Ironheart (The Serenity Strain Book 2) by Pourteau Chris

Author:Pourteau, Chris [Pourteau, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hip Phoenix Publishing
Published: 2016-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

Iris Dufresne sat quietly on a toilet in the second floor ladies’ room. It was one of the few places she could get space to herself since TranStar’s on-duty personnel had been trapped here by the storms. Her mind returned to its constant refrain since the hurricanes passed. Stranded here and she hadn’t talked to Mark since Friday—almost five days ago?

Jesus, she thought. It feels like five weeks. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing they were his for the thousandth time.

Sheltering in place with Frank and the rest of the TranStar staff, taking semi-showers in sinks and waiting for the rest of the world to catch up—that had been their life since Glenn. TranStar’s separate power source kept it functional during crises like the hurricanes, but when everyone else was offline—EMS, law enforcement, the wrecker services—all she and her colleagues could do was sit and wait and be ready when the rest of the world came back to the twenty-first century. Then it was their job to make it possible for everyone else to do theirs.

Mark, I hope you’re all right.

Iris sent the thought into the ether as she had so many times in the last five days. She’d tried calling his cell with one of the agency’s satellite phones, but for several days the signal wouldn’t even go through. Finally she’d gotten voicemail and must’ve left a dozen messages. She’d given up hope of reaching him or hearing back from him anytime soon, but sometimes she called anyway, just to hear the sound of his voice in the voicemail greeting.

A muffled report from below derailed her thoughts. Iris’s ears sharpened. A gunshot? From the first floor? It had sounded so far away. But she’d been to the gun range enough times with Mark to know what a gunshot sounded like.

The boredom of the last few days gave way to a sudden sensation of helplessness. The fact that she was sitting on the toilet only sharpened her feeling of total exposure. She grabbed at the toilet paper roll, cursing as the lowest-bidder paper tore multiple times. Finally, when she’d cleaned up, she pulled up her panties and stood.

Then she heard movement outside the bathroom. The heavy tread of booted feet.

A man?

The bathroom door swung open on its poorly oiled hinges. Something metal scraped against its prefabricated surface.

You shouldn’t be in here, came the automatic thought. This is the ladies’ room.

The door closed again and she froze, half standing. Iris could hear the heavy, labored breathing of a large man. Something told her to sit back down. The little voice in the back of her head that reminded her to walk under bright street lamps at night in parking lots. It chimed in again, and she picked up her feet.

More boots running by outside. And she could hear voices. Radios. HPD officers on the move and sounding aggravated as hell.

Iris heard the man catch his breath. With the added weight of her lifted legs bearing her down, the polystyrene toilet was already biting into her ass.

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