“Creed,” Meg said, no affect to her voice. “Creed has the remote. You knew all along he was planning to sacrifice himself, to stay behind, and you didn’t stop him!” She was so angry she couldn’t see straight.
“I didn’t know he was planning a suicide mission. He could have triggered the remote from this car. He chose to stay. That was never part of my plan.” Theo looked to Margo for understanding.
“Theo, how could you do this without talking with me? Don’t you respect me more than that?” Margo was equally angry and hurt, but she kept talking. “Creed is Alik’s brother—his blood brother. He chose to lead a good life and was therefore just as much a son to me as Ali or Evan. Turn the car around.”
“Margo, no. I’m not letting you put yourself in harm’s way again! Damn it! We are getting out of here!”
Meg wrapped her aching mind around a quote she read years ago: “Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.”
Pop! Pop! Pop!
“Oh, God, no!” Meg cried, spinning around in her seat to confirm what she already suspected.
Paulie sped up in his van and motioned frantically behind him.
“Oh, no!” Theo groaned, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
“What?” Margo was craning her neck around to see behind them.
That’s when they heard the first shot ricochet off the thick metal shell of the vehicle.
Meg was already getting her gun out, slamming the safety off and rolling down a window, cursing herself for having dropped her focus on the rabid dogs.
Three motorcycles roared behind them, and they were packing.
Meg didn’t even have any more time to think about what was happening to Creed. She just slipped into survival mode.
“Be careful, Meg,” Mom called even as she hung out of her window, aiming the micro uzi.
Meg slipped her hand out of the window, lined up her target, and exhaled as she pulled the trigger, aiming for the gas tank. His bike exploded and his body flew. She was so angry at the injustice of everything; she didn’t even let herself feel for him.
Pop, pop, pop, pop!
Margo’s aim was thrown off as they hit one of the airport’s many asphalt speed bumps.
Meg slowed her breathing, aimed and blew out this one’s back tire. Body number two flew through the air.
Two down, one to go.
The last rabid dog was playing differently than the other two. Meg focused her emotional energy and tried to figure out what made this one different. She found the same black static, but this was had a different dimension to him. This one was clever. Unlike the other two who just used brute anger and brainless force to attack, Meg sensed this one was devising a plan.
He swerved away and slipped down what looked like a cargo loading driveway.
“Mom, this one’s different. He’s going to try to sneak up on us,” Meg warned.
“The plane’s right around the corner up here. Paulie’s already pulling up to it,” Theo tried to reassure.
They were a hundred yards away from Paulie as he opened his driver’s side door and began to hurry around to the back of his van. The rabid dog flew out a crevice between service vehicles, pointed his gun at Paulie and shot him in the back—right through the heart.
The brilliant, gentle doctor who took the Winters in when they were the most desperate, slammed against the back of the van, his hand still wrapped around the back door’s lever. He slumped to his knees, and collapsed to the unforgiving cement.
All Meg could hear was a deafening scream.
She covered her ears to block the sound, before realizing the anguished shriek was coming from her own throat.
Margo leaped from the SUV even before Theo stopped it completely, positioning it as a shield to protect the back of the van from further gunfire. She swung her weapon around and in the same motion, pulled the trigger. The killer’s motorcycle exploded beneath him. Tears were streaming down Margo’s face.
Evan had already thrown the doors to the back of the van open and was crouched next to Paulie’s silent body, desperately searching for a pulse.
He looked up at Theo. Through all his intellect, all his genius—he still looked out of the wide eyes of a scared thirteen-year-old boy, and shook his head.
Everyone was stunned into silence for the briefest of moments before fear shook them by the shoulders.
“Get Farrow and Cole onto the plane.” Margo’s voice took on a hollow echo as she barked an order to Evan and Meg.
She set Theo and Alik to moving all their things from the cars to the plane.
Without a word of explanation, Meg knew her mother was standing guard over them with her uzi poised at the ready, her sharp soldier’s eyes scanning the tarmac for any sign of threat.
Within three minutes, they were loaded and ready to go. “What should we do with Paulie?” Alik asked his mom.
“We have two choices, leave him here or bring him with us. This is his home, and he has friends here who will give him a proper burial. He wouldn’t want us to waste time on his body. He’d be yelling at us to get the heck out of Dodge.” She smiled softly at the sheet-covered body of her longtime mentor and friend.
Everyone nodded solemnly and hurried up the steps into the plane.
Chapter 8 Emotional Signatures