by P. S. Newman
Fuck. How long had he been standing there?
Greyson bounced to his feet as if he hadn’t been tied up for hours. Taylor's gun followed him, held in his left hand. Was he favoring his right arm? I remembered the white blisters on his right hand and arm after he’d been shocked by Electro-Hound. It was too dark in here to be certain.
"We meet again," he said to Greyson as I scrambled to my feet. "This time, I won't miss."
Greyson laughed. He stepped forward until his chest touched the barrel of Taylor's gun. "Your little toy won't kill me."
I wasn’t so sure. He’d survived being shot in the PharmaZeusics garage, but this was point-blank range, a shot to the heart.
Taylor's eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe it, either. His trigger finger tightened. I surged to my feet and threw a wild punch. I hit Taylor's arm to the side just as a loud bang rang through the air.
Greyson stood like a rock. The bullet had missed him.
I put myself between the two men. Taylor's steel gaze fixed on me. Now that I stood directly in front of him, I could tell that he did hold his right arm a little stiffly. "The whole video-plea thing was your idea, wasn't it?" He didn't need an answer; he'd already convinced himself. "I'm reporting you."
I knew he would from the moment he appeared beside us. I had freed a shade instead of eliminating him. Heck, I'd been kissing him. Taylor would never let this go. But there was still hope. If he wasn't trying to kill me, he hadn't figured out that I was a shade, too. He wasn't a murderer of 'real people'.
"I need him," I said, looking Taylor straight in the eyes, my mind racing through the possibilities of all of us getting out of this factory alive. "I need his help. The doppelgänger has my friends. We don't have much time."
Taylor laughed. "Can't be all that urgent if you have time for a make-out session."
"I thought they were here," I said. "The doppelgänger told me Bella and Cecelia would be here. Instead, he'd tied Greyson up for me to find. And I'm guessing for you to find, too."
Taylor's eyes narrowed. "I did receive an anonymous tip to come here."
Oh, the doppelgänger was good. "Not so anonymous."
"I'll help you at the Pit," Taylor said. "If you let me eliminate this thing now."
The 'thing' stepped out from behind my protection. "I told you, that toy of yours won't kill me. And killing me now would be short-sighted; you need my help against the doppelgänger. Especially since you’re injured."
He’d noticed, too.
“I’m peachy.” Taylor waved it off, but he did it with his right hand and it must have hurt because he grimaced.
“Should you even be out of the hospital already?” I asked.
“They can’t force me to stay there. I’m fine. And I remember my duty.” The last with a pointed look at me before he aimed his gun above my shoulder at Greyson again. His right hand may be hurting, but his left didn’t shake.
"We need Greyson against the doppelgänger,” I repeated. “He was created to eliminate shades. The doppelgänger has thwarted the two of us so far, and he won't be alone. At least one of the hellhounds hasn't been eliminated yet."
"His kind doesn't deserve to live," Taylor ground out between clenched jaws. His eyes shone with hatred on the surface, but underneath lay something else, something vast and deep, all-encompassing: pain.
I stepped up to him, laid a hand on his wrist. I had to offer more. "My family’s lives are at stake,” I said softly. He of all people would understand that much. “I need both your help to save them. And I will take Greyson to Div Two as soon as we defeat the doppelgänger."
"What’s Div Two?" Greyson asked. I ignored the question and kept my eyes fixed on Taylor. It wouldn't help to explain to Greyson that Division Two was a lab at the Order, where Order hunters took the cute or pretty shades to be put down like an old dog, because killing them with guns and blades seemed too extreme or would traumatize the child who had dreamed them up. Of course, I had no intention of taking Greyson to Div Two. If all else failed, I would eliminate him myself. My way.
Taylor either sensed my false statement or simply didn't trust me. "I'll take him."
"We'll have time to argue later," I said. "First we need to save my family. Are you in or out?"
