt the soft whish of oxygen shooting up her nose, burning as it went.

Xander was asleep in the chair to her right, his head at an awkward angle. She hated to wake him, but her side ached, and inside, too, a pain she’d never felt before, and she wanted to know what was happening.

“Xander,” she said, voice like gravel. He didn’t move. She cleared her throat, and the ripping noise woke him. He smiled at her and scooted over to the bed. His voice was gentle, soft, completely at odds with the wild man he looked.

“Hi, babe. You’re back.”

“What happened?”

“Who told you it would be a good idea to step in the path of a bullet?”

“I was shot?”

“Yeah. Nicked a few organs, but you’re okay. They got all of it, though it took them a while. It fragmented against a rib when it ricocheted out. You’re gonna have a couple of kick-ass scars.”

He sat on the edge of the bed gingerly, wiped her hair back from her face.

“Did we stop him? I shot Riley, but that’s all I remember.”

He nodded. “He’d managed to get three canisters into position in the water, but Fletcher—that man’s smart, and quick—called for Metro to kill the power grid. The emergency generators kicked on, but not before we pulled the canisters out of the water. Then we shut down the whole plant. They are monitoring the water closely. They’ve advised no one to drink it for a while.”

“Dixon? Is he alive?”

Xander’s face hardened. “Yes. I really need to teach you to shoot better. You hit him three times, but none of them counted.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him, just stop him.”

“Like I said, I really need to teach you better.” But the tenderness of his touch belied the gruffness of his words. “The shithead managed to get a shot off as he was going down. We think it ricocheted, came up at an angle, nicked your spleen and liver, hit your rib, then came out your side and buried in your bicep. You’re kind of a wuss, you totally fainted on me. So we got you here to GW lickety-split, and they fixed you up.”

“I’m a wuss, huh? Where’s Fletcher?”

“He went to grab us some coffee. You should taste it. I swear, I think they make it vile on purpose.”

“Chalk? And Robin? Is everyone okay?”

“We’re all fine, baby. We saved the world. It’s you we’re worried about.”

She shifted, felt the knife-hot pain in her side, decided she’d stay right where she was. “Ouch.”

“Let me get the nurse. She wanted to know when you woke up.”

Fletcher came in the door then, saw her awake. A huge grin split his face. He handed Xander his coffee, kissed Sam on the forehead, then stood over her with a mock frown on his face, shaking a finger. “You are not allowed to do that to us ever again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

He softened. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have left you there alone. I thought you’d be safe.”