Chapter 27
Surrounded by darkness, I do the only thing I can.
I climb out of it.
Adrenaline has Piper and me scrambling. I can hear her small breaths above me, feel the brush of cobwebs, smell the old-building dust of the elevator shaft, and feel the cool metal under my hands. I focus on the sensory details so fear cannot consume me.
Above me, the tear in the art print lets in the barest slant of light.
Piper reaches it first, her fingers fumbling for the next handhold. “We’re there,” I say, flicking off the night vision setting. “It’s an art print. You can just push it off.”
Piper touches the print hesitantly, then gives it the tiniest of shoves. The print falls away, and the dim emergency lights of the hallway seem like the glow of the sun. Piper reaches for the edge and heaves herself up. The last thing I see is her bare feet scrambling over.
“Augusta?” she says.
I pull myself upward—
I freeze.
Before me, the shadowed hallway of the third floor is familiar.
The gun pointed at me is new.
Consul stands there, one hand on Piper’s arm and the other holding her weapon. She looks terrible—there is a bruise blooming on her jaw where I hit her, smudges along her clothing, and her eyes are bloodshot from the smoke.
I don’t move, for fear that she will take any twitch as an attack. But this is fine, it’s fine. I’ve been in worse situations than hanging off the edge of an elevator shaft with a murderous wraith handler pointing a weapon at me.
Have you, though? some rebellious part of me thinks.
“You got here fast,” I say. My arms are burning with the strain of holding myself up. “How’d you know where we’d come out?”
“Well,” she says, her voice silky smooth, “the criminal always returns to the scene, right? I knew you’d return to the third floor. To that old woman who’s been helping you.”
My gaze darts around the hallway. There’s no sign of Vale or Corey.
“Where’s your boss?” I ask.
“Looking for her.” Consul jerks on Piper’s arm the tiniest degree and the girl draws in a breath. “And she’ll get her. After she agrees to give me an extra million for the shitty day I’ve had.”
“Connie,” Piper begins to say.
“That’s not my name!” Consul gives the girl a shake.
“Consul.” I try to infuse my voice with calm. “She’s a kid. You can’t sell her.”
“The hell I can’t,” she snarls. “I gave up a family, a life, my name. All to babysit criminals who don’t appreciate what they’ve been given.”
“I’m sure they appreciated it,” I say.
“My last wraith shot me,” she replies.
“All right, maybe not.” My fingers cramp and I have to readjust my grip.
If she doesn’t let me climb up soon, she won’t have to shoot me.
I’ll fall to my death. “Consul, I don’t know what your life has been like.
But look at the situation—you betrayed ISD.
You sold out two informants. I don’t know what the sentence is for something like treason, but it can’t be good.
” I pull myself up a little higher, edging my elbows onto the platform.
“I’ll put in a good word for you. I’ll say you played triple agent, so you could lure Vale here and then capture her.
You could still get out of this with your job and life intact. ”
Piper gives me an incredulous look. I blink at her, then glance deliberately at Consul’s foot. Piper’s brow furrows in confusion, then she seems to understand. I hope she understands.
Consul laughs hollowly. “You think I’d take your word?”
“I’m not the liar here,” I answer. “Everything I’ve told you is true.” Which is mostly true.
“You’ll sell me out,” she says. “For a shorter sentence.”
I gape at her, open-mouthed. That possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. “I wouldn’t.”
“No.” Consul shakes her head. “It’s safer to get rid of the witnesses. And then I can tell ISD that Vale took the girl, and killed you, the boy, and the old lady.”
The thought of Consul hurting Nonna sends an overwhelming jolt of fear into my stomach. She’ll do it, too.
And I can’t stop her.
But someone else can.
I meet Piper’s eyes. Her mouth is tight with terror, but her eyes are steady.
I nod.
The girl bites down on her lower lip, takes a breath, and then raises her leg. Then she brings all her weight down on Consul’s foot.
If Consul had worn practical shoes, she might not have ended up injured. But her persona as Aunt Connie demanded flimsy ballet flats—and they provide no protection.
Consul makes a surprised sound of pain. Piper whirls on her, clawing and biting like a feral cat snagged in a trap.
I heave myself up and out of the elevator shaft.
I throw myself at Consul, hitting her at the waist. She jackknifes to the floor, gun flying from her grasp. I expect Piper to retreat, but instead, the girl has latched onto Consul’s hair.