Taylor looked from me to Greyson and back. "I'm in," he finally ground out. "But I'll be watching you. Both of you."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Taylor called me on our wild drive to the Pit. He’d insisted on driving behind me, to make sure I didn’t drop Greyson off along the way and let him escape. I felt inclined to ignore his call, but this wasn’t the time for pride.
“What’s up, T-Dog?” I answered. From the seat next to me, Greyson threw me a weird look.
Taylor wasn’t amused, either. “Don’t call me that.”
“I’ll think of something better. How can I help you?”
“I can’t reach the guard at the Pit. Captain Ganner can’t get hold of him either.”
“You called Ganner?”
“She called me. She got an anonymous tip that something was going on at the Pit.”
Greyson and I glanced at each other. “Anonymous?”
“Maybe not so anonymous,” Taylor allowed. “Either way, she’s sending backup. They’ll be under my command.”
Oh goody. “Please don’t command them to do anything rash.”
“The safety of your friends is our top priority. Don’t worry, we know the drill. This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“They’re meeting us there?” I asked
“Just off the last on-ramp before the Pit on I-110.”
“Okay, see you there.”
We signed off. I caught Grey watching me, brows furrowed. “What?”
“The doppelgänger called the Order,” he said. “That means he wants them at the Pit to witness whatever he’s got planned for us. I don’t like it.”
My phone vibrated on the dashboard. Greyson grabbed it before I could reach for it. “You drive,” he said, pointing at the road that I was paying far too little attention to, considering I was going over a hundred miles per hour. “I’ll read.”
“It’s from the doppelgänger.” I would have bet money on it.
Grey nodded. “It’s a photo. It’s taking a while to upload. Here we go… uh-oh.”
My two favorite syllables. “Let me see.”
He stuck the screen under my nose. The photo was of Bella and Cecelia, both of them gagged. They were each tied to a chair, leaning over the edge of the Pit. The only thing keeping them from toppling backward into the orange-glowing abyss was a set of thin ropes attached to a black box. The timer on the box read 00:18:21.
There was no visible C4 in this photo, but whatever the timer counted down to would probably somehow release those ropes - and drop Bella and Cecelia backward into the abyss. In eighteen minutes.
I floored the gas pedal, trying to coax more speed out of the screaming engine.
“Dial number four and hit the green button,” I said to Greyson. The phone rang almost immediately.
“What’s up, Zee,” Taylor answered.
Greyson and I exchanged a wide-eyed glance. How much had Taylor overheard at the factory?
“Don’t call her that,” Greyson snapped. He would have said more but I stopped him with a look. Now was not the time.
“We received a message from the doppelgänger,” I said as we screeched around a corner. “We have seventeen and a half minutes to get to the Pit and free Bella and Cecelia before they’re dropped into it.”
“We still need at least five to get there. That leaves us no time to scout the situation first.”
“I’m afraid not. We need to come up with a strategy now.”
“That one’s easy: get to your friends before they fall. Eliminate anything that gets in our way.”
“You call that a strategy?”
“If you’ve got a better one, by all means, don’t be shy.”
I didn’t. We would have to go in blind.<
br />
Grey pointed at the clock on the dashboard.
“Seventeen minutes,” I told Taylor. “We’re almost there.” The on-ramp to the I-110 was right ahead.
“See you there.” The line went dead.
We flew up the ramp and onto the interstate, heading straight for the Pit. But we weren’t the first ones there, after all. Grey pointed at the black sky above the orange glow. Beams of white light pierced the darkness, shining into the Pit. “What’s going on up there?”
“Newscopters,” I said through clenched teeth. “At least five of them.” Those were exactly the type of witnesses we didn’t need.
“They don’t have curfew?”
“They do, but they’d rather pay the fines than miss out on the big scoop. I bet they received an ‘anonymous’ call, too.”
