"A stone what?" Robyn said, popping out from behind the binoculars. A sheepish smile. "Sorry." She paused, then said hesitantly, "Is Damon back?"
Finn nodded. Her gaze traveled past him, searching for some sign of Damon. Disappointment flickered through her eyes, so sharp it was like an ice pick, a breathtaking jab of empathetic pain.
"Finn?" Damon waved his hands in front of Finn's face. "Could you stop staring at my wife and listen to me?"
Finn thought he heard a bite in Damon's voice, but when he glanced up, the ghost just looked impatient.
"I said they're going to stone Adele."
"You heard wrong."
"No, I did not. Her group, those people, they call themselves a company or something, they just held a trial. They convicted her of a whole pile of shit and sentenced her to be stoned by the whole group. Hope's arguing. She wants to take Adele back to that council and – "
A shot. A scream. Damon wheeled with a, "Holy shit!" Robyn lifted the binoculars, but Finn snatched them, ignoring her cry of protest and pushing her down to the ground as he lowered himself to his knees.
He swung the lenses to Adams and Marsten. Adams lay in Marsten's arms.
"Finn?" Robyn yanked on his sleeve. "What's happening?"
"They're down – taking cover," he added quickly. The lie came easier than any he'd ever told. "They're okay. Just – "
Another scream. Another shot. Armed gunmen rushed from behind the buildings, shouting orders. A mushroom cloud of tear gas exploded.
Finn shot to his feet. Robyn grabbed his pant leg. He put his hand on her head, keeping her down.
"Stay here."
"I'm not – "
He dropped to one knee, his face coming down to hers. "You need to stay here, Robyn. Please. Do you still have the gun?"
She nodded.
"Then stay. You aren't trained for this, okay?"
That did it – not safety issues but the reminder she wasn't qualified.
She lowered herself into the grass, then stopped, looking up. "Damon? Go with him. Help him."
Damon leaned down, kissing the top of her head. "I will, baby."
Finn cut through the field, praying everyone was too busy to notice him. Damon ran ahead, ready to call back a warning if anyone took an interest. No one did.
The smoke floated out until Finn couldn't see, and moved by sound alone. After a moment, he recognized one of the shouting voices. Karl Marsten calling for Adams. When he ran toward the voice, he smacked into Marsten, who spun, lips curling in a snarl.
"I'm not working for the Nasts," Finn said quickly. "I – "
"I know. Find Hope," Marsten said, then was about to dive back into the smoke when Finn caught the back of his shirt.
"Is she shot?" he said. "I saw her fall – "
"No, that was – " He waved Finn off. "We – " A coughing fit cut him short. "We need to find her before she gets shot."
He turned again, but Finn still had a grip on his shirt. "That gas is going to knock us flat before we do."
Marsten's red-rimmed eyes blazed, and Finn thought he was going to deck him. Then his jaw flexed and he gave a curt nod. "We need gas masks. I thought I saw – "
A figure staggered out, bent double. Rhys. Marsten grabbed him, just long enough to recognize him – and recognize that he wasn't someone with a gas mask – then dropped him. Finn dove in to catch the man before he toppled.
"I thought I heard you," Rhys croaked, squinting up at Marsten. "Where's Hope?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out. They have gas masks, right?"
"What?" Rhys coughed so hard that blood flecked Finn's pants.
"Those men. They have gas masks, don't they?"
"I think so."
"Good."
Marsten strode back into the thick of it. Finn tried to grab him.
Rhys caught his hand. "If you like the current configuration of all your body parts, I wouldn't do that. He'll be fine."
"I'll cover him," said a voice behind Finn.
He turned to see Damon jog off after Marsten.
"Does he have a gun?" Finn asked.
"He doesn't need one. You're the detective who's after Adele, right?"
Finn nodded and looked in the direction Damon and Marsten had gone.
"He's fine. Really," Rhys said. "But if you want Adele, she's long gone. Last I saw, she was making a break for it."
"Robyn."
"What?"
Finn took off at a run. He'd left Robyn alone, without even Damon to watch her, and now Adele – the woman who wanted her dead, and who could find her anywhere – was on the loose.
He didn't slow until he reached the spot where he'd left Robyn. There, on the ground, lay the pair of binoculars.
HOPE
When the tear gas exploded, Karl knocked Hope to the ground. It wasn't necessary – she was already headed that way and grabbing for his arm to yank him down with her, the demon's hunger for chaos temporarily overridden by its hunger for continued life.
As Hope was twisting to pull him down, someone barreled into him. Hope rolled out of the way so he wouldn't drop on her and then…
She wasn't really sure what happened then. The demon decided they were out of danger long enough to enjoy a chaos snack before completing their escape. That interlude of euphoria ended when a foot crunched Hope's spine, she realized Karl wasn't beside her and the demon shouted at her to get the hell out of there.
She got on all fours, shut her eyes and crawled as fast as she could, ignoring the blows and kicks of people tripping over her. When she finally tasted a current of fresh air on the breeze, she opened her eyes. The chaos-laced smoke still eddied around them, but she could make out the shapes of buildings and people. One person in particular – Adele Morrissey racing across the field.
Hope scrambled to her feet and shot after Adele.
Hope started along a house, darting from bush to bush. But she quickly realized it wasn't necessary. Adele never glanced back, which told Hope she'd already been spotted. Adele must have caught a glimpse when Hope first started after her, and now she watched Hope's progress remotely, letting her think she hadn't noticed. Hope played the game, and kept her gun holstered, out of sight.
When Hope rounded the barn, she saw Adele's destination – a small outbuilding in the middle of a field. For an ambush or hiding place, she'd have chosen the barn, but Adele's trajectory put her on target for the shed and, sure enough, a moment later, she was inside it.
Hope darted to the door, then waited, ears and chaos sensors on full. A key clicked in a lock. Then a rhythmic clang-clang, growing distant until it faded. Hope slipped inside. One section of the hay-covered floor had been hastily cleared. Beneath it was a hatch, conveniently left open, should Hope not be clever enough to figure out where Adele had gone.
Beneath the hatch, a metal ladder descended into darkness. With a distant click, a dim light filled the bottom. The sound of one lock opening. Footsteps. The scrape of a key. The creak of a door. A blast of manic voices. Cartoons? The noise faded, and Hope dismissed it as shrieks from outside.
She climbed down the ladder, closing the hatch behind her so no one would follow her down. As she neared the bottom, she hunched down to get a better look at what she was descending into, but all she could see from her vantage point was an empty room with a door. She called on the demon to pick up any tremors of chaos. It reported negative. Hope still lowered herself as slowly as she could, knowing Adele could be waiting at the bottom.
She wasn't. She'd even left the door ajar for Hope.
Hope crept up to it, taking out her gun now, keeping it hidden under her jacket in case Adele was watching. Hope eased open the door. It led to a dimly lit tunnel and another door at the end, a sliver of light telling Hope it too was cracked open. She did a chaos check, then crept down the hall and pulled open the second door.
Adele stood right there, looking into the room, her back to Hope.