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“Margaret! Put it down!”

Tim saw her face change, instantly morphing from a hateful, snarling-eyed visage to a soft expression of love and concern — like someone had flipped a switch.

“Clarence,” she said, “Tim is lying to you. I’m not infected, he is. Kill him before he kills us.”

The heavy stairwell door slammed open. Klimas came through, his weapon up and aimed at Margaret in a fraction of a second.

“Otto,” he said. “You got this?”

“I do,” Clarence said.

Clarence’s aim didn’t waver. Neither did Margaret’s.

Klimas turned, opened the stairwell door a few inches and fired into the lobby. He yanked a grenade out of his webbing, pulled the pin, underhand-tossed it through the small gap, then slammed the metal door shut.

Tim heard the grenade explode, heard men and women screaming in agony.

An army of psychos and monsters were closing in from behind. An armed and infected Margaret Montoya blocked the only escape. If Clarence Otto didn’t shoot his wife, Tim was going to die one way or the other.

SHARPSHOOTER

Cooper Mitch.e.l.l was standing right there. Right there. Margaret had checked her suit, it was safe, had to be safe, the Antichrist was just a half-flight down and she couldn’t die not now, not now, not when her people were coming.

Clarence stood in front of Tim, who stood in front of Cooper Mitch.e.l.l. The look in Clarence’s eyes: pained, yet committed to doing his job. He wanted to believe she wasn’t infected.

“Margaret,” he said. “Put it down.”

Why hadn’t she just fired right away? She’d frozen, surprised by Tim, shocked to see her target right in front of her. She’d missed her chance.

“Clarence, listen to me,” she said. “Honey, Tim is one of them. Why do you think he told everyone I was inf—”

A crack sound echoed through the stairwell as something slammed into her hand. Her pistol clattered against the wall, then hit the concrete floor. She took a step back, looked at her hand … blood, spurting all over her CRBN suit … her index finger … gone.

She staggered, slumped down the wall.

But he didn’t shoot, I was looking right at him …

Clarence ran up the stairs toward her. Down by the landing door, she saw Klimas, his rifle pointed at her.

A curl of smoke drifted up from the barrel.

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Clarence grabbed Margaret’s pistol to secure the weapon, but there was no need — Klimas’s single round had blown the trigger clean off, snapped the guard into two jagged metal pieces.

He grabbed his wife by the shoulders, righted her.

“Margaret! Are you okay?”

A stupid thing to say. Her finger was gone She was bleeding all over the landing.

He heard voices, both in his headset and from the people around him. He heard Klimas urging Tim and Cooper up the stairs, telling them to head to the eighth floor, heard feet hitting concrete.

Margaret looked stunned. Blood spurted from her finger stump. Clarence holstered his weapon, knelt before her and grabbed her right wrist.