One of the helicopters swerved towards us. The beam of light hit us, followed two seconds later by the other two. I had to squint to see the road, so harsh was the glare. Perfect. Just perfect. I unhooked the mouthpiece of the loudspeaker rigged to the top of my roof and flipped the switch. “Stay back you morons. Don’t make me get my bazooka!”
They must have not only heard me over the din their helicopters made but also believed my threat, because they gained altitude, taking some of the glare with them. But not enough. We were still enveloped in a cone of brightness.
“At least we can see,” Greyson pointed out.
“I’d rather not have a big fat bull’s-eye trained on me. Now the doppelgänger has been warned that we’re on our way.”
Greyson shrugged. “He knows we’re coming and we never meant to sneak up on him in the first place.”
I jabbed a finger towards the sky. “They shouldn’t be here in the first place. They’ll record everything we do down here. Everything. Including you. And me.” I’d been hoping I’d get a chance to eliminate the doppelgänger my way. But if it was caught on camera that a shade disappeared as soon as I laid a hand on it, my secret would be blown wide open. Just like it almost had been at the gala. Circumstances which the doppelgänger had orchestrated, too…
Realization hit me, like a smack to the head. The doppelgänger’s plan was suddenly crystal clear. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out sooner.
Panic seized my chest, squeezing tight, threatening to overwhelm me. I forced myself to take a deep breath, to follow its journey through my body from my nose to my belly. And back out through my mouth. In and out. In and out… My mind cleared. The panic subsided. And suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do.
Fifteen minutes.
We reached the area in front of the gate, which stood wide open. The little gatehouse looked dark and empty. Its gatekeeper was nowhere to be seen. We squealed to a stop. Taylor’s van pulled up beside us in a spray of gravel. Greyson jumped out. I grabbed my phone, dialed 424-444-222. Thank God the number had been so easy to memorize… Pick up, pick up, pick up.
“March here, who is this?” came the answer after the fourth ring.
“Maybrey,” I answered, just as curtly. “Miss March, I have a proposition for you. I won’t press charges for kidnapping me if you do exactly as I say.”
There was a short pause. If I pressed charges for kidnapping, the hottest news story on the planet wasn’t going to save her from the very real possibility of going to jail. “I’m a little busy right now,” she finally said. Not ready to give up on her big scoop just yet.
“You’re in a newscopter flying above the Pit, hoping that story you were promised will finally be yours. Except it won’t be yours exclusively anymore, judging by all those other helicopters. Is it worth going to jail for?”
“How did you know we’re here?”
“I didn’t, but thanks for confirming. You can still turn this around for yourself. I need your help.”
“Alright,” she said, “what do you want me to do?”
I told her.
<<<<>>>>
I joined Greyson and Taylor at the back of our vans after I ended the call to March.
“You stop to take a power nap?” Taylor asked, donning a shoulder holster and shoving a gun the size of his forearm inside it.
“Just moving a chess piece across the board.” I kicked off the sandals I was still wearing and shoved my feet into the spare pare of hunter boots I always stashed in my van. I was also still wearing the stupid pink dress, but I didn’t have the three minutes it would take to change from that into my dura-tex suit. Instead, I sliced the skirt with my dagger and ripped the fabric off to halfway up my calves. It hadn’t gotten in the way much so far, but the tiniest distraction of getting my sword or wrist caught in the folds could be fatal. The dress’ thin fabric wouldn’t protect me, anyway.
“Care to share your plan?” Taylor asked, threading his arms through a double scabbard across his back. He took two short swords from a secured rack and inserted them blades-first into the scabbards. Then he began clipping extra rounds and grenades to his belt.
I strapped my own gun belt around my pink-clothed waist. “All you and Greyson need to do is get to Bella and Cecelia in time. I’ll take out the doppelgänger,” I said, slipping into my scabbard next. Aunt Vy’s silent yet comforting weight settled against my back. I added the wakizashi and more bullets to my belt. For a split-second, I considered the bazooka, but using it was just as likely to kill Bella and Cecelia as it would the chimera.
