Midnight on the Demon Patrol - 23/?

It's not a bad explosion, as those things get. Blows the shit out of his hinges, and makes the decorative door panels shudder and fall out of alignment like a linebacker rammed them, but it's a foot that finishes the job of knocking the door down.

His gun is -- stupidly -- all the way downstairs in the gun safe by the door. It's out of reach the second the first man rushes through -- a huge wall of a man, square and meaty -- and then the second man comes in on his heels and Dave gives it up for lost.

Under him on the main floor Karkat starts snarling, steps forward to meet the threat, but there's a machine gun in the first man's hands and Dave can see nothing but the confettied mess it would make of his non-shelled face.

"Get out of here!" he yells, and shoves the half-open windowpane out of his way and swings himself out and onto the ancient straight ladder bolted to the outside wall.

Two men on the fire escape's last landing, just under him; he hears glass breaking. One of them looks up, gun up --

Aradia rushes through him with barely a thought; the gun jams, trigger frozen in time. Dave beats Olympic records of ladder-climbing.

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