Armageddon by Kaitlyn O'Connor

to work the door of the cell.
    One thing at a time, she told herself.
    She allowed her arm to dangle just above the handle of the thing.
    He reached back to grab it as they reached the cell.
    She hadn’t thought about the fact that he’d used it before to make the men move back before he opened the door.
    Shit!

    Realizing it was now or never, Lena grabbed it first, yanking it from the holder.
     
     
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    As she’d feared, he knew it immediately. He swung her around in a dizzying circle, trying to grasp it and finally dumped her onto the floor. Her elbow slammed into the hard metal, almost jarring the thing from her fingers.
    “The trigger’s on the handle!” someone--she thought Dax--yelled from inside the cell.
    Even as she depressed the button, the guard grabbed the business end of the stick.
    He let out a jagged cry as electric volts shot through him. He began to flop around on the floor like a fish out of water. He’d firmly gripped the thing, and Lena found she couldn’t pry it from his hand and was in imminent danger of losing her hold on it.
    “Ease off the button. He can’t let go.”
    She did, and then fought a round with her stomach, which was threatening to revolt in earnest at the smell wafting off the man. A hand reached through the bars, settling on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “It’s me, Dax.”
    She stared at him blankly.
    “Open the door. I can show you the way out.”
    She barely heard him. By now every man in both cells was yelling at the top of their lungs for release. Pushing herself up with an effort, she looked around, dazed, for any sign of a button that would release the gate.
    “The control is on his belt,” Dax bellowed at her.
    Still too shocked to work independently of the voice guiding her, Lena looked down at the man and promptly threw up. His whole body was smoking and the smell of burned hair and burned skin was too much.
    When she finally managed to stop gagging, she found the control Dax had told her about and tugged at it.
    The belt, she discovered, was looped through it on the back. She had to unfasten his belt to slip it off. Dimly aware that Dax was still trying to bellow instructions at her, she ignored him because it took every ounce of focus to figure out how to remove the thing.
    When she’d finally gotten it loose, she turned around and looked for Dax. Dozens of arms were thrust through the bars, though, grabbing at the thing she held in her hand.
    She curled into a ball, holding the thing to her chest protectively.
    “The key code! Key in the code!”
    “I don’t know the code,” she yelled at him.
    “Give it to me!”
    She tried, but the men around him were also jostling to get their hands on the control and she wasn’t about to give it to them. Dax meant safety. Dax meant help. She had no idea whether the other men would help her, stampede over her, or decide to drag her in and rape her as they’d tried before.
    She still had the taser, though, she realized. Gripping it firmly, she swung at the men trying to reach through the bars and grab her. When they leapt back, she shoved the control into Dax’s hands. Like a wave, the men surged forward again. Again she swung at them. “Hurry!”
    Gritting his teeth, Dax pressed the buttons, trying one combination after another.
    Lena had just begun to think it was hopeless when the door abruptly opened.
    Dax wasn’t the first one out. The moment the door opened, the men inside charged, bottlenecking the small opening. Black Stew waded through them, pitching
     
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    several through and knocking others to either side of him.
    The stampede of men out of the cell galvanized Lena into moving faster than she would’ve thought she could. She leapt to one side, plastering herself against the bars.
    The din, already enough to rattle her eardrums, grew nearly deafening as the men penned in the cell across the way began yelling and cussing and demanding, or begging, to be released as well. Dax,