The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

We’re getting close, she announced.

And then one of the heavy doors in this passageway creaked open, emitting a bleary-eyed maid carrying a stack of folded sheets before any of us could even think to use our suits. The woman came to an abrupt stop, her eyes trained on us. Ms. Dale lunged for her, but she tossed the sheets up with a shriek and began to run.

“HELP!” she screamed.

The next moment, two wardens appeared ahead, and I dodged down the hallway to the right, Morgan following suit, while Ms. Dale went left.

“It’s on this side,” she shouted to us. “I’ll give you covering fire… one at a time.”

I nodded and rose to a crouch, facing Ms. Dale. She nodded too and then turned down the hall, using the corner as cover and firing at the two guards. I ran, and gunfire erupted loudly down the hall, drowning out the relative quiet. I made it safely across—they were aiming at Ms. Dale, who ducked back, ejecting a magazine and pulling out a new one. Her hand shook, the swelling having reached the palm, but somehow she managed.

Morgan caught my eye, and I watched as she backed up a few steps and then raced for us, her legs blurred. She dove, arching her back like a swan taking flight, and then curling seamlessly into a roll as she landed on our side, propelling herself right back onto her feet.

There was a delayed burst of gunfire, and then Ms. Dale tugged a grenade off her belt, pulled the pin out with her teeth, and tossed the thing haphazardly down the hallway.

I was already moving with Morgan down the hallway, Ms. Dale close behind me. We were about ten or fifteen feet along it when the grenade went off. The floorboards shuddered underfoot, and a blast of heat tore down the hallway, dissipating only slightly before it reached us—small patches of fire burning behind us and a haze of smoke surrounding us. Morgan led the way through it, her gun drawn and her eyes wary.

Well, they definitely know we’re here now, Ms. Dale transmitted. They’ll be coming.

Are we close?

Ms. Dale hesitated.

I’m not entirely sure. Two hundred feet is hard to gauge. We’re in the right—

A burst of gunfire sounded from behind us, and Ms. Dale grunted and fell forward into me, dragging me down. Morgan stepped to one side, her body reacting before she could stop, and her arm went up, firing two silenced rounds behind us. I heard a thud as a body hit the ground, and looked to see a woman down, another woman ducking back around the corner. I fired a few shots at the wall near her, keeping her back.

Ms. Dale cursed a long string of obscenities into the comms, and I turned to see her on her side, her hand on her lower back just below the bulge of her vest. Blood streamed steadily from between her fingers.

Help me move her, I shouted to Morgan, and together, we dragged her into a side room that turned out to be a cupboard of some sort, Morgan keeping her gun trained down the hall.

We can’t stop for first aid, Ms. Dale gasped. Just pick me up—they’re going to be closing in.

Let me get a pressure bandage on it at least, I urged, pulling my bag around. I froze, forcing myself to stop what I was doing, when I heard shouting carrying down the halls. It was muted by distance, but not by much. Morgan was already picking Ms. Dale up, throwing her arm around her shoulders. Coming around to her other side, I took her other arm and wrapped it around my neck before placing my hand over her wound.

She gasped, and then gave me a nod.

Let’s go, she said, her face strained and tight with pain.

I moved back to the door and pushed it open with my toe, my gun in the hand supporting Ms. Dale, trying to ignore the sensation of blood creeping under the fingers of the other one. Ms. Dale moved forward, but there was a hitch on the side the bullet had gone in, her leg moving awkwardly, and with her head so close to mine, I could hear how strained her breathing had become. Morgan and I held a portion of her weight as she struggled to keep up.

We turned down a long hallway just as the sound of running feet drifted toward us from up ahead, and the three of us took an immediate right, trying to bypass the guards. We had passed through a kitchen and into a dining hall when Ms. Dale sagged in our arms, her breathing coming in sharp pants.

Set me down, she managed, and Morgan and I carefully positioned her on a bench. She sagged against it, listing to one side, and I noted the paleness of her face.

Adrenaline patch, she said. Two blood patches and a pressure bandage.

I quickly retrieved my first-aid kit and began doctoring her, applying the blood patches first and then the pressure bandage. Morgan moved over to the door behind us, checking the hallway.

We got a problem, Violet, she transmitted.

My hands were shaking. I tore off another strip of tape with my teeth and placed it over the cotton I had put over the wound.

What? I asked.

Guards are in the hallways on either side of us, she said. They’re checking rooms… It’s just a matter of time.

We’ll use the suits, I said.

You’ll use the suits, Ms. Dale corrected, her hands pushing mine away as she sat back up. Color was slowly returning to her cheeks, but not enough to indicate she was out of the woods. Then again, until she saw a doctor, I didn’t think she was going to be out of the woods.

She pushed off the bench, forcing herself onto her own two feet and hissing in pain.

Take a cube of the semtex and a detonator out of my bag, she ordered, and Morgan immediately