Free Dreams in the Tower Part 2 by Andrew Vrana

pain. Tablet, gun and earbud scattered as Sabrina’s head found the wall and a throbbing fire in her head shook her senses. She lay there, unable to turn her brain’s signals into motion as precious seconds slipped away, until finally she remembered how to move. Getting to her feet was like climbing a mountain in one enormous step, and once she was upright a trickle of blood ran down from the place where her head had hit the wall. When the ringing in her ears finally abated, she heard Adelson on the ground beside her softly moaning, “Nooo. Oh, fuck no.”
    “Come on,” she called through the dizzy tunnel her head was squeezed into. “We have to move.” She pulled Adelson to his feet and started sprinting; a few seconds later she heard him panting behind her. When she got to the hallway where the battle still raged, she didn’t stop this time but ran on through the yawning emptiness. There were fewer gunshots now; the thunderous sounds had been replaced by desperate sobs and inhuman moans echoing out from the pitch black.
    Death was all around her now, keeping by her side no matter how fast she ran. Why? Why was she in this monstrous sepulcher built of metal and concrete? She decided it didn’t matter. She would run and run and get out and not try to make any sense of the dying in her wake. So she ran. And Adelson ran and gasped and sobbed behind her. She saw the coming wall just in time to turn the corner without slowing down or smashing into the concrete face.
    Seconds closed the gap between her and the pale light of the doorway.
    The first taste of night air was a relief beyond thought, but Sabrina didn’t stop running. Her head swam so turbulently she thought she might lose consciousness at any moment, but still she did not stop running. Behind her Adelson didn’t sound like he was in any better shape. But they kept moving, because to stop now was to die.
    Back through the narrow cut-through and the gate and there was the big black car, still ru nning, now turned facing the street they had driven in on.  As she threw open the passenger door and began climbing up, she saw that the other side was empty; the whole car was empty. “ Skexka ?” she called into the night. Nothing. But there was no time to be surprised.
    “You get in here,” she said to Adelson, who was just now catching up. “I’ll drive.” She raced around the protruding front grill, wrenched the door open, and got up into the driver seat.
    As soon as the coughing, sweating Adelson was in, she pulled out onto the street and stamped down on the gas pedal. She had no idea where to go or even how to get back to the highway, but she knew she had to get away from the warehouse. If she could just find the highway she could get back downtown and meet up with Jason—but how would she find him? Nobody had told her where the safe location was; she had been relying on Skexka getting them there afterward. The thought of the tablet she had abandoned in the dark hallway made Sabrina want to cry, to release everything that had built up inside her over the last half hour.
    But she had to stay calm. She was a GPA senior detective, and she couldn’t allow herself to break down like that. Adelson was pressed up against his seat, head on the headrest, eyes closed, breathing deep and measured. She followed his example and forced herself to breathe out some of the tension, some of the fear that had congested her mind and forced her to depend on instinct to get her through those last few minutes. As she began to think more clearly, she saw a road sign saying the highway was dead ahead, so she put on an extra burst of speed until, finally, they reached it. She sped through two red lights to get to the onramp: pursuit was a very real possibility, even if there was no sign of the black GPA cars behind them.
    She had to slow down to merge into a line of cars on the highway. Considering it was well after 3 a.m. and there should be no more than a handful of other cars