The man tossed the keys; they glinted as they arced through the air. Nicholas, caught off guard, reached to awkwardly catch the keys with his gun hand. Strauss took advantage of his momentary distraction to fire.
Nicholas screamed as his other arm exploded in a spray of crimson. The detonator dropped to the ground. Strauss advanced on Nicholas, firing again, but he twisted aside, still screeching in pain and clutching his wounded arm to his stomach.
Moira spun around. “Get them out of here! Away from this building—now! The gas chamber is located beneath the atrium, and we’re practically standing on top of it. Go! A few feet of dirt won’t stop that blast, and every moment we waste makes it worse!” The doctors immediately began wheeling and carrying the Vitros down the hill toward the resort. The moment Strauss had fired, Andreyev’s bodyguards had pulled out their weapons, twin revolvers black as jet. One trained his on Strauss, the other on Nicholas, but Moira told Andreyev to help get the Vitros down the hill. He nodded and ordered his men to help him. They shot him mutinous looks, and kept their guns in hand as they helped push stretchers down the slope. Moira whipped her own gun out and directed it at Strauss. “Victoria, stop!”
Nicholas tripped and fell into a heap in the grass, whimpering and snarling like a rabid dog, swinging his gun wildly at everyone who came near him. Sophie took the chance to dart across the ground and pick up the detonator—but someone got there before she did.
The Vitro girl, Mary. She held it up in triumph, her eyes flaming.
“I got it, Nicky! Do you want me to do it?” She stood with her legs spread and her curls bouncing in the wind, her thumb leaning against the little metal switch. Sophie froze in horror.
“You’ll kill yourself, Mary!” Sophie hissed. “Do you really want that?”
Mary looked down at her.
“Just listen to me,” said Sophie. Moira and Strauss were still in a stand-off, but she knew they were watching Mary—or rather, Mary’s thumb. “Nicholas was going to leave without you,” she said. “He had it all worked out. You’re his friend, right? You’re one of the ones who didn’t imprint. One of the lucky ones, I think. And yet he was going to leave you behind. Why would you die for his cause?”
The fanatical light in Mary’s eyes faltered. She lowered her gaze to where Nicholas crouched in the grass.
“Give it to me,” said Sophie, holding out a hand. “Please, Mary. You don’t want to throw your life away for him.”
“Do it,” Nicholas hissed. “Light it up. We’ll burn together, you and me, Mary.”
“Mary, no. Give me the—”
Craaaack!
Mary flew backward, the detonator falling from her hands, a bullet planted between her eyes. She landed heavily on the grass and lay still, her eyes stretched open, her mouth contorted in a scream she didn’t live long enough to give. A thin line of blood drained down her face and pooled in her eye socket.
Strauss smiled. Actually smiled.
For a moment, everyone stared at the body in shock. Sophie gagged on a surge of bile.
Then, with a roar of rage, Moira fired at Strauss and missed, and everyone left on the hilltop sprang into chaos. The guards took up firing stances all over the place, but seemed uncertain whom to fire at. Nicholas crawled toward the detonator with fiendish speed despite his shattered, bloody arm, and Sophie scrambled in an attempt to beat him to it. Meanwhile, Moira and Strauss ducked behind palms and took wild shots at each other that sent splinters of wood flying; one of Strauss’s bullets hit the glass doors to the atrium and they shattered in a magnificent, glittering crash.
Nicholas reached the detonator first, but Sophie was a breath away. She slammed into him, sending them both hard into the dirt. He threw her off and lunged away, but she grabbed his long hair and yanked him back.
Jim charged toward them and slid in as if they were sitting on home plate. He collared Nicholas around the neck, trying to get a strangle hold on him, when Nicholas clamped his teeth onto Sophie’s hurt shoulder. She howled and fell back, giving him the chance to deliver a cutting elbow jab to Jim’s jaw and breaking Jim’s hold on him. He leaped for the detonator, but not before Lux scooped it up. She danced backward, out of Nicholas’s reach, then tripped over Mary’s body and toppled down. Before she could get back on her feet, Nicholas was on her. She caught him in the stomach with her feet and threw him over her head, then rolled smoothly into a crouch. Nicholas landed heavily, howling at the pain in his arm.
“Whoa,” said Sophie, her eyes wide.
“I know, right?” Jim’s voice was hard. “Talk about teenage mutant ninja blonde. Lux, don’t let him touch that detonator.”
She nodded, clutching the detonator in both hands. Behind them, they heard a loud click.
“Ha! You’re empty!” Moira cried, and Sophie spun to see Strauss standing in the open, her gun at her side. Moira advanced on her. “And I’ve still got one left, Victoria.”
Strauss rolled her eyes. “Fine. Your round, Moira. But the board will have the final say.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” said Moira. “I’m looking forward to telling them all about how you shoved my Vitros into a gas chamber.”
“I hope you’ll add that one of those same Vitros turned that gas chamber into a giant bomb.” Strauss dropped her gun and held up her hands. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be around when that thing goes off. And it will. Whether or not your little psychopath sets it off, it will go off. The place is full of explosive gas and all it will take is a spark. This whole hilltop will go up in flames.”
She turned her back to Moira and walked briskly down the hill to where the others stood, without so much as a backward look.
“She’s right,” Moira said, turning to them. “Let’s go, Nicky. Let’s—”
“You have one shot? Well, I’ve got eight.” He waved his pistol.
“Enough,” she said impatiently. “You’re bleeding out. Let me help you!”
“No, let me help you!” He struggled to his feet, wheezing and pale. “Let me help you understand what’s going to happen here. First, you’re going to back up, all three of you. Now.”
Moira, Sophie, and Jim backed away, hands raised.
“Toss the gun, Moira.”
She dropped her pistol.
“I’ve reached a decision,” he announced. “Do you want to hear it? I’ve decided to shoot all three of you. That’s right. No more games, no more talking, no more surprises. Just pop, pop, pop! And then Lux and I fly off into the sunset—Oh, no, precious. Don’t even think about moving.” He held up a hand in warning to Lux. She was several paces away, just far enough to be out of reach.
“You act like you don’t care,” said Moira. “You tell yourself that—and maybe, for the most part it’s true. But you’re not as lost as you think you are. You do care, don’t you? You care about Sophie.” She looked at her daughter, then back at Nicholas, her eyes moist. “Your trouble isn’t that you can’t care, it’s that you don’t know how to care. Luring her here, these games you’re playing, this is your way of expressing that deep down you do feel a connection. You did all of this for her, right? To be with her? To find some way into her world?”
Nicholas sneered. “I did all of this for me. You see what you want to, that’s all.”
“I’m trying to make you see it! You aren’t beyond saving, Nicky! Maybe we assumed too much about you when we called you a psychopath. Maybe there is still time—”
“I’m tired, Moira,” he said, and he looked it. Bags under his eyes, shadows beneath his cheekbones and over his temples. “I’m so very tired. Tired of this place, of this life, of your constant nagging. Just . . . enough.” He raised the gun, and Moira threw herself to the side, but not before he fired; the bullet caught her in the back and she fell with a cry of pain.