“It’s going to be okay,” I promised. Like it was something she could take to the bank. Like that and a bottle of pink nail polish would erase everything that had happened in this room.
I placed the picture on the bed next to her and turned to my partner.
He looked like he needed a hell of a lot more than five minutes to recover. But he nodded and heaved himself to his feet, and we returned to the door.
Don’t think about Ami now. Don’t worry about Bandoni.
Keep moving.
My hands were shaking when I reached out to open the door. Ami’s presence had destroyed my warrior calm. I took a deep breath.
Cool. Detached. You are a machine.
Bandoni and I stood to the right of the doorway. I raised my gun and opened the door. Pivoted into the fatal funnel. I intended to step quickly out into the hall and move to the right so that Bandoni could follow.
Instead, a red-hot spear slid into my left thigh just above my knee.
I screamed as my leg folded under me and I tipped forward, out into the hall. The walls turned sideways. I clung to my gun as I scrabbled to push myself up.
The walls stayed sideways.
Bandoni stood where I’d been only a second ago, leaning out through the doorway, firing wildly and shouting at me to get back in the room.
Words bubbled up from my Marine days.
To protect your fellow Marine, lay down repeated rounds of suppressive fire so that the enemy cannot fire without risking mortal injury.
Good old Bandoni. Laying down suppressive fire.
Only it didn’t work.
Another hot spear sliced along my right shoulder, and the Glock dropped from my hands.
It seemed important that I tell Bandoni to leave me. To get back into the room with Ami. To hide there until help came. But when I opened my mouth, the only thing that came out was a moan.
Bandoni grunted. My eyes fastened on him as he fell back into Ami’s room in a spray of red.
Something grabbed me by my right arm, yanking it, and I shouted with the pain. The walls righted themselves, but now they sailed past as I bumped and bounced along the floor, my leg and shoulder on fire, my head smacking concrete, my blood leaving a bright-red smear on the dark cement.
A gunshot echoed, and the grip relaxed its hold. I shook myself free, scrabbled onto all fours, and skitter-crawled into the nearest room.
I rolled onto my back and kicked the door closed with my good leg. It must have locked automatically, for a second later the doorknob rattled, and then the entire door shook when something slammed against it.
Not something.
Someone.
I dragged myself to the side of the door and fell against the wall.
The music screeched and growled as fire rolled from my shoulder and my leg and began to eat its way along my bones, devouring flesh. A deep, black sinkhole opened in front of me, and I felt myself tip forward, falling toward the blackness.
I moved my leg, and the pain jerked me back to consciousness.
I leaned my head back against the cold concrete and waited for the fire to slow. As I panted, my breath fogged in the air; the room was frigid.
Or maybe it was me.
I am cool. I am detached. I am a machine.
I looked at my leg through the ripped slacks. Blood ran from a deep, narrow wound. I shrugged out of my suit jacket, crying out as I twisted my injured shoulder, and used the sleeves as a tourniquet. I tied it as tightly as I could above the wound.
The flow slowed to a seep. Adrenaline surged, and the flames banked to embers.
Now your shoulder.
I looked at it. Sliced muscle. A great deal of blood.
I tipped my head against the wall again.
My own face gazed back at me. I blinked. Sat up.
My image was everywhere. The walls were covered with my picture. Photographs from the paper and snapshots taken while I was completely unaware. I heard Markey’s voice.
We know what kind of cereal you like. We know about the old Marine T-shirts you wear to bed and what your tits look like and that your fuckboy reads to you at night like you’re a little girl.
My stomach twisted, tried to crawl up my throat.
The rest of the room came into focus. It was unfinished, as if the builder had simply run out of money after he’d gotten this far. Bare walls seeped water, bare pipes ran overhead. A rusting drain breathed out the reek of dead things. There was a bed and handcuffs dangling from the ceiling and plastic sheeting on the floor and other things both shiny and dark. Things with edges and points.
We have a special room prepared for you, Markey’d said. A very special room.
I turned my head, vomited.
Next to me, the door burst open. A man stormed in, as tall as Bandoni but leaner, bare arms bunched with muscle, his chest wide and strong, tendons thick as rope in his neck, his long hair a viper’s nest around his shoulders. He was naked, his body marked only with stripes of thick, black paint. And blood, streaking from a wound in his upper arm.
Bandoni’s last shot.
The man stopped. Turned to look at me.
I knew him. From the photo at Noah’s house. And from the few minutes we’d spent together in a parking lot one cold winter night. His face had been mostly covered that night, his eyes in shadow. But he’d loomed over me then exactly as he did now, his head tipped slightly to one side.
Now I could see his eyes. They were yellow.
He kicked the door closed, then reached down and grabbed my shirt and hauled me to my feet. He spun around and drove me back, onto the bed, pressed his weight into me.
“Sydney,” he said. “At long last.”
Pain sent up flares that sparkled and burst behind my eyes.
“I’ve been watching you for months,” he said. “Your violence. Your anger.
