He pulled it away. “I don’t need to wait for Mr. Braddock’s help. I can handle this so-called doctor with his cheap tricks myself.”
“Don’t be foolish,” I said to his back. Ignoring me, he grumbled, rattled the locked door, and finally, as if it had made a personal affront upon his character, he resorted to kicking it in with surprising strength. We watched helplessly as the splintery door cracked open, and Robert disappeared inside.
Miss Grey gave me an anxious look. “He cannot do it alone,” she said.
Most definitely not. I forced my mind to move, plan, solve. If Robert could distract Dr. Beck for long enough, perhaps I could get Rose. Would he see it coming?
“Go with Robert,” I ordered. “Keep him from doing anything stupid. And delay Dr. Beck as much as you can. Perhaps I can retrieve Rose without him noticing.”
Miss Grey hesitated, not wanting to split up. But I was already making my way inside, down a dim, dusty corridor, passing windows that had all been boarded shut and doors into empty parlors containing the same strange domestic niceties of Dr. Beck’s last house. Eventually, I found myself lingering at a staircase, not knowing whether Rose would be upstairs, downstairs, or around the bend in the hallway. A crackle and creaking snapped my head upward, but when I was mere inches away from the steps, my legs stalled at the sound of a loud, distressing crash echoing from deeper within the house.
That decided it. My new course led me farther down the curving hallway to a half-open door at the end. It provided a second entry into the laboratory—the massive space, packed with tables, shelves, and boxes, seemed to take up half of the house. A path of destruction marked by broken bottles, retorts, jars, and other unidentifiable apparatuses led to the center of the room, where Robert painfully stood up and wiped his coat free of the debris from a freshly destroyed table. Well, that was a poor job of delaying. In fact, where had Miss Grey gone—
I spotted a foot. I tasted blood as I bit my knuckles, holding back unhelpful yelps of panic. On my knees, peering between the table legs and equipment, I could see just a sliver of her body lying still by the sink. Instinctively, I was across the room and by her side.
Dear God. Please be all right. Please.
My fingers felt for her pulse and found it—slow but still beating. My stifled sigh of relief came out quivering. Staying low in my crouched position, I struggled to pull her out quietly while a wild and furious Robert occupied Dr. Beck with his unceasing shouts.
“Where is she?” Robert yelled.
“That’s none of your concern,” Dr. Beck coolly replied as he dodged the many flailing attacks. Finally deciding he’d had enough, the scientist plucked Robert’s swinging fist straight out of the air, and with his other hand he seized a nearby glass rod. He smashed it across Robert’s head and let him drop to the floor.
The glass tinkled to the ground like rain, joining the thunderous thud of Robert’s body. Then complete silence, except for my quiet panting and a startling burst of laughter. Dr. Beck already knew I was here.
“Miss Wyndham, no need to worry about your friend there. She’s just been sedated.” Smiling and snaking around tables, he wandered toward me. “My congratulations on your speedy recovery.”
His face showed no surprise at the sight of me, but I better understood Mr. Kent’s theory. Dr. Beck had only recently discovered that I had these powers and that I had survived. It left me with one last question: How recently?
“And you claim to know everything?” I snapped. He ignored me, but I persisted. “If you knew everything I was going to do—”
“I quite understand your point. There is no need to repeat it. Perhaps there are some things that I did not know. You may call them faults, but I prefer to see them as progress. The entire basis of science is founded upon making mistakes,” he said, shoving something into his pocket as he approached. He pointed to the ceiling. “Your sister was one such example. There have been some fascinating developments since you and I last spoke.”
I stood up and drew back from him, but there was only so far I could retreat. I considered running, but no. I could not leave them. For lack of a better plan, I continued to back away from the short, slim, and terrifying man.
Then my back hit the wall. He stopped directly in front of me. I endeavored to dash to the left, to the right, but he was always blocking the way. His abilities were all too apparent. He predicted my exact movements and in an instant grasped my face, holding it as tight as a vise. “I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as us to know that your sister was never the healer we believed her to be.”
I tried to slap him, but his other hand seized my arm before I even raised it. He shoved me down, and my shoulder struck the floor hard. Wincing, I forced the pain away.