Terror in the lounge

You walk through the final door into the lounge. The warm glow of the lights on the brown walls and the soft Persian rugs immediately put you at ease. You see Jules at the far table start to stand and smile as you walk in. She's dressed in a light purple short sleeve blouse and a dark purple knee-length skirt. You cross the floor quickly and offer a hand as you approach. She grasps your hand warmly.

She looks you up and down with a critical eye towards your plain gray sweatpants and top.

"When you dress casual, you don't play games do you?"

"I told you I wasn't dressed for this place."

She grabs your hand and pulls you to the back door.

"I have just the room to fix this!" She says as she leads you to the end of the hallway and through the far right door. All the closets are open and you can see the same cornucopia of outfits as before. Jules smiles.

"Help yourself, Red. I'm going to go out and see to it they have dinner cooking. Is lobster fine?"

You nod as you walk across the purple carpet and start looking through what's available as the blonde heads back out.

"Join me when you're done," she calls back as the door shuts behind her.

You're still trying to decide what to wear 5 minutes later as you hear a loud crashing noise coming from the hallway. You drop the two outfits you were looking at and rush toward the door to see what's wrong. The door slams open and Jules grabs your hand.

"No time for questions, come with me!"

You grab hold of your gym bag as she pulls you through the hall into the area across from the changing rooms.

"What's going on. . ." you ask as she pulls you through to the back of the kitchen and into a freight elevator. She hits the down button, the doors close and you feel the lift start to move.

"Four masked men are in the lounge right now and they are armed."

"Cops maybe?"

"They didn't announce themselves and I didn't stop to question them. All I know about cops comes from TV and I'm pretty sure they're supposed to yell 'Police' or something before they break-in."

"Where is this going to take us?"

Jules starts rooting through her purse, "The basement. There are two ways out down there. There's the back door to the alley and the steps up to the nightclub."

She hands you a small cylinder.

"If you need to, pull the red strip, point the red dot on the front at the target, and hit the button on the top. I know mace is not the best weapon against a gun but it's something."

"You live in Texas. Don't you have a gun or something?"

Jules laughs as the elevator doors open and she leads you down a well-lit hallway.

"My husband is the gun nut. I've been to a range a couple of times and know how to not shoot myself. If we get to the point where I have to shoot it out with 4 guys we're in trouble."

"Is that a no?"

The blonde opens a door to the right and pulls you into a small office. It's about 6' by 6' with drab white walls and thin black carpet on the floor. You see her make a beeline for the desk, open the top drawer, and pull out a small palm-sized pistol.

"It was a no. Now Devon would probably make a joke like 'It barely counts but it's a gun' but it's something."

She checks it over really quickly and puts it in her purse.

"Ok. We have three choices unless you can think of another. We hide here, we go up through the nightclub, or try to slip out through the back alley. Any preference, honey?"