No Shelter Read Online Free PDF Page A

sobbing for a moment, looks up at me. She wipes at her eyes, scrambles to her feet. Then she just stands there, her legs shaking, biting her lip.  
    I motion toward the foyer door, say, “Go,” and she takes off, running awkwardly because one of her heels has fallen off and she’s too scared to notice or even care.  
    Then she’s gone and I start to head in that direction but pause when I realize I’m forgetting something.  
    Back in the other bedroom then, stepping over Jerold’s body, hurrying toward the bathroom, I knock once on the door and speak in Spanish, telling the girl that it’s okay, it’s me. I push the door open. The bathroom is empty. I take another step, confused now, and notice that the shower curtain has been drawn. I step over to it and pull it aside, find the Mexican girl lying in a fetal position in the base of the tub.  
    “Hey,” I shout, and when she looks up at me, I say, “Let’s go.”  
    She murmurs in Spanish, “Leave me here. They’re going to kill me anyway.”  
    In my ear Scooter says, “ Ah, Holly, what do you th-th-think you’re doing? Th-Those men are coming up the elevator right now. ”  
    I ignore Scooter and tell the Mexican girl nobody is going to kill her, that I’m going to make sure of it.  
    “You saved my life,” I tell her. “Now I’m going to save yours.”  
    She still doesn’t look convinced. I extend my hand, keep it there, listening to my heart palpitate in my ears, listening to Scooter telling me to hurry the fuck up. Finally the girl nods and takes my hand and I pull her out of the tub. Seconds later we’re in the main room, heading toward the foyer, and the entire time the girl hasn’t let go of my hand and I haven’t let go of her hand. Then we’re at the foyer door and I open it and step out at the same time there is a ding father down the hallway and the elevator opens.  
    I push the girl back into the room, crouch and aim at the elevator. But the people that step out are civilians, a man and woman dressed up for the club, and they’re laughing about something until they turn and see me and the gun I’m holding and their laughter dies.  
    Before I have a chance to lower my gun, before I even have a chance to tell them to get to their room, another elevator dings and the doors open and men appear, very bad men in suits, and they have weapons in their hands and see me and raise those weapons and begin firing.  
    The couple dies first. The woman screams and the man yells and they try to duck away but bullets tear into their bodies and then I find myself yelling too, raising the TEC-9 and returning fire.  
    I manage to hit one of the men. The other three step back to take cover in the elevator. I glance behind me, see the emergency exit, yell for the Mexican girl. Her face appears in the doorway but she looks scared and I know I should just leave her, that she’ll slow me down. Maybe these men won’t bother with her, will leave her alone, but it’s a very thin maybe. And besides, this girl saved my life when she didn’t have to and I owe it to her, so I yell at her again to move. She takes a step forward, another hesitant one, and I grab her hand and pull her forward and push her toward the emergency exit just as the three men step back out of the elevator.  
    I walk backward, firing at the men sparingly since I don’t have an extra clip. They take cover in the elevator again and I turn back around, sprint toward the door the girl has just gone through and slam it shut right as bullets rip into the door and shatter the glass.  
    The girl is already hurrying down the stairs. Following, I tell Scooter we’re in the stairwell heading down.  
    “ I know, ” he says.  
    “How?”  
    “ A sensor goes off. Look, the police have been tipped about what’s going on. A bunch of th-th-them are already in the lobby. ”  
    The girl is one flight ahead of me. I hurry to keep up. Breathing heavily, I say, “Nova, you there?”