Bella lowers her slingshot warily.
I steal a glance over the roof of the tank, my hands raised. “All I want is the girl with Pete! Nothing else. Just tell me where I can find her.”
“Gwen? What do you want with her?” Bella yells. Her hair flutters in the wind as a gust nearly sends her off balance.
“What does it matter? Tell me where she is and I’ll leave you alone, forever,” I say a little too flippantly. I’ve got to pull it together. Convince her that she needs me, not the other way around. “I’ll leave Everland to you and Pete.”
Another gust whips through the night air. Bella crouches, trying to maintain her balance. When she regains her footing, she raises her slingshot, but even from this far I can see her tremble. She’s angry with me, and I don’t know why. I’m failing. If I ever want to get near her, to take her to the Professor, I need to tap into what’s important to her.
“By the way, where is your sidekick? You and Pete are inseparable. Yet here you are alone,” I call up to her.
She furiously wipes at her face with her arm—tears, I have to assume—and she readjusts her slingshot.
“She’s come between you two, hasn’t she?” I ask, trying for sympathy while shouting.
As if to answer me, Bella buries her face in her hands.
Stepping out from behind the tank, I fold my hands behind my back. “Poor, poor Bella. So unappreciated. So unloved. I can see the pain she’s brought.”
She peers at me and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
“Tell me where she is, Bella, and I’ll leave Everland for good. No more hiding, no more running from me. Everland will be yours. And as an added bonus, I’ll take the little vixen with me. She’ll never come between you and Pete again.”
Bella brushes another tear from her cheek. She stands at the edge of the tower and takes aim. “I’ll never, ever side with you, Hook!” She pulls the elastic of the slingshot back as a gust of wind ruffles her shirt. She staggers and drops her slingshot, sending it hurling ninety meters to the ground. Screaming, she sways forward once more, her knees collapsing underneath her. She reaches for a lever on her rocket pack, but misses. Another gust rolls over her tiny body, sending her over the edge. Her copper wings clip the ledge hard, shooting springs and cogs in every direction and shattering the iridescent film. Bella grips the edge of the bell tower just in time, her small feet kicking beneath her.
My chest clenches, my breath catches, and adrenaline courses through me. She’s going to die right here in front of me. If she dies, we all die. The Professor’s words echo in my mind. What if Bella is the Immune?
I take several steps toward the tower, determined to save her, to catch her before her body splinters into pieces on the ground below. I know I’ll never make it in time, but I must try. I bolt for the fence, throwing myself over it. I land hard on the concrete and look up.
As Bella’s about to plummet, two hands reach for her from the dim shadows of the bell tower, grabbing her by her wrists. A moment later she is pulled inside the belfry. I breathe a sigh of relief, but the respite doesn’t last.
“Someone else is in there!” I shout. “Surround the building, secure every exit, and someone get up to the tower. If Pete’s in there with her, bring him back alive.”
The soldiers race toward the tower, climbing the wrought-iron fence like a tidal wave cresting a levee wall. The masked men surge forward over debris and shattered glass. There’s nowhere for her to go. She’s as good as mine.
“Two girls down, one to go,” I say.
A curl of dirt and dust rises through the opening. My lungs seize, leaving me in a fit of coughs. Multiple hands grab my arms and hurl me through the entrance of the sewer. The crash of wooden beams, rock, and metal scaffolding erupts behind me. I crouch, gasping for air and brushing the dirt from my clothes.
“That was close. Are you all right?” Mole asks, placing a gentle hand on my arm.
“I’m okay,” I say, running my fingers through my kinky curls, pulling out pebbles.
“Well, I guess we’re not going back that way,” Pickpocket says, peering at the wreckage beyond the sewer opening.
Mole bites his lip. “How are we going to get back to the Lost City?”
“There’s another entrance about three kilometers from here,” Jack says. “It’s a little narrow, but we can get through it.”
Pete slams the metal hatch and spins the wheel, locking the entrance shut. I’m about to ask him why the hatch is even there when a hiss slithers through the tunnels of the dark sewer system and answers my question. The wide-eyed expressions on all of the boys’ faces lets me know that I’m not the only one who heard the noise.
“What was that?” Mole says, biting at the frayed cuff of his coat.