I pointed Dinah at her. “Change out, Dinah.”
“Sweet baby Jesus. I don’t want to shoot her,” Dinah said. “She’s my friend too.”
“Not anymore she’s not.” I kept Dinah trained on Easter as we worked around her. A booming alarm went off. It had taken longer than I’d thought.
“Eyes open, Peter.” I handed him the Taser, which he immediately jammed between Easter’s shoulder blades. She didn’t scream. That wasn’t her style. A grunt, the click of her teeth, and that was it as her body convulsed and then slumped.
“Run,” I said.
Peter leapt ahead of me, and I was right behind him. “Second door on your left. Grab the kid, he’s not broken yet.”
“This ain’t a fucking rescue mission,” Peter growled.
I pointed Dinah at him. “Incendiary.”
“Oh, yeah, let’s fry the Magelore. They’re nothing but trouble,” Dinah purred, shivering against my hand.
“Get him, Peter, or I’ll leave you here.” I smiled at him, meaning every word.
Peter snarled but slid into Cowboy’s room. I opened the door to my room and waved for Eligor to join me. “Let’s go, friend.”
He stared up at me, strangely blue eyes blinking, horror filling them which made me want to laugh considering what he was. “You killed the guard. You . . . how did you keep the darkness from me? How did I not see the violence in you?”
“Later.”
I took him by the hand and tugged him along with me as if he were a child. Peter stepped out of Cowboy’s room with the kid over his shoulder and pointed at the kid’s hip. “Why are we bringing him, exactly?”
I looked him straight in the eye. “Because we could be the last three abnormals with our minds still intact. And that kid there carries within him the equivalent of an EMP pulse.”
“I’m carrying the bomb?” Peter lifted both dark brows high.
I winked. “You’re carrying the motherfucking bomb.”
6
Peter didn’t argue with me after I shared that little gem about Cowboy. He just adjusted the kid on his shoulder and fell in behind me.
“This way,” Eligor said softly, tugging my hand.
He didn’t lead so much as direct me and let me lead. Which was fine. I could feel him in my head still, present but not trying to direct me like that other one had done. The alarm turned off as suddenly as it had started, leaving my ears ringing in the silence.
All of a minute and a half had passed. I knew we had another thirty seconds tops based on what I’d seen when the guards were to put down trouble. Under two minutes or they were in shit so deep, they were breathing it in.
“That’s not good,” Peter muttered.
I didn’t disagree but said nothing. “Dinah, you ready?”
“Always,” she growled, shivering in my hand. Eligor shivered too, but I doubted it was for the same reason. Bloodthirsty as Dinah was, she would be relishing this moment. Eligor was just scared.
I did a quick peek around the corner, seeing what I’d already known would be there. The elevator plus two guards, one of them George.
George spoke into the walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder. The other guard looked bored. As if the alarm meant nothing. This was weird.
I glanced at Eligor. “How far down are we?”
“Thirteen floors,” he said.
I shared a look with Peter. The alarms had ended because they were waiting on the top floor for us with their Tasers and sedatives, no doubt. George wouldn’t put up much of a fight; they’d let us through.
“There’s another way out,” Eligor said, picking up on my thoughts.
“Can we trust him?” Peter growled, adjusting Cowboy over his shoulder. The kid didn’t so much as moan.
Tightening my hold on Eligor’s fingers, I felt for him inside my head—and then followed that feeling back into his mind. He gasped. “That’s not possible. You shouldn’t be able to be in my head!”
“Heard that before,” I said.
It only took him a moment to shut me out, but it was all the time I needed. Eligor was terrified of something here, and he wanted out. He wanted to flee, although he’d only just admitted it to himself.
“Yes, we trust him.”
“We still need the elevator,” the little man said.
I let his hand go, stepped around the corner, and lifted Dinah, all in the same smooth motion.
A squeeze of the trigger and George’s friend went down in a crumpled mess. George’s eyes shot to me.
“Fiona?”
I shook my head. “Phoenix.”
His brows dipped. “This is ridiculous.”
“We need him in order to get out,” Eligor said.
If George had seemed perplexed before, it was nothing compared to the look on his face when he saw Eligor. “Ernest?”
Eligor cringed and Dinah snickered. “That’s a shit name.”
“Indeed. Regardless, we need his fingerprints and mine to activate the doors,” Eligor said. “So he has to come with us.”
I glanced at George, and the joint of his wrist. “We’re already carrying one deadweight.”
George shook his head. “You aren’t that person.”
I laughed, the first laugh in almost a year, and it was rusty. “You don’t know who I am, George. Not a fucking clue.”
I grabbed his hand, yanked him close, and put Dinah’s muzzle against his wrist. He didn’t fight or even pull back, which gave me pause. I looked into his eyes and saw something there I didn’t like.
Fervor. He believed in something else saving him, like a zealot.
I let him go. “Eligor. They know. They’ve known since you stepped off that elevator.”
“Oh no,” he whispered. “Then they are watching me too.” He touched his head. “They cannot see now, but it is too late. They knew I meant to come to you, to speak with you.”
George visibly relaxed. “They know, you’re right about that.”
My mind raced with this new info as a plan formed in fast-forward, an old plan that could be used again. “Peter, you remember that night at Olive’s Orgy when I was still working for my father?”
Peter laughed, flashing all those teeth of his. “Yeah, I was there . . . shit, was that you?”
I gave a sharp nod. “Same move. Go get us some friends for a distraction.”
He put Cowboy down, turned and ran back the way we’d come, his Taser in hand. He didn’t need it, not with his abilities, but I took note that he hadn’t used them.
I grabbed George’s hand again, jammed Dinah’s muzzle against his wrist, and squeezed the trigger.
The skin and bone exploded, and his hand came free of his arm. He screamed and fell backward, grasping at the stump of his arm, blood pouring from the wound. He’d be dead in no time.
Eligor gasped, gagged, and I held up George’s still very warm fingers. “Thanks, George.”
“You feel no remorse,” Eligor whispered. “How can that be? You were always so thoughtful and—”
I turned my head toward him. “Eligor, let me be very clear with you.” I paused as a bunch of the inmates were prodded forward by Peter. I directed them into the elevator as I spoke. “There is not much in this world that I care about, but my family tops the list. Right now, that is all that matters to me.”