At that moment, she saw a figure emerging from the smoke. Avery. Walking backwards. Dragging someone. Peyton peered around her, saw the short, dyed black hair. Desmond.
As soon as she was clear of the fire, Avery fell to the floor. Desmond’s head rested in her lap. Avery’s eyes rolled as she leaned back and coughed.
Peyton bent over Desmond, covering her mouth as she coughed. He wasn’t breathing. The fire—the smoke inhalation—had asphyxiated him.
With every once of energy she had, Peyton dragged him from Avery’s legs and ripped off his body armor.
Avery lay motionless, watching with watery eyes.
“My father?” Peyton asked urgently.
Avery closed her eyes, could barely move her head to shake it.
Peyton tried to focus.
She began chest compressions, counted to thirty, and started giving him rescue breaths.
Panting, she said, “Avery, I need you to find an AED.”
The woman rolled onto her belly, pushed up with her elbows on shaking arms. Her head bobbed from side to side, like a boxer about to go down for the count. She collapsed again, rolled onto her back, and gasped for breath. She would pass out soon.
A scraping sound came from the wall of smoke.
Peyton looked up to find her father limping out of the fire, one arm covering his mouth.
She started another round of chest compressions.
William fell to his knees beside her and coughed. “Get out.”
Peyton looked down at Desmond. She couldn’t carry him. None of them could. But she wouldn’t leave him. She had lost him once; she wouldn’t again. She couldn’t. Couldn’t bear the thought of standing outside, watching the building burn, knowing he was in there.
In that moment, she finally understood, truly understood, what he had gone through as a child. It was unimaginable. The guilt. The remorse. And to go through it so young.
The flames and smoke were advancing. She placed her hands under Desmond’s armpits and dragged him farther away. William crawled, collapsed beside Desmond, and panted, trying to get his breath. He unstrapped his own body armor, drew out a folder. His voice came out raspy and strained.
“Avery!”
The woman was ten feet from them, closer to the fire and smoke. She held her head up.
“The locations. Take it. Get out.”
Avery’s eyes flashed. The sight of the folder seemed to give her a burst of energy. She crawled across the floor, took the folder, drew a shallow breath, and coughed again.
William put a hand on her shoulder. “Go.”
Peyton pressed her lips to Desmond’s mouth again and began giving him rescue breaths.
From her peripheral vision, she saw William push Avery away. “Go. Before it’s too late.”
Avery stood on unsteady legs and staggered out of the office wing.
Peyton rested on her haunches, gathering her own breath as she gave thirty more chest compressions. A tear ran down her face. Desmond was going to die, right here, in her arms.
Her father’s eyes met hers.
“Please, Dad. Find an AED. He’ll die without it.”
Chapter 91
William was pretty sure his ankle was sprained. Not broken, but it throbbed and spiked with pain every time he put weight on it. In the smoke-filled office wing, with Peyton leaning over Desmond, trying to save his life, he limped to a desk and found what he needed: an overturned table lamp and some clear packing tape. As quickly as he could, he disassembled the lamp and jammed the metal pole in his boot, parallel to his calf. He wanted to cry out from the pain, but he simply gritted his teeth, grabbed the tape, and wrapped his lower leg and ankle tight, ensuring it couldn’t move.
He put weight on it, testing it. The pain was manageable.
He turned and began searching the walls for an AED, hopping along like a peg-leg pirate from an old movie.
With each step Avery took away from the fire, she could breathe easier. In the stairwell, she drew out the folder and scanned its contents.
Past the cubicles, William hurried along the wall, searching. A minute later, he read the Russian letters for AED, pulled the device off the wall, and returned to where Peyton was still giving Desmond mouth-to-mouth. She looked up when he approached. Her face was covered in tears. The sight was heartbreaking.
She took the device from his hand, tore Desmond’s shirt open, and attached the patches to his chest. She made sure she wasn’t touching him, then hit the large green button on the box.
It emitted a short squeal, then popped, causing Desmond to arch his back and inhale violently. His head thrashed about as he screamed—a ragged, raspy yell like that of a lifelong smoker.
Peyton took his face in her hands.
“Hey.”
His chest heaved. His eyes were barely open. A tired smile formed on his lips. He said a single word. It sounded like “Scully.” William didn’t know what that meant, but Peyton seemed to like it. She laughed, and the tears flowed faster now. Tears of joy, William thought.
“We need to go,” William said. “I can walk. Peyton, can you help him?”
She coughed, trying to clear her lungs and gather a breath. Then she helped Desmond stand, and the three of them limped out of the burning building.
Outside the front doors, in the gravel courtyard, two sets of footprints were visible in the ash-coated snow: Peyton’s from her arrival, and Avery’s.
She had left them.
Chapter 92
Conner sat at the conference table, listening to updates. France and Greece had become the first Looking Glass nations. On the large wall screen, he watched footage of doses of the cure being distributed in Paris.
“Stop right there. Take the five seconds preceding that and use it.”
Someone behind him approached and handed him a note.
We have a situation. Hughes-related. Urgent.
Conner excused himself and made his way to his office, where an intelligence agent was waiting with a laptop. Though the government had taken control of the internet, the Citium’s private network, connected by satellite links, was still functional. The agent opened a connection to the Citium net and pulled up a satellite video feed. It showed three figures opening the iron gate that enclosed Site 79.