The first thing I saw was a big empty semi-circular room with a reception desk about twenty feet back from the elevator. Behind the desk sat a solitary chair. On the wall behind it, at eye level in a white, italic font, were the words Stanley Imports. A lounge chair for visitors sat on one side. On the other was a lonely pot plant.
Brodie and Dan strode into the middle of the room. Instead of following, I jammed myself between the doors to stop them from closing.
My stomach felt like it was full of jelly. There's something wrong here. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something didn't make sense. Something about the furniture…
Brodie stopped and glanced about for a door. Dan marched straight up to the reception desk. He looked ready to start picking up pieces of furniture with his mind and hurling them around the room.
The elevator door wanted to close. It hit my back and then slid back into the recess. Brodie turned at the sound and gazed at me. What are you doing? Then her eyes swept the room again and she frowned.
'Where are these turkeys?' Dan demanded. 'They're afraid to take us on.'
His eyes met mine, and I glimpsed a tiny shred of uncertainty in his face. It was hard to look tough when there was no one to show it to. The door of the elevator tried to shut again. There was probably someone on the fiftieth floor looking at their watch and wondering who was holding up the elevator.
Let them wait.
'Something's wrong,' I said.
Brodie looked at me worriedly. 'I think you're right.'
Leaning out into the foyer, I was just about to tell them to get back into the elevator when slots appeared in opposing walls. Machine gun muzzles appeared.
Dan looked confused. Brodie took a single step towards the elevator.
'Run!' I screamed.
The guns opened fire.
One second there was silence. The next, there was an explosion of sound loud enough to make your eardrums hurt. I threw my arms out, yelling, but my words were drowned by the rapid-fire of the weapons.
Brodie and Dan were both caught between the two guns.
It was certain death.
They threw themselves to the ground, but then bullets started slamming into the carpet, ricocheting off the ceiling, and cutting the reception desk and lounge chair to pieces. It should have been a bloodbath, but somehow, they were able to start crawling towards the elevator. A bullet ricocheted past my ear and smashed the mirror at the back of the elevator. Drywall dust filled the air, so much of it that it was almost impossible to see the others.
Brodie reached the elevator first. Dan was a few feet behind. She reached for him and dragged him into the elevator. Only then did I slam the button for the ground floor, wondering if Ravana and his men had some exclusive control over the elevator. If they did, then they could stop it from moving, and it was game over for us.
The elevator seemed to take an eternity, but the doors slid shut, and the elevator started to descend. A piece of mirror on the back wall fell off and broke.
Brodie looked at me, her face filled with disbelief. 'It was…it was…'
'A trap,' I said.
Dan was in a fetal position. Kneeling beside him, I searched for blood and didn't find any.
'Dan?' I said. There was drool around his mouth. 'Buddy? Can you hear me?'
'He's in shock,' Brodie said.
So was she, but I suspected she was better at hiding it. Still, her hair was everywhere, and she'd turned ivory white.
'Are you hit?' I asked.
'No.' She shook her head. 'Get him on his feet. We've got to move.'
Nodding, I somehow physically lifted Dan into a walking position and looped one of his arms around my shoulders. He was as pale as Brodie. I wiped the spittle from his mouth and got Brodie to recheck him. There was no blood. Somehow, they'd both escaped without a scratch.
He might be a mess now, I thought. Buthe sure came through back there.
The elevator doors opened, and Dan's legs started working on their own accord. His conscious mind was non-functional—shock, obviously—but his automatic functions—breathing, circulation, walking—all worked. The only evidence in the elevator that anything happened was the broken mirror at the back. Apart from that, there was no sign that someone had just tried to cut us to pieces in a hail of gunfire. The floor that Ravana and his cronies occupied was obviously soundproofed; otherwise, dozens of cops would have been pouring into the building.
Five minutes later, we were back in the car, and I was pulling into the traffic.
'It was the furniture,' I said.
'What?' Brodie said.
'I had a strange feeling about that reception area,' I explained. 'The lounge chair was brand new. No one had ever sat in it. That whole office was just a front…' My voice trailed off. It wasn't important now. I continued checking the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following, but there was no sign of anyone.
Up till now, Dan had been sitting in the backseat staring into space. He looked incredibly tired. Maybe it was delayed shock. Sleep was probably the best thing for him. Maybe for all of us.
'Things got pretty hairy back there,' I said, trying to buoy his spirits. 'But you came through, Dan. You saved our skins.'
He shook his head. 'No,' Dan said. 'That wasn't me.'
'What do you mean?' I said. 'You saved the day back there.'
'No,' he said quietly. 'I was a mess. Bullets were flying everywhere. I couldn't do a thing. Couldn't focus. Couldn't even think.'
'Well,' said Brodie. 'If it wasn't me and it wasn't Dan…'
It didn't need to be said. Up till then, I hadn't displayed any abilities. Nothing. The gunfire back at the building had been a turkey shoot, but someone had saved them from certain death.
Was it me?