He transmitted the final command sequence and held his breath.
Three, two, one.
Zero.
The waveform transmitted by the bomb vanished.
Christ, he thought. I’m too late.
RITA
Sebastian rapped on the phone’s side with his knuckles.
“Sebastian? What happened?”
He didn’t answer.
The call to Darcy cycled through several rings.
Then Darcy’s voice: “Hello?”
“Darcy?”
She’d never heard anything sweeter than that voice.
“Ree? What’s up?”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Darcy said, sounding surprised. “Are you all right? Why are you calling—”
That’s when Darcy started to scream.
Rita felt as if her insides had turned to liquid.
She dropped the phone.
SEBASTIAN
Wu fell to her knees and splashed about in the mud, fumbling for the phone. She retrieved it and, clutching it in one hand, glared up at him, her face streaked with soot, blood, and tears.
In all of his years of doing what he did, Sebastian didn’t think he’d ever seen such an expression of pure, unbridled hatred.
All of it directed at him.
She hissed, “I promise you, you bastard, if anything has happened to my sister—”
RITA
She broke off as she brought Spencer’s phone back up to her ear. The call was still connected, but the LOW BATTERY signal was flashing more quickly.
What?
What exactly would she do to Sebastian?
Kill him?
Maybe, she thought. If she could. If her baby sister really was dead.
“Darcy?” she said meekly into the phone, her heart pounding and sinking at the same time.
No response.
She wondered if she could somehow grab the gun from Sebastian and—
“Hello? Rita? Are you still there?”
“Darcy?”
“Yeah. Hey, Ree. Sorry I yelled. I was out in the backyard, having a smoke—you know, because you don’t want me smoking inside. And this big-ass opossum just walks right up. Scared the living shit out of me. Big as a golden retriever. Swear to God. With that freaky long rat tail. And those teeth! It hissed at me, Ree. God, I hate those things. So. What’s up?”
Rita started laughing hysterically as the battery ran out on Spencer’s phone.
SEBASTIAN
Sebastian stared at the words scrolling across the phone screen—
SEQUENCE ABORTED
BATTERY DISCHARGE DISABLED
—and relaxed his grip on the phone, not caring why it had taken so long for the message to come through.
Christ. That was close.
“She’s all clear, Doc.”
Wu, laughing like a maniac, seemed to already know that. It was a bit surreal: her kneeling in front of him, caked in mud, soot, and blood, cackling in the firelight. Like she was in some kind of bizarre Satanic ritual or something. He hoped she wasn’t losing it.
She suddenly dropped Cameron’s phone, pressed her hands to her forehead, and stopped laughing, as if she’d forgotten what was so funny.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Shit.” He could see her trembling all over. “Holy shit.”
Yes, he thought. Holy shit indeed.
Fueled by the acetylene explosions and a strong wind, the entire construction site had become a blazing inferno, despite the recent rains. The roar of the fire intermingled with an occasional crash of debris as a floor or wall collapsed. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke. His eyes swept from the fire, to Wu, to the darkness at the southern edge of the park, then back to Wu.
He was itching to get out of here.
But first: one last loop to close. He owed her that, too. Before stuffing his phone in his pocket, he carefully disabled the explosive in Wu’s device—the countdown hadn’t been activated, but he didn’t want it to go off by accident.
“There. And now, Doc, you and I are, I believe, all square.” So you’ll pardon me for getting the hell out of Dodge. “This is where we part ways.”
She was still on her knees, her hands on her forehead, breathing fast. She looked up at him with a hard glint in her eyes. “Those … things. In my head, and my sister’s—what happens to them now? What will they do to us?”
“Nothing. I’ve permanently shut down the bomb in your head.” Her eyes widened. “Yes. Just like your sister’s. As far as the devices go: The particles will slowly dissolve over the next few months. Even the synthetic bits will disperse. Eventually. It’ll be like they were never there. You and your sister are free and clear.”
He turned to go.
“Wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Do you expect me to be … grateful, or something?”
He smiled faintly. “No. I don’t.”
I didn’t do it for you, Doc. I did it for me. And for Alfonso. And for Sammy and Sierra.
And the kid with the AK.
And before she could say anything more, he headed south.
Toward freedom.
RITA
Oh God, she thought, as Sebastian vanished at the edge of the park.
Brain bombs.
Stabbing one of my patients with a scalpel.
Getting operated on awake.
Too much.
Too fucking much.
She took a deep breath.