Chapter 41 James
James
Her terrifying cry cuts off almost immediately, even as the echo of her scream reverberates in my head.
Fear nearly shuts down my body.
Somehow I manage to move, reflexes propelling me, blind fury surging through my veins. I charge into the darkness, my heart
beating frantically—
But I see no sign of Rosabelle.
There’s no sign of anyone.
I barrel down disordered aisles, racing through a maze of scattered cereal boxes, my boots crunching through bran flakes.
My eyesight is adjusting quickly but I still can’t make out distinctive shapes from afar. I dive down another aisle, taking
in the chaos of broken housewares, several boxes of dinner plates tossed to the floor, shards of shattered bowls glinting
in the dim light—
A masked figure rushes at me and I shoot, taking out the assailant’s legs; they get off a few shots as they stagger back and
I duck, then dive, tackling them to the floor, ripping the rifle out of the attacker’s hand before tearing off their mask.
Blond hair, brown eyes.
She looks vaguely familiar. I feel certain I’ve seen her somewhere before, but I can’t remember her name.
“Who are you?” I say to her, breathing hard. “What are you doing here?”
I watch her jaw work in response. I think she’s going to speak but instead she appears to dislodge something from inside her
own mouth. She bites down, hard, and too late, I realize my mistake.
The woman goes limp, her eyes rolling back in her head.
“Fuck,” I force out.
My heart thunders in my chest, panic rising through my body. This was a setup.
Something is happening here—something much bigger than I imagined. I can’t even fathom the scope.
Rosabelle was right.
Rosabelle.
I rush down aisle after aisle, searching for anything that might give me a clue, and I nearly slip on a heap of dry rice in
the process, catching myself badly against a metal shelf. As I stabilize, trying to breathe, I notice the bullet holes riddling
industrial-sized bags of white and brown rice, grains exhaling softly onto the floor. Bullet holes, I realize, have torn through
nearly everything. There’s already been a showdown here.
Someone already tried to get through.
One of us.
My heart speeds up.
Broken jars of pasta sauce gleam just ahead of me, pools of red merging ominously, the scents of basil and oregano cutting
against the sharp tang of too much tomato. It makes my stomach turn.
I hear another aborted scream.
Then another.
I rush toward the sounds, cursing as my boot connects with a box of fallen flatware, knives and forks crashing together across
the floor. The sounds of Rosabelle’s screams continue to echo in my mind.
I can’t focus. I’m losing composure. I keep imagining someone handling her—hurting her—
I spot a dark figure dart down an aisle up ahead and I chase them into a refrigerated bay, firing off shots as I enter the
alcove, the sudden cold raising goose bumps along my skin. I manage to hit my mark once in the arm, but not enough to take
them out. It’s harder to shoot in the half dark with the intention of disabling, but I have to keep at least one of these
assholes alive for questioning.
The assailant takes cover behind a massive crate of strawberries and fires back; I dive out of the way, a bullet grazing my
torso, and crash into a heaving pile of packaged mushrooms, my elbow slamming into a metal shelf as I land. I hiss through
the pain, fighting to get to my feet, and manage to land a shot just as the assailant nearly escapes back into the central
building. The figure goes down with a muted cry, one leg collapsing beneath them, and I rush forward, shooting the gun out
of their grip before I fall into a crouch. The assailant screams, staring, horrified, at their semi-detached hand. I rip off
their mask.
This time, I rear back in shock. I can’t find my voice at first. “Allie?”
She looks at me with wild eyes, shaking her head, and I’m trying to remember how long I’ve known her, trying to remember the last time I talked to her—
A couple of hours ago?
At the diner. Allie has high-tier security clearance; she has access to The Waffle. To my family. She’s been privy to a thousand
confidential conversations—
“What the fuck?” I say, my head spinning. “What are you— How could you—”
I watch her jaw move in that familiar way as she dislodges something from inside her mouth and I’m too stunned, reeling from
the betrayal, to move quickly enough to stop her. I can’t believe she was willing to die for this. They’ve all been ready
to die for this—for this—
For what?
When her body goes limp, her head slumping against the floor, I go nearly solid with rage. A cold heat fuses my panic into
something like steel, anger and adrenaline burning through my veins, quieting my thoughts.
I feel suddenly unhinged.
Rivulets of blood snake down my face and I realize only then that I must’ve cut my head at some point. I can’t feel the pain.
I don’t feel the wound in my torso as it slowly heals. I don’t feel anything but fury.
