“Merzee,” he mumbled.
“Olga’s getting her now. She’s out cold, but she’ll make it. So will Bruce.”
Rebel couldn’t give a crap about Bruce Byer. He sensed from Ivy’s grim omission that all the others were dead. Ben. Colin. Nick. Freddy. We lost four. They lost none.
“Firdy . . .”
“Richard, don’t talk.”
“How?”
Ivy closed her eyes. “Gemma says he was shot in the face. She thinks the boy did it.”
A guttural groan escaped his lips. Ivy held his arm. “I know. I’m angry too. But right now I’m just so glad you’re okay. I can’t believe you survived that creature. I just can’t believe it.”
Rebel knew it wasn’t luck. The Pelletiers had chosen to spare him, either out of strategy or sadism. Now that he’d been rifted again, he knew he couldn’t be healed through reversal. The temporal discord in his body would kill him instantly, gruesomely. He’d have to recover the slow and painful way, as Semerjean no doubt intended.
While Olga carried Mercy over her shoulder, Ivy helped Rebel back to his feet. She slung his thick arm around her and walked him to her portal on the eastern wall.
Amanda followed their progress from her hidden perch. Just go already. Leave.
As Olga carried Mercy through the glimmering gateway, Rebel stopped and noticed his revolver. It had spun all the way through the eastern arch, resting halfway between the lobby and the entry for Nicomedia Magazines. One more second and he would have gotten Trillinger. One more second.
Ivy tugged him along. “Come on. We have to go.”
His fresh failures bubbled inside him like boiling water. All the evidence they were leaving behind. All the dead kinsmen. All the living Silvers.
Rebel broke away from Ivy and charged through the archway.
“Richard!”
He seized the gun and fired seven shots through the open door. The first round hit the leg of the reception desk. The next two shattered the white glass wall behind it. The remaining four traveled into the sea of cubicles where Zack and Mia hid. Rebel’s foresight was still hobbled by solis. He shot blindly and was now blind to the results.
By the time Ivy caught up to him, he fired empty clicks at the office. She grabbed his arm.
“Richard, stop! Stop! It’s over!”
“No!”
“If we’re lucky, the Deps will finish them. If not, we’ll have other chances. But we have to go!”
Amanda turned white at the distant sound of gunshots. She looked to the southern archway and saw David make a stealthy reentrance. He ducked behind a support column just as Rebel and Ivy returned to the lobby. Amanda’s fingers dug into her thighs.
Oh God, David, don’t. Just let them leave.
A half mile to the north, Gemma accessed the Nicomedia office cameras and shook her head at the image.
“Christ, Rebel. You lucky son of a bitch.”
Olga looked to Gemma. “What are you talking about?”
“He did it.” She chuckled in wonder at the screen. “He got one.”
—
Zack sprawled facedown on the carpet, his fingers pressed over his head. From the moment the glass wall exploded in front of him, his body went into system crash. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel anything but the thundering beat of his heart.
Two minutes after Rebel’s hasty exit, Zack and Mia worked their way back toward the front of the office, darting in and out of cubicles like skittish rabbits. Once they’d reached the first row, Zack made Mia wait behind him while he scanned the reception area. He’d only made it as far as the white glass partition when the shots rang out and the world seemed to end all over again.
Now the wall lay in shards all around him. For all he knew, his body was just as broken.
“Zack?”
The sound of Mia’s voice prompted him to move. He clambered to a wobbly kneel, then checked himself with trembling hands. He still couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t get his mouth to work.
“I . . . I . . . God . . .”
After four more seconds of self-scrutiny, he rose to his feet and blurted a nervous laugh.
“I think . . . I think I’m all right. I’m okay. Jesus, Mia. I . . .”
He turned around and saw her now. Her skin had turned chalk-white. She pressed a weak and trembling hand to her chest. For a hopeful moment, Zack figured she was simply struggling to collect herself. Then he saw the thick blood seeping through her fingers. His delirious grin faded.
“Oh God. No. No . . .”
Mia removed her hand and stared down at the oozing hole in the center of her chest. She thought about the policeman’s bullet that had narrowly missed her face a month ago, the ridiculous luck that kept her in perfect health while her friends suffered wound after wound.
She finally understood how the universe worked now. Suddenly it all made sense.
“Zack . . .”
Her legs gave out from under her. She crumpled to the floor.