Taylor scowled. “That’s it? How are we supposed to act if your part goes wrong? By the way, you look ridiculous.”
I looked down at myself. He was right. I looked like Rambo Barbie. And I felt half-naked without the usual dura-tex fabric covering my arms, legs, and chest. Come to think of it, I’d probably never looked more like graphic novel Elysia in her absurdly skimpy armor.
I rolled my eyes at Taylor as I clipped my last little fire extinguisher onto my belt. “I thought you’d be happy that I’m easier to kill; maybe after tonight you won’t have to deal with me anymore.” Taylor opened his mouth to reply but I kept talking. “There’s not enough time to explain the details, but I have a plan for the doppelgänger. You just have to trust me on this.”
“Trust, huh?” Taylor wasn’t convinced. His eyes roamed from me to Greyson, who’d stepped up beside me, one of my swords belted to his hip. He wasn’t adding any other weapons to his arsenal.
“No guns for you?” Taylor asked with a sneer.
“All I need is a sword,” Grey said. “Anything else will just weigh me down.”
“Too special for a gun, shade-boy?”
“You should be grateful I don’t need one,” Grey shot back. “Less opportunity for me to shoot you.”
Taylor straightened, hand on a grenade. “Go ahead. Make my day.”
A giant chunk of lava hurtled over our heads, smashing into the top of Taylor’s vehicle. We dove to the dirt in the cover of my van. Nothing like a ball of fire being hurled your way to shut down a potentially fatal blow-up between two alpha-males.
When the van stopped rocking, I dared a glance around the corner. A chimera stood in the open gateway. Its massive shoulders looked as if they could have reached the roof of a three-story building, though it was hard to tell its true height with the ridge of spikes running along its spine and the flames blazing between them. Black claws the size of daggers scraped the ground, matching the fangs from which drooled spittle the color of lava. I really didn’t want to get caught between those jaws. Which might be more difficult than on an average chimera.
“Three heads?” Taylor hissed, peering around the van next to me. “You had to give one of those monsters three heads?”
Those three heads were focused on our vehicles, snaking up and down, left and right, scoping out every angle on long, muscular necks. Their tiny ears were pricked, their red eyes searching for us. Taylor and I drew back behind the cover of the van.
“Any chance for earlier backup?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Ganner is mobilizing all available teams in the area, but none of them ar
e close by.”
“How about the fire brigade?”
“They don’t come for shades until they’re eliminated.”
“This might be a good time to negotiate an exemption.”
He shot me a withering look. “We’re in the middle of a situation and you want me to call 9-1-1 to negotiate?”
“You get a kick out of being difficult, don’t you?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Ganner’s number.
She picked up after half a ring. "Maybrey? What's the status?"
"We need to dump large amounts of water on a chimera at the Pit. It’s spitting globs of fire the size of wrecking balls. Taylor says the fire department won't help."
"The fire chief owes me a favor," she said, "time for him to pay up."
“Thanks.” I put my phone away and aimed a look at Taylor. "She's handling it."
"How much time?" Taylor asked, face neutral.
"She didn't say."
"And what a big help that is."
About as big a help as you. I turned away from him, glanced at my phone. Eleven minutes.
Greyson had risen into a crouch and was creeping to the back of the van. He dared a peek around the back. “It’s gone.”
A roar split the air. I almost jumped out of my skin. “Gone?”
“Retreating from the gate,” Greyson amended over his shoulder. He disappeared in the back of the van and reappeared moments later with a tactical tomahawk featuring a curved edge and a wicked spike. He must’ve decided a second weapon might be prudent, after all.
He drew the sword with his other hand. “You guys coming or what?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The stink hit us as we crossed the threshold of the open gate. My eyes teared up and I had to suppress my gag reflex. I'd forgotten how bad the smell was. But fighting in gas masks was out of the question. They would limit our vision and mobility. We needed to be light on our feet and able to see fireballs or other attacks coming from different directions. Speaking of different directions…
