Cold fingers locked around my neck and I watched my feet leave the ground through a shower of red rain. Then I was soaring down the length of the hallway, coming down hard on my shoulder, and rolling to a stop a foot from the window at the far end.
Grace: “Stay there.”
She was standing by Sammy’s door, a lithe shadow down a dimly lit tunnel, shimmering on the other side of the tears that welled uncontrollably and spilled down my cheeks to mix with blood.
“Leave. My. Brother. Alone.”
“That adorable little boy? He’s your brother? I’m sorry, Cassiopeia, I didn’t know.” Shaking her head in mock sadness. Like they mocked every decent human thing.
“He’s already dead.”
THREE THINGS HAPPENED then, all at the same time. Four, if you counted my heart blowing apart.
I ran—not away but toward. I was going to rip her cover-model face off. I was going to tear her pseudo-human heart from between her perfectly shaped human boobs. I was going to open her up with my fingernails.
That was the first thing.
The second was the stairway door flying open and Poundcake entering the hall in anything but Eeyore fashion, shoving me back with one arm as the other brought his rifle to bear on Grace. Not an easy shot by any means, but Poundcake was the squad’s best marksman after Ringer, according to Ben.
The third thing was a shirtless, boxer-shorts-wearing Evan Walker, crawling out of the room behind Grace. Expert marksman or not, if Poundcake missed . . . or if Grace dived out of the way at the last second . . .
So I did the diving, wrapping my arms around the kid’s ankles. He toppled forward, his rifle discharged, and then I heard the stairway door again and Ben shouting, “Freeze!” just like they used to in the movies, but nobody froze, not me, not Poundcake, and not Evan—and certainly not Grace, who was gone. She was there and then she wasn’t. Ben hopped over me and Poundcake and limped down the hall to the room opposite Sam’s.
Sam.
I jumped up and raced down the hall. Ben was motioning to Poundcake, saying, “She’s in there.”
I yanked on the handle. Locked. Thank you, God! I pounded on the door. “Sam! Sam, open up! It’s me!”
And from the other side, a voice no louder than a mouse’s squeak: “It’s a trick! You’re tricking me!”
I lost it. Pressed my bloody cheek against the door and had a good, solid, and very satisfying mini-breakdown. I’d let my guard down. I’d forgotten how cruel the Others could be. Not enough to punch a hole through my heart with a bullet. No, first you have to pummel it and stomp on it and crush it in your hands until the tissue oozes from between your fingers like Play-Doh.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I whimpered. “Stay in there, okay? No matter what, Sam. Don’t come out till I come back.”
Poundcake was standing to one side of the door across the hall. Ben was helping Evan to his feet—or trying to. Every time he loosened his grip, Evan’s knees buckled. Ben finally decided to lean him against the wall, where Evan rocked, gasping for air, his skin the color of the ashes at the camp where my father died.
Evan looked over at me and he hardly had the breath for the words: “Get out of this hallway. Now.”
The drywall in front of Poundcake blew apart in a rain of fine white dust and chunks of moldy wallpaper. He staggered backward. His rifle fell from his limp fingers. He knocked into Ben, who grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him into the room with Dumbo. Ben reached for me next, but I slapped his hand away and told him to grab Evan before picking up Poundcake’s rifle and opening up on Grace’s door. The sound was deafening in the narrow hall. I emptied the magazine before Ben got hold of me and pulled me back.
“Don’t be an idiot!” he shouted. He slapped a full magazine into my hand and told me to watch the door but stay down.
The scene played out like a TV show going on in another room: just voices. I was flat on my stomach, resting my upper body on my elbows, the rifle trained on the door directly across from me. Come on, ice maiden. I have a little something for you. Running my tongue over my bloody lips, hating the taste, loving the taste. Come on, you creepy Swede.
Ben: Dumbo, how is it? Dumbo!
Dumbo: It’s bad, Sarge.
Ben: How bad?
Dumbo: Pretty bad . . .
Ben: Oh, Christ. I can freaking see that it’s bad, Dumbo!
Evan: Ben—listen to me—you have to listen to me—we have to get out of here. Now.
Ben: Why? We got her contained—
Evan: Not for long.
Ben: Sullivan can handle her. Who the hell is she, anyway?
Evan: (unintelligible)
Ben: Well, sure. The more the merrier. Guess we’re well into Plan B. I’ve got you, Walker. Dumbo, you have Poundcake. Sullivan will take the kids.
Ben eased down beside me, placing his hand on the small of my back. He nodded toward the door.
“We can’t bug out until the threat’s neutralized,” he whispered. “Hey, what happened to your nose?”
I shrugged. Swipe, swipe went the tongue. “How?” I sounded like I had a bad head cold.
“Pretty simple. Somebody takes the door, one low, one high, one to the right, one to the left. Worst part the first two and a half seconds.”
“What’s the best part?”
“The last two and a half seconds. Ready?”
“Cassie, wait.” Evan, on his knees behind us like a pilgrim at the altar. “Ben doesn’t know what he’s dealing with—but you do. Tell him. Tell him what she’s capa—”
“Shut up, lover boy,” Ben growled. He tugged on my shirt. “Let’s roll.”
“She’s not even in there anymore—I guarantee you,” Evan said, raising his voice.
“What? She jumped two stories?” Ben laughed. “That’s great. I’ll pop her broken-legged ass when I get down there.”
“She probably has jumped—but she didn’t break anything. Grace is like me.” Evan was talking to both of us but looking desperately at me. “Like me, Cassie.”
“But you’re human—I mean, your body is,” Ben said. “And no human body could—”
“Her body could. Not mine anymore. Mine has . . . crashed.”
“You getting all this?” Ben asked me. “Because to me, this sounds like more of Mr. E.T.’s bullshit.”
“What do you suggest we do, Evan?” I asked. Despite the mighty tasty blood in my mouth, the rage was draining out of me, replaced by the very uncomfortable and, by now, very familiar feeling of being in five thousand fathoms over my head.
“Get out. Now. It isn’t you she wants.”
“Sacrificial goat,” Ben said with a nasty smile. “I like it.”
“She’ll just let us walk away,” I said, shaking my head. My sense of drowning was growing more acute. Could Ben be right? What was I thinking, trusting Evan Walker with my life and the life of my brother? Something was off here. Something was wrong. “Just like that.”
“I don’t know,” Evan answered, which was a point in his favor. He could have said, Sure, she’s an okay person once you get past her itsy-bitsy sadism problem. “But I do know what will happen if you stay.”