Rebel’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head. He shuddered violently in place before crumpling to the floor.
Eight feet behind him, Amanda kept an anxious vigil from the stairway landing. Zack dazedly blinked at the peculiar little device she continued to aim at Rebel.
“What . . . what is that?”
She looked down at the electron chaser in her quivering hands.
“I don’t know.”
—
She’d gone downstairs in search of Hannah and found Czerny instead.
The physicist lay on the stairwell, holding his bunched shirt to his stomach. His skin was pale, his breathing labored. He was lucid enough to tell Amanda which medical supplies could be found in which cabinets.
“Be careful,” he wheezed. “There are still intruders.”
The only stranger Amanda encountered in her trip to the medical lab was the man in the Teddy Roosevelt mask. He lay unmoving at the foot of the reception desk, a terrifying sight with his eerie rubber grin. Worse, Amanda could sense a familiar energy coursing inside him. He had the same beast as her. The tempis. From Czerny’s grievous wound, it was clear how he enjoyed using it.
The moment she returned to Czerny’s side, Mia’s frightened voice filled every speaker in the building, warning Zack of an impending ambush.
Amanda covered her mouth. “Oh my God. Zack . . .”
“Where is he?” Czerny asked.
“I don’t know. I went back to my room to get dressed. By the time I came out, he was gone.”
They heard the sounds of struggle upstairs, followed by two loud gunshots.
Czerny thought of Beatrice, then fumbled for the chaser with a bloody hand. He thrust the weapon in Amanda’s grip.
“Go help them,” he implored her. “Please.”
She did.
Amanda had no idea how long she stood in the hallway, aiming the chaser at the twitching man on the floor. Once her gaze fell to Theo, her nurse’s mind took over.
He watched her anxiously as she examined his wound. “How bad is it?”
“You need stitches.” She turned around. “Zack . . .”
The cartoonist climbed back to his feet, fixing his shell-shocked gaze on Rebel’s rotted hand.
“Zack!”
He snapped out of his trance. Amanda motioned to the stairwell. “Dr. Czerny’s badly hurt. We need to get him to a hospital. Can you get Theo downstairs?”
He wiped the blood from his mouth. “Yeah. Go help Czerny.”
Amanda hurried back downstairs. Zack lifted Theo to his feet. They both kept a wary eye on Rebel.
“Jesus,” Theo uttered. “What did we ever do to that guy?”
Zack wasn’t sure he followed the man’s vague account of ominous holes and preventable futures. All he knew, from looking at that hand, was that Rebel sure as hell had a reason to hate him now.
—
By the time Zack and Theo rejoined Amanda on the landing, the orphans had entered the lobby from the east hall. With a high cry of relief, Mia ran up the steps and wrapped her arms around Zack.
“Oh my God! I thought you were dead!”
Zack returned the hug, reeling with guilt. When he’d first decided to leave the others, he didn’t think his absence would hurt them any more than the loss of a funny co-worker. In the wake of Mia’s hug, her warm correction, he never felt so cruel.
“It’s okay. I’m all right.”
Amanda passed Zack a roll of sterile gauze and some alcohol wipes.
“Take Theo down to the couches. Clean his wound and wrap it as best you can. Mia, keep his arm raised above heart level. That’ll slow down the bleeding.” She looked down the steps. “David, where did you go?”
“Right below you.”
Zack reached the ground floor and saw David kneeling at the side of the Roosevelt Man. The boy had two fingers pressed against the intruder’s neck.
“Are you insane? Get away from him!”
David stood up. “I was just checking his pulse. It’s weak but he’s alive.”
“Yeah, well, be careful. He still could get up.”
Theo had the same concern about the large man upstairs. He’d snatched away Rebel’s revolver, fiercely determined to keep it away from its owner.
Amanda peered over the railing. “David, go to the medical lab and find a stretcher. We need something to move Dr. Czerny.”
David nodded, then left the way he came. Mia stared at Czerny’s wound with nauseous dread.
“Will he be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Czerny weakly assured her. “Just have to get to a reviver.”
“Can’t Zack heal you now?”
“No,” said Amanda and Zack, in unison.
“No offense to him,” said Czerny, “but his healing experience is currently limited to a four-ounce mouse. Should he fail to capture all of me within his temporic field, the results would be far worse than my current predicament.”
Zack turned his white gaze to Czerny. “Wait. What do you mean?”