55

The Traveller slammed into the side of the ambulance and staggered back, dazed. The Desert Eagle slipped from his fingers and clattered across pavement and tarmac. He almost lost the gun beneath the ambulance, grabbed it before it went under the wheel, and threw his body towards the covered walkway.

The barrier that had risen to let the ambulance through dropped back into position. He hit it gut first, and his momentum carried his torso over, the earth spinning around him until the ground hit his back hard enough to drive every bit of breath from his lungs.

He rolled to his side, got back to his knees, then pushed away again. His lungs screamed for oxygen as he hauled the air in with desperate gulps, but he kept moving even as the black sparks danced across his vision.

Hard, quick footsteps slapping against concrete somewhere behind. A voice ordering him to stop. He spun, fired blind at whoever followed, kept running. Where to? He didn’t know. His mind lurched as it tried to function amid the adrenalin’s phosphorescent burn.

The car park.

If he could get there, lose himself among the rows upon rows of vehicles, maybe in the shadows of the lower level …

The footsteps faster now, closer. ‘Stop!’ the voice called.

A gunshot cracked, aimed overhead. A warning. The Traveller ignored it, willed his legs to move faster as he ducked under the shelter of the walkway, pedestrians leaping from his path as he tried to use them for cover. Up ahead, the steps down to the lower level with a pay station at the top of them. If he could get that far, he’d be safe.

He ran from the shelter of the walkway, dodged a car, kept his eyes on the stairway as it came closer. An old man was studying the pay station, coins in his hand, confusion on his face. He turned to see the Traveller barrelling towards him.

The Traveller pushed him out of the way, scattering coins across the concrete, a curse taking the last of his breath. He didn’t see the nurse until there was no avoiding her. His chin connected with her forehead and the ground disappeared from under him.