“I don’t know! We’ll get Theo out and come back!”
The sisters struggled to ferry Theo through forty yards of ghosted chaos, retreating all the way to the entry hall. Amanda jostled the knob of a utility door, then broke it open with a tempic shove.
They scrambled down a narrow white hallway, its concrete walls echoing with loud clamor. Hannah kicked open the first door on the left, a locker room for security guards. Wooden batons hung from wall hooks while a leaky faucet dripped into a moldy sink.
Amanda swatted the towels from a bench and sat Theo down. He panted with strain, still lost in branching futures. He glimpsed David four minutes from now. Through a half-bloody face, the boy calmly asked Theo not to tell the others about the awful thing he just did.
“I won’t . . .”
Hannah kneeled by his side. “What?”
“I don’t know. I’m all . . . I’m all messed up.”
Amanda doused a towel and dabbed it against his forehead. Hannah looked at her nose.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Huh?”
The widow ran a finger under her nostrils, then shook the blood off.
“It’s okay. It’s from the tempis. We need to find the others.”
The thundering ruckus from the lobby came to a stop. Hannah and Amanda hurried back to the hallway to see a lone figure stagger through the archway. Blood poured from a thin gash in his forehead, striping the left side of his face.
The sisters ran to him. “David!”
“Are you hit?”
He closed his eyes and leaned on Amanda as she walked him into the maintenance hall.
“I tripped over a coffee table. Smacked my head on the edge.”
“Where are Zack and Mia?”
He glanced behind him, throwing flecks of blood. “I thought they came this way. You didn’t see them?”
“No.”
Hannah covered her mouth. “Oh my God . . .”
“Shit. Shit!” David broke away from Amanda and unslung his knapsack. Between his T-shirts and spare jeans lay the two compact service pistols he’d seized from his Dep hostages. Each one was loaded with a dozen .40 caliber rounds.
Amanda bounced her hot green stare between the gun and David. “Wait, what are you doing?”
“Going back for them.”
“The hell you are. You cracked your head open. You probably have a concussion.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“No you won’t!” Hannah yelled. A half hour ago, Ioni painted a quick glimpse of the future that had suspiciously omitted David. Now the actress had a dark hunch why.
“Amanda and I will find them. You go in there and watch over Theo. Keep him safe.”
“Look, I’m telling you—”
“And I’m telling you, David, if you don’t listen to me right now, I’ll never speak to you again!”
David eyed her with wide surprise, then plucked the baton from Hannah’s hand. He thrust a pistol in its place. “Okay, but you’re not going out there with that stick. These people are shooting on sight. You can’t give them the chance.”
While Hannah tested the frightening weight of Ross Daley’s weapon, Amanda took a cautious peek into the lobby.
“Those can’t be Deps. I mean they wouldn’t just fire at us. Would they?”
Like Mia, David had seen the false Peter Pendergen flee the scene in a streaking blur. These weren’t Melissa’s people at all.
—
Rebel dropped his rifle against the wall and scratched his stubbly head. He’d dressed for battle like he was going to the gym—black T-shirt and sweatpants, white high-top sneakers. He didn’t bother with the bandana mask this time. His wife had commandeered all the security cameras an hour ago while Mercy Lee flooded the lobby with enough solic static to ensure that the Deps wouldn’t see a thing in their ghost drills. They’d taken a day and a half to set this trap. Everything had gone flawlessly until forty-one seconds ago.
He pressed his collar mic and summoned his team back to his perch on the mezzanine. One by one, they returned—four men and one woman, each from a different family. They were all inexperienced in long-range weapons, but desperate times had motivated them to learn.
Freddy Ballad, a tall and stringy blond of twenty, threw his hands up in fluster. “What happened?”
Rebel shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maranan got wise.”
“Gemma said the augur wouldn’t be a problem.”
The shrill voice of a ten-year-old girl hissed through their earpieces. “I said he probably wouldn’t be a problem.”
Freddy snarled into his mic. “It’s your job to be sure.”
“And it was your job to shoot the Aussie before he pulled any ghost tricks. How did that work out?”
“Enough,” Rebel snapped. “Freddy, settle down. Gemma, I don’t want to hear another word out of you unless it’s intel.”
“I’m working on it.”
With a hot blast of air, Bruce Byer de-shifted at the edge of their gathering, flushed with exertion and rage.
“You idiots could have shot me!”