Free Xenofreak Nation by Melissa Conway

him to let us in.”
    “We?” Bryn asked weakly.
    Maria pushed the door open and Bryn saw Kim grinning over her shoulder. “Those reporters are nosy, did you know that? Told ‘em my name was Sally Forth.”
    Maria raised her hand. “Anita Man.”
    There was nothing else to do. Bryn couldn’t hide in her room forever. “Nice to meet you.”
    Kim was the less diplomatic of Bryn’s two best friends. She walked partially around the bed to get a good look at Bryn’s head from all angles.
    “It looks awesome!”
    “What?” Bryn felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
    Maria sat on the bed and put her hand on Bryn’s arm. “It does. It’s totally you.”
     
     
     

Chapter Sixteen
     
    There were seven people seated around the conference room table and one guard standing outside the door. Padme and Barney, both wearing businesslike suits for the occasion, sat next to their court-appointed counsel. Scott, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved dress shirt, sat by Shasta, with Marcus Quick on his other side. The Assistant District Attorney had spent the last ten minutes trying to persuade defense counsel that it was in their clients’ best interest to cooperate in the investigation. He was having very little luck.
    “I want the location of Fournier’s lab. This is your one chance at leniency and it expires in the next ten minutes,” he said. “I’ll leave you to discuss it.”
    He signaled the guard and left the room. Across the table, Padme and Barney’s shared attorney began whispering to them behind her hand. Padme didn’t bother to lift her ear to hear.
    To keep up appearances, Shasta, too, leaned over to speak quietly to Scott.
    “She’s not going for it,” she said, referring to Padme and the deal they never expected her to take. “Are you ready?”
    He shook his head, like he was rejecting whatever she said to him, but responded, “Yep.”
    Under the table, she passed him the key to his handcuffs and pushed her chair back. “You’re going to regret this.” Her voice rang loudly enough for all to hear. She stood, turned her back on him, and moved toward the door, calling out, “Guard!”
    The guard entered on cue, stun gun drawn. Scott was instantly up with his arm around Shasta’s neck, claws at her throat. The other attorney screamed and ducked under the table as Barney leapt to his feet. The guard swung around and fired, his one charge sinking into Barney’s chest and incapacitating him with a high-voltage jolt. Padme scrambled out of the way, around the table behind Scott, who threw Shasta to the floor and laid the guard out with one punch.
    The guard’s body blocked the door open and Scott leaned out to look up and down the hallway. No one in sight, as planned. To Shasta, he growled, “Which way is out?”
    She was good; her terrified victim imitation would have fooled him if he didn’t know it was an act. “Right,” she said. “Turn right. But you’ll never get away.”
    He bent and snatched her ID from where it was clipped to her shirt. “Purse,” he snapped. Shasta handed him her purse, hand shaking.
    He turned to Padme. “Coming?”
    She looked flabbergasted, but nodded.
    He rolled the guard’s body into the conference room and the door shut and automatically locked. Almost immediately they heard muffled banging and shouting from inside. They turned right down the corridor, unimpeded. Ten yards away was a door marked ‘Exit.’ Scott swiped Shasta’s ID through the card reader and opened the door onto a parking lot.
    “That was too easy,” he said, looking all around.
    “I agree.” Padme squinted in the unaccustomed sunshine. There were people in the distance, but no one noticed the fugitives as they walked quickly away from the building.
    Scott rummaged in Shasta’s purse and pulled out her keypad. “Damn it. Password.”
    “Here.” Padme grabbed it, snapped the back off and poked around inside, still walking. Scott had been counting on this. Late model