Wes strides over to me and carefully grabs my shoulders. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay.” He has to shout over the banging from outside, over the constant buzzing of the machine.
“I think my arm might be broken, but I’ll live.” I glance at the door. “We don’t have much time. We need to rig the bombs now.”
He nods, but doesn’t let go, his gaze roaming over my face. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“Save your life?” I try to smile. “Shouldn’t you be a little more grateful?”
“I’m grateful. Believe me.” He leans down and presses his mouth to mine. His lips are hard and the kiss is more harsh than pleasant, as though he is trying to convince us both that we’re still alive. He pulls back, then leans in again, and this time it is softer, a graze, a promise, his hands cradling my face, his nose brushing against mine. I wrap my good arm around his bicep and tilt my head up, and we kiss as the TM dims, then flashes, the light so powerful it would blind us both if we let it.
As soon as the TM quiets, Wes rips off part of his shirt and wraps it around my arm as a makeshift bandage and sling. I feel my vision blur when he touches the bullet hole and shake my head to focus it.
Together, we yank open Wes’s knapsack and pull out the bombs. I lay them on the table as Wes gets the timers, and together we start to fit them into the pipes.
The pounding on the door echoes the pounding in my chest, and the fingers of my good hand slip around the delicate wires.
“I’m done,” Wes says.
“I can’t . . . my hand.”
“Let me.” While he finishes, I grab the two bombs that are ready and set them on the floor on either side of the TM. Each bomb has a small timer attached to it manually, with a long wire connected to a master timer that sits on the desk.
Wes grabs a screwdriver from the bag and fiddles with the back of the larger timer. I take Tesla’s notes and Faust’s journal and place them on the floor, right next to one of the bombs. The small blasts will be enough to cave in this room and demolish the TM, though the outer wings—where most of the officers, scientists, and kidnapped children are—should remain unharmed.
“Done,” Wes says again. He sits back from the desk and wipes his forehead.
“Wait.” I put my hand out, still crouched down next to a bomb. “Do you hear that?”
He turns to look at me. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly.”
“The banging stopped.”
I glance over at the door. The dent in the middle is more pronounced, a concave point, but the guards weren’t able to break through.
“They must be trying to find another way in.” I straighten from my crouch, my bad arm suspended against my chest. The bleeding has stopped, but the pain hasn’t, and I fight the urge to throw up as I move toward the door.
Wes stands, placing the final bomb on the floor in front of the TM. “We’ll only have two minutes to get out of here before the bombs start to go off.”
A loud cracking noise cuts through the room, and I twist my head to see a small spiderweb of lines appear in the middle of the blackened two-way mirror.
Wes quickly turns to me. “I think it’s time to unblock the door.”
I push the table out of the way, but then I hear another crashing noise. The fracture in the mirror is getting bigger, spreading across the thick, bulletproof glass.
Wes concentrates on the main timer, and I stare at his back as he sets it for two minutes from now. “Ready?” I ask.
He nods and pushes a button. Nothing happens. He pushes it again. The analog clock on the front should start counting down, the small hand sliding slowly backward. But it isn’t working.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Wes answers, but I can tell he’s lying. “The clock is jammed, but it’ll be fine. I’ll reconnect the wire.” Another crash. The spiderweb of cracks now covers the entire mirror. “You should go, Lydia. I’ll be right behind you.”
I don’t turn away from Wes. “Do it now. Reconnect the wire now.”
“Lydia . . .” He smiles at me over his shoulder, but he can’t quite hide the panic in his eyes. “It’ll be fine.”
“Just do it now!” I shout.
He turns back to the timer. I see a drop of sweat slide down the side of his bent neck. His arms move quickly. Another crash, and a tiny piece of glass falls from the mirror, hitting the floor with a pinging noise.
“They’re coming, Wes,” I whisper.
“I know. I know. I almost have it. Go. Get outside.”
“Not without you.”
Thirty more seconds pass. He throws the timer down in frustration. “It’s not working. The master timer’s broken. We’ll have to set the other timers. It’ll take a little longer.”
“We tore out that function when we connected them to the main timer, remember?” I can’t keep the horror out of my voice.
He stares down at the useless clock in front of him. “Then the only way is to light the fuses manually.”
“Wes.” More glass falls to the floor, sparkling against the white tiles. “That won’t give us any time to get out of here. We won’t be able to leave before the bombs go off.”
He turns to face me, his expression grim. “I’ll have thirty seconds. I could get out.”
“Why are you saying I? What happened to we?” My voice is shaking, my hands, my body, everything is shaking. I step toward him.
“Go, Lydia. If I don’t—” He stops, swallows. “You still have your family here.
