“Shit!” Ellie screamed as she stumbled back.

The sound hurt her ears when the car crashed into the doors. She ended up flat on her ass on the floor. She watched smoke rise from the damaged front-end of the car as the engine died. The glass doors held but as her gaze lifted upward, to her dismay, she realized the impact had created a good five-inch gap of buckled doorframe at the top.

“Oh God.”Ellie muttered, stunned.

The windows hadn’t broken but the building holding them in place had. She continued to sit there until the three men pulled their buddy out of the trashed car. He looked dazed but the airbag had saved him from severe injury. The four men studied the damage to the top of the doorframe, grinned, and then started to push the smoking wreckage away from the dorm. They maneuvered the car off the sidewalk and onto the grass, clearing the way for another vehicle assault.

Ellie struggled to her feet and ran for the house intercom system. She knew those men were about to use the truck to push those doors completely down to gain entry. She hit the com button. Her heart threatened to explode from terror but she tried to keep her voice calm.

“Locking down emergency doors,” she stated clearly. “I repeat, locking down emergency doors. Get to safety now,” she ordered the women. “Go to the third floor. Everyone run, damn it. They are breaking into the building. I won’t hit the secondary emergency doors until the last minute but move it.”

She released the button and wrenched open the emergency panel box under the com system. On the second and third floors were steel doors for the stairwells, the elevator, and there were also steel shutters that would cover the windows. It was a last-ditch emergency resort in case the lower floor was breached after lockdown. The interior doors that divided the levels were ten inches thick, weighed thousands of pounds, and the exterior shutters were bomb proof. They would also seal off the floors inside the elevator shaft.

Ellie twisted her body enough to view the damaged wall section over the front doors but could still reach the panel. One of the men climbed into the big pickup truck, verifying her worst fear. The men laughed while they talked, having a good time plotting how to kill her. She grimaced and hoped they’d bullshit for a bit longer while her women moved to a higher floor. She knew time was up when the driver’s door closed, the truck engine roared to life, and it drove right over the body of a dead security guard. The driver maneuvered the truck to line up with the doors. Damn.

“Ellie?” Breeze’s voice came from the com speaker. “We’re all accounted for on the third floor. Get up here now.”

Relief swept through Ellie. “Are you sure you are all there? Are you positive? Sky and Blue ran in last.”

“They are here,” Breeze assured her. “Get up here with us or I’m coming down there to get you.”

“Protect yourselves. I’m safe,” Ellie lied.

She wished she could go up there with Breeze but someone had to activate the emergency doors from the panel where she stood. Whoever had designed the building had made that a flaw, in her opinion, as she stood there knowing how vulnerable it left her. They should have installed trigger panels for the blast doors on all the floors.

She punched the three digit code into the emergency panel and twisted the key. A loud siren blasted through the house in fast bursts. She knew steel doors and shutters slammed down on the upper floors of the building. The women would have been safe on the second floor but she wanted them higher up and harder to reach, just in case those men found a way to breach an interior door. She hadn’t thought the dorm could be broken into but she’d been wrong. She wasn’t taking any chances by making anymore incorrect assumptions.

Ellie slammed the emergency panel closed. She knew the security center had to be getting the signal by now about what she’d done. That system ran on a wireless connection with the cameras. It was a safety backup in case the phones weren’t working and the electricity went down so they could still monitor the emergency systems. It reassured her, thinking security had to know she’d just put in the last protocol of protection, which meant the dorm had been breached. They’d come faster to save her.

I hope. Please get us some help right now.

* * * * *

Rage gripped Justice. He found himself locked inside the main security control room watching the screens filled with images around Homeland. Fifteen trucks had driven inside after they’d car bombed the front gate. Shots were being fired, people were dying and he was trapped inside a steel box to watch it go down. His people were in danger and he wanted to help them.

“Calm down,” Darren Artino demanded. “The SWAT team and local law enforcement are on their way. The buildings have been locked down, everyone is aware there’s a problem, and your council has been secured inside a safe bunker. You’ve been watching everything just the way we have. It’s only my security force being killed out there. Your people are safe.”

“Sir,” a woman yelled. “Uh, there’s a big problem.”

“What,” Darren Artino snapped. “We have a hundred of them right now.”

“It’s the woman at the women’s dorm. She stopped trying to wave us down and she just put in the last protocol code. She’s triggered the Hail Mary doors.”

“The what?” Justice growled the words. He wondered if steam came from his ears. He’d never wanted to feel helpless again after he started his new life but he did at that moment. It infuriated him.