Her vision blurred and lightheadedness struck. She swallowed hard and used both hands to lift the heavy weight of the handgun to take aim. The sound was loud as she kept firing but bullets tore through the metal and the lights flickered. She paused, holding her breath, until total darkness surrounded her. The emergency lights clicked on, dimly illuminating the hallway, but one glance at the nearest cell with an undamaged reader showed it was inactive.

“Thank god,” she breathed, realizing the doors would remain locked during a power failure. She hadn’t been sure if the safeguards on the doors were a part of the emergency backup system or not until then.

She crouched until she sat on her heels, keeping upright. She lowered the gun to her lap as she stared at the elevator that wasn’t affected by the localized power loss. It would open at any second and she’d face whoever was on the way down. The guards would kill her once they realized what she’d done. The cops would arrest her until they figured out who she was. She prayed for the latter.

The elevator doors opened and bright lights blinded her.

“Drop the gun,” a man yelled.

She couldn’t see their faces but didn’t have the strength to fight anyway. The gun slipped from her fingers. The lights came closer and pain exploded into the side of her face. The force sent her flying backward. She hit the floor hard and a moan tore from her lips.

Someone gripped her roughly by her arm and rolled her onto her stomach. Her cheek was pressed painfully against the floor as someone grabbed a fistful of her hair and her arms were jerked behind her back by someone else. The agony from the bullet wound made her scream. A boot planted hard on her ass, grinding her h*ps against the floor.

“Secure that bitch,” a stranger demanded.

Pain lanced through her. Whoever had her hair fisted in his hand was crushing her face against the unforgiving tile. The boot on her ass held her down so forcefully that she wondered if her hipbones would break from the pressure. The handcuffs being placed on her wrists were tightened to an excruciating point. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She would have screamed again but the pain became too intense. She had a hard time even breathing.

“Someone shot out the electrical box on this floor,” a man stated.

“The dumb bitch probably thought she’d kill the power to the elevator. Let’s get these doors open. I have a feeling we have live ones, guys. Let’s rescue them. We need to move fast. We don’t want this place to end up like what happened at that testing facility in Michigan last year. It could be wired to explode.”

Jeanie focused on one word. Rescue. They weren’t guards who worked at the facility. The men holding her down were cops. The fact that they hadn’t shot her already was secondary proof of their identity. She managed to suck in more air, breathing a sigh of relief. They won’t kill me.

Loud pops sounded. Some smoke filled the area but it wasn’t suffocating, more of a slight taste in her mouth and an acrid smell. She just lay there, hoping for respite. Her eyes closed—keeping them open seemed impossible. The boot on her ass shifted a little but it didn’t ease up on the weight holding her down.

“We’re here to save you,” a soothing male voice stated. “We work for people just like you who have been freed from these testing facilities. We’re going to take you out of here to your own kind.”

“Hello,” a deeper voice said. His tone was quieter but it carried. “I’m like you. See? We’ve come to rescue you. You are free now. These humans with us are good ones who work with our kind. We’ll take you to a safe place. We need to get you out of here. No one is ever going to chain you up again.”

She listened, hearing the same speech multiple times while they cleared cells of the test subjects down the hall. All fifteen of them on that floor had survived. She hoped the ones a floor above had been equally as lucky and that no one had managed to break through their cell doors. The cops were using some form of small explosive devices, something the facility guards didn’t have access to.

“Wait,” a soft, feminine voice protested. “Get off her. Tech Shiver?”

A gentle hand brushed hair away from Jeanie’s cheek. She forced her eyes open. It was difficult to even focus, the pain and coldness that racked her body growing worse. A pair of familiar dark eyes stared back at her and she tried to smile at 433. The other woman had dropped to her hands and knees next to Jeanie, so close to the floor that their faces were inches apart.

Jeanie opened her mouth to assure her everything was going to be fine, wanting 433 to know that she could trust her rescuers, but nothing came out. She couldn’t speak. Her throat was too dry and exhaustion had taken hold. 433 brushed her thumb along her cheekbone, growled, before jerking her head up. The sound deepened into a threatening one.

“She helped us. Get off her!”

“She’s not your concern.” The man spoke softly but his tone was firm. “Please back away from the prisoner.”

The thumb left Jeanie’s face and 433 rose to her feet, snarling. “Get off her! She killed them to save me. I smell her blood and she’s hurt. She needs a doctor.”

“Forget it. Let the bitch die,” the same man stated.

433 stepped closer and Jeanie couldn’t move her head enough to see what was going on but the weight on her ass was suddenly gone. A man grunted.

Another growl sounded, far deeper in pitch. “What is going on?” The angry voice belonged to the man who’d given the speech over and over to the men and women they’d been rescuing, claiming to be one of them.