Betrayal.
I charge into the central, open space in the building and turn in a slow circle, trying to decipher what I’m looking at; I’m surrounded by amorphous shadows that could be hiding mercenaries or stacks of fleece sweaters.
“James!”
My heart nearly comes back to life at the sound of her scream, the desperation in her voice. A cold sweat breaks out across
my skin and I kill the panic all over again, forcing my heart into higher gear.
Rosabelle is still alive.
She’s fighting back.
Maybe they’re not trying to kill her—maybe, I tell myself, they’re just trying to kidnap her—
No, this alternative scenario offers me no relief.
I bolt toward the sound of her voice, half out of my mind, and dive down another aisle at random, eyes sweeping the shelves—
“James?”
I go deathly still. I look around, but I see nothing. No one. “Kenji?”
“Bro,” he croaks. “Is that you? I thought I heard someone scream your name.”
I’m trying not to read into the rasp of his voice. I’m trying not to think about how faint he sounds; how far away. He sounds
like he’s been put through a shredder.
“Kenji,” I say, searching the aisles. “Where are you?
“Here,” he says.
“Pull back your invisibility,” I call out, sweeping the area, not caring that my voice carries. “I can’t see you—”
“I’m not invisible,” he says.
“Where are you?”
“Look up.”
The seconds it takes me to look up seem to take years. Details come into focus in a disjointed procession of images, the frame
rate dragging to a crawl as the scene clarifies and clarifies.
I don’t believe it at first.
At first, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.
My eyesight sharpens by degrees, my mind translating impossible images into information—and suddenly, everything comes into
focus.
At least a dozen people are hanging from the rafters like pendants, each person neatly clamped in metal, bodies wrapped in
gleaming silver binds. They’re tethered to the industrial ceiling by individual fists of black steel, each anchor flashing
a pinprick of blue light.
“Holy shit,” I say. “What the hell—”
“You have to get out of here,” Kenji rasps. “This whole thing was a setup. There’s some weird shit going down. You shouldn’t
be here—”
A disorienting, focused calm continues to sedate my fears. I assess the situation and form a plan in seconds, understanding
that if I miss my shot, I could kill him.
“Kenji,” I say. “How did you get up there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened. I think I’m the only one who woke up.”
And I suddenly understand his voice—
He’s groggy.
“Get out of here,” he says again. “I have no idea what’s about to happen, but you need to—”
I lift my gun, narrowing my eyes in the near dark as I scan the area. I feel the beat of my heart from far away, tell myself
I’ll try this once, maybe twice, see how it goes.
There’s no time.
Rosabelle.
“James,” Kenji says, his voice rising in panic. “Don’t you dare fucking shoot me—”
I aim, then fire.
The shot hits a steel rod just above his head, the metal sparking, then groaning, the bullet burying itself in the ceiling.
“What the fuck is wrong with you—”
I fire again, and my second shot finds its mark.
The bullet ignites the steel anchor, causing a small explosion that briefly lights the dark, releasing the metal apparatus
and dropping Kenji, without warning, from nearly fifty feet in the air. I hear his strangled cry and I dive across the room,
catching him badly as he nears the ground. We collide with the floor, our heads nearly knocking, the wind gusting from my
lungs.
Kenji groans, rocking from side to side.
As I sit up I realize the knife in my pocket has somehow gone clean through my leg, burying half the hilt with it.
The pain is so intense I nearly give in to the impulse to pass out.
I grit my teeth and dig my fingers into the wound, unburying the hilt in order to yank it free.
I make a choked, violent sound as the blade comes free, then get to my feet unsteadily, feeling my head swim.
Kenji levers himself upright, and he looks as unsteady as I feel.
We both look drunk.
“I think you were put unnaturally to sleep,” I say, breathing through the pain, grimacing as my body slowly heals. “Get everyone
else free,” I tell him. “I’m guessing you don’t have much time to wake them before something bad happens—”
I hear another desperate scream, then a staccato burst of gunfire.
Rosabelle.
I don’t think.
I just run.
“Wait— Bro— Where are you going—”
I really shouldn’t put weight on my leg yet, but I can’t stop long enough to have the conversation with myself. I drag my
bad leg with me, clenching my jaw so hard the pain radiates up my temples. I’m breathing too hard; my head is spinning. My
body is moving almost without my permission; my wounds stitch themselves together as I go, and I run as fast as I can push
myself, leaping over displays and launching myself across stacks of picture books. I knock over a display of chocolates, tumbling