The Pulse by Shoshanna Evers

going to die.
    It made her feel invincible.
    Could she bash the door down, tackle the guard—maybe hit him over the head, or poke his eyes out—and escape?
    Only one way to find out.

Mason walked slowly along Fifty-Seventh Street, enjoying the feeling of his limbs stretching out.
    He swung two dead rats by their tails. His secondary rat nest had been in surprisingly good shape considering how long he’d had to leave his rats to fend for themselves.
    He’d make himself dinner at his apartment and clean his new guns. After a year of exposure to the elements, both weapons needed some TLC, that was for sure.
    Two men were talking as Mason rounded the corner to Trump Tower. Freezing, Mason flattened himself against the building and listened.
    “Fucking squatters,” one man said. “Found himself a pad in Trump Tower. Bet he was on welfare before the Pulse.”
    “Opportunistic fucks, am I right?” the other man said. Then—”All right, Andrews, how we gonna do this?”
    “We go up, find the bitch’s leak, and kill ’em. Then I’ve got a date with Emily.”
    It took every bit of self-control Mason had to not open fire on them right then and there.
    And the only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t know how many more of them there were. Two against one was bad enough, especially since he hadn’t gotten a chance to test his new weapons yet.
    What if he took aim and missed? What if the gun misfired, or the sight was off? It was too risky.
    They must have Emily.
    Fear washed over him like ice water. Damn that stubborn woman—he never should have let her leave.
    Andrews said he was going to kill him. And if they had gotten here, they must have either found his address in Emily’s bag, or tortured it out of her. He prayed to God it was the first and not the latter. The thought of Emily being in danger, being hurt—he could barely breathe.
    He had to help her.
    Mason stayed where he was until he heard the men go into the building. They wouldn’t find him there ever again. He’d have to leave everything and start over.
    All his possessions, what few things he’d been able to acquire, were gone now. It was like when he first escaped from Rikers—alone, with only the clothes on his back and a gun.
    But this time, instead of spending all of his time and energy avoiding the law, he’d have to go right into the heart of the army. He had to rescue Emily—so he’d go to the military camp.
    Grand Central , he thought, watch out.
----
    Emily stared at the door, her only way out of Lanche’s room. Okay, she could do this. Just like when she used to watch television and the cops would ram their shoulders against a door, breaking it open.
    The soldier outside wouldn’t be expecting that—she could catch him off guard.
    She went to the far side of the room so she could get a running start. Man, if only she had big broad shoulders like Mason. Her puny bony ones were probably going to shatter before the door would. But that didn’t matter—not if she was going to die anyway.
    She may as well go out with a bang.
    On the count of three , she thought.
    One. Two. Three.
    Emily stormed the door, twisting at the last moment and throwing her shoulder against the rough wood, slamming into it so hard she literally saw stars in her vision for a brief moment.
    The soldier outside yelled “What the hell?”
    But the door, she realized dismally, was still fully intact. She hadn’t even dented it.
    A loud booming noise startled her as the guard behind the door rapped his fist against the wood sharply. “Whatever you’re doing in there, stop it.”
    Damn it. That was it. That was all she had, and it hadn’t done a thing. The door was too hard. But what about the display window? She’d dismissed it earlier as a way to certain death, but she’d run out of options. It was painted glass, so obscured she almost forgot it was there. Glass she could break out of.
    This… this could work.
    She would have to be careful. There were so