“See that Dumpster in the parking lot?” Pyro said. “How about making it fly with a little telekinesis? Provide a distraction?”
She could move paper clips. But a four-thousand-pound trash heap on reserve psychic energy? Teddy shook her head. A fire, especially in the midst of a bomb threat, would be a distraction that would pull the cops’ attention. “I think I’ll defer to you on this one.”
Pyro nodded. “Wanted to give you first dibs. I’ll light it up as soon as you’re in position.” He turned to Dara, Jeremy, and Jillian. “Car’s parked at the corner of Eddy and Larkin. Burgundy Hyundai sedan. Key’s over the visor. I’ll carry Molly. Dara, you drive. Then we get the hell out of here. Everybody got it?” His eyes shifted to Jeremy, who stood frozen. “Jeremy, you with us?”
Jeremy’s eyes snapped to Pyro. “Yes, I—” he swallowed. “Yes.”
“I can provide a distraction, too,” Jillian said, pointing to the sky. “Seagulls.”
“Okay, then,” Pyro said. “Let’s move.”
Teddy nodded. Her body was waking up. A shot of adrenaline coursed through her, the good kind, not the kind that had stopped her in her tracks when she’d exited the FBI building. They could do this—together. They had to. For Molly.
Pyro turned his attention to the Dumpster. Within seconds, she heard the shouts: Fire! Explosives! Clear the area! Teddy’s gaze shot to the cops stationed at the other end of the alley. Their attention was fixed on the Dumpster, which had erupted in flames, but she couldn’t take a chance that their gazes might waver. She felt the bile at the back of her throat. Don’t turn around. Watch the fire.
She imagined splitting herself in two: half of herself reaching toward one man, the other half toward the other. One of the cops was more acquiescent. She felt the mind of the man on the left go calm, while the mind of the man on the right thrashed against her will, the darkness of his mind cresting. She remembered how Clint had guided the guards and Sergei away from their hiding place all those months ago. She should have asked him how before she’d discovered she couldn’t trust him.
Don’t turn around, she commanded. Watch the fire.
She saw Pyro pick Molly up and begin to run out of the alley, Dara, Jeremy, and Jillian racing behind him. Teddy redoubled her efforts to direct the cops’ eyes away from her friends.
The one cop’s mind wouldn’t settle. She was drenched in sweat, her slacks sticking to her thighs. She wanted to fall to the ground, collapse, give up. She was drained.
“Stop!” one of the cops shouted, turning toward her friends. “Police!”
A flock of seagulls swooped down into the alley, cawing and beating their wings as though fighting over scraps of food. Jillian. The birds were shielding the Misfits from the police officer’s view.
Teddy didn’t wait for another chance. She sprinted out of the alley and around the corner toward Eddy Street. Later, she couldn’t remember how she made it through the mass of people, cops, FBI agents, firemen. She couldn’t remember opening the door to the Hyundai, piling into the backseat, or Dara peeling away from the curb, racing toward the harbor. All she remembered was Molly’s bloody face in her lap.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
TEDDY BRUSHED MOLLY’S HAIR BACK from her forehead, watching Molly’s eyes flutter as if she were dreaming. Next to Teddy, Jeremy held Molly’s hand in his own. He ran his thumb over her fingers again and again. Before, when Teddy had screwed up, it had been her ass on the line; she’d been the one to take the risk. But today she’d walked into the FBI building, and Molly had been the one to get hurt.
Teddy ran through the past hour in her mind, trying to find the precise moment their plan had fallen apart. How had they messed up the hotel reservation? Who had called in the bomb threat? Why had Jeremy left the boat? Especially after Teddy had explicitly told him to stay put.
Teddy cast a glance at Jeremy. It was only then that she noticed he was wearing a navy hoodie similar to the one Pyro wore.
“It was you on the roof, wasn’t it?”
Jeremy shook his head as if coming out of a trance. “I’m sorry?”
“Why didn’t you stay at the docks?”
Jeremy swallowed. “I, I just—”
“Teddy,” Jillian said. “Let it go, we’ve all been through a lot.”
But Teddy couldn’t let it go. “Dara said you had rappelling gear, too. How did you know? Tell me.”
Jeremy looked down at Molly’s unmoving form. “I just had this feeling. I couldn’t leave her alone, not when I could do something to help her.”
“Turn here,” Pyro said. “We’ll dump the vehicle and walk to the dock.” Dara maneuvered the car and cut the engine. Pyro opened the back door and lifted Molly into his arms.
“We have to get her to a hospital,” Teddy said.
“No hospital,” Pyro said. “If we take her to the hospital, there’ll be a police report.” He shifted Molly higher in his arms.
Molly groaned, stirring. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.” She leaned in to Pyro’s shoulder.
“Molly!” Teddy cried. “Is she awake?”
Pyro ran the back of his hand against her forehead. “She’s slipping in and out. We’ll take her to the infirmary when we’re on the island. Jeremy, can you handle the boat?”
Jeremy nodded, fumbling for the keys from his pocket.
They hiked the two blocks to the marina. Teddy remembered thinking that it was the perfect San Francisco day. Not a cloud in the sky. Pretty pastel Victorians gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Tourists meandered up and down steep sidewalks, stopping in outdoor cafés and browsing in cute shops. Teddy took it all in with a sense of disbelief. Impossible to conceive that something so awful could be happening in the midst of such picture-postcard beauty.
* * *
The infirmary was deserted except for one lone nurse on duty—the stocky and efficient Nurse Bell—and an upperclassman with a migraine. When the group entered, Nurse
