She glanced up through the indigo haze and saw the metal door to the roof. God, she did it. She really did it.
Hannah kicked the door open and stumbled out into the sunlight. Between all the air vents and glassy solic panels lay a sprawling gray aerolot. Every parking space was empty.
“They’re not here,” Hannah wheezed. “I don’t see them.”
Amanda caught moving shadows on the asphalt and squinted to look up. Three flashing NYPD cruisers circled above like birds of prey. They began their quick descent.
“Go to the edge,” she told Hannah.
“What?”
“Go to the edge. Trust me.”
Hannah staggered beyond the parking lot and stopped at the roof’s southern lip. The last of her temporal energies sputtered away. The world fell back to normal speed and color.
Amanda peered over the side, all the way down to the bustle on Battery Place. She wished she could grow wings and fly them away. She wished she had more than a cruel and desperate gambit.
“Turn us around.”
“M-my legs won’t hold. I can barely stand.”
Amanda squeezed her. “It’s okay, Hannah. You did such a good job. You were amazing. Just one last move and you can rest.”
As the actress spun around, Amanda cast slim white tendrils from her hands. They stretched twenty feet in each direction, forming a tight grip around air vents.
Hannah fell back into her like a sling, her muscles moaning with relief. She didn’t want to think about the cagey white ropes that kept them from plummeting to their deaths.
“You sure about this, Amanda?”
“No, but it’s our only leverage. I don’t want to hurt any more of these people.”
Neither did Hannah. She nodded darkly. “Okay. Okay.”
Melissa burst through the doorway and stopped cold at Amanda’s new threat. She holstered her gun and de-shifted, waving her palms at the policemen as they hopped out of their cruisers.
“Lower your weapons! Keep them down!”
One by one, the speedsuit agents made their way to the roof. Now fourteen law officers clutched their pistols at their sides as they nervously eyed the Givens.
“Don’t come any closer!” Amanda yelled. “I mean it!”
Melissa removed her helmet and dropped it. She raised her voice above the whistling wind.
“All right, Amanda. It’s all right. Despite all appearances, this is a very simple situation. You don’t want to die and we don’t want you to die. We’re proving that as we speak.”
“You’re the one who shot at us.”
“I shot at your sister’s leg,” Melissa replied. “Can you blame me? Last we met, she broke the spine of one of my men.”
Hannah’s stomach twisted. “How is he? Is he okay?”
Melissa eyed her somberly. “We got him to a reviver. He’s back in Los Angeles now. Resting.”
Though everything she said was technically true, Melissa omitted the fact that Ross Daley had suffered a fatal aneurysm inside the machine. Reversal was not a foolproof process, as 1.1 percent of patients learned the hard way. Ross had spun the wheel and lost. The outcome didn’t bode well for Hannah, who was now on the books for murder.
“When you see him, can you please tell him I’m sorry?”
“I’ll be sure to do that.” Melissa looked to Amanda with concern. “Those bodies in the elevator bank . . .”
“Esis.”
“That was Esis,” Hannah yelled. “Amanda would never do that.”
Melissa nodded eagerly. “I believe you. I do. I believe you’re both good people in a bad situation, never more so than now. The way I see it, you only have two directions to go from here: forward or down. I know neither option appeals to you, but if you fall, there’ll be no reviving you. At least with us, you’ll have a chance.”
Though their faces were half-obscured by windblown hair, Melissa found something new and dark in their expressions.
“Wouldn’t you rather keep living?”
“That’s all we want,” said Hannah.
“That’s all we ever wanted,” said Amanda.
“Then you have only one choice. Now it couldn’t be—”
Before Melissa could say “simpler,” a new complication arose behind the sisters. Fourteen pistols swung to aim at the shiny silver aerovan that popped above the building like toast.
Zack peered through the rear passenger window, narrowing his eyes at the large assembly of men.
“David, blind the hell out of them.”
“With pleasure.”
Melissa spotted the boy’s vengeful sneer through the window. She recalled David’s flare attack on Howard and pressed her hands to her eyes.
“Everyone cover your eyes! Cover your—”
A thirty-foot cube of piercing white light enveloped all the cops and Deps on the roof. The sisters turned their wincing faces. Soon they heard the electric whirr of a sliding door behind them. Amanda felt soft young hands on her shoulders.
“It’s okay,” said Mia. “I got you. Let go.”