Consul slams her knee into the meat of my thigh. I cling on, wrestling her to the ground in the world’s most ungraceful tangle. Consul reaches up to take hold of her own hair by the roots and twists her head, freeing herself from Piper’s grasp.
I need to pin her, to get her down so that Piper can grab the gun and lob it over the side of the railing. If we’re lucky, maybe it’ll fall into the pool.
But there’s one problem with my plan: I’m not an experienced fighter—and I’m exhausted.
Consul takes to violence with ease. Her body coils like a snake’s, writhing out of my grasp and bucking me off-balance.
She strikes my knee out from under me and I stagger, trying to catch myself.
In that moment, she seizes my left shoulder and wrenches my arm behind my back.
My other leg is kicked out from under me, and then I’m on the floor.
Agony flares through my left arm, my shoulder, and my rib cage.
A scream tears itself free of my lips and I’m on the floor, eyes watering from the pain.
Consul is on top of me, knee digging into my spine.
She has wrenched my left arm up behind me, pinning me in place.
If I try to struggle, she could dislocate my shoulder with a single twist.
Someone shouts, and I’m dimly aware of footsteps nearby. The world has gone hazy as my mind quietly detaches itself from the excruciating sensations of my body.
“Don’t move!” snarls Consul.
I don’t know why she says it. I couldn’t move if my life depended on it—and I guess it does.
“Get off of her.” A new voice enters the fray.
Eames.
Consul’s voice grows louder. “You come a step closer and I tear her arm free of its socket.”
“Get off the girl now.” That would be Nonna. Oh no, no, no. She’s not supposed to be here. Her voice is all firm disapproval, and it’s the exact same tone she used on me and my sisters when we were misbehaving.
I blink, craning my head a little. I can barely see through the curtain of my brown-and-pink hair.
Eames stands perhaps ten feet away. He has Piper behind him, one arm held out protectively. The other holds Nonna’s bread knife. The serrated edge gives it a wicked look.
Nonna is beside him, her worn hands clenched into fists.
“Let her go,” says Nonna fiercely.
Consul’s knee presses even harder into my back. My spine creaks in protest and my visor digs into the bridge of my nose, sending another jolt of agony through me. “Run.” I barely manage to make my lips shape the word.
Their attempt to save me is admirable, but they have no way to stop Consul.
She can tear my arm out of its socket, grab her fallen weapon, and have them all at her mercy in a few moments.
She won’t even break a sweat. Consul was trained to handle criminals; a kid, an eighteen-year-old boy, and an eighty-something old lady won’t stand a chance.
“Good, you’re all here,” says Consul. She doesn’t even sound winded by the fight. Damn it. “That will make things easier. Give me the girl.”
“Don’t,” I rasp. “She’s going to kill you all anyway.”
I scream as Consul pulls harder on my arm.
“Give me the girl,” says Consul again.
Eames tells her no. With a few expletives thrown in for good measure. “You let Augusta go right now.”
“Or what?” Consul laughs hollowly. “You’ll stab me with a bread knife?
Face it, kid. You and your sister are useless.
The only valuable thing about you is what people are willing to pay.
I’m going to kill this wraith, and you, and the old lady.
Then I’m going to sell your sister to the highest bidder.
Might be Vale, might not be. We’ll see.”
“Yes,” says Hannah Vale coldly. “We will.”
For a moment, the world whites out. I can’t hear anything but a vague ringing in my ears. A high-pitched whine, a whisper of heat.
It’s only in the echo that I hear it: a single shot of gunfire.
I’m shaking before I realize what’s happened. Consul’s stranglehold on me loosens. Something wet and warm splatters against my cheek.
Consul hits the floor beside me.
I remain there for a few heartbeats, waiting to see if a new pain will make itself known. Maybe I’ve been shot and just don’t know it yet. But the only things I feel are the throb of my broken nose, the soreness of my back, and the bright pain of my shoulder.
I push myself upright, balancing on my elbows.
Consul lies beside me, blood pooling beneath her.
“I didn’t want to pay her anyway.” Vale stands by the railing, her gun loose in her hand. She looks at me, then past me.
“Mom.” The word rasps out of Eames. One syllable, but it carries a world of hurt.
“Will.” Vale’s voice hardens. She looks at her son, and contempt flares in her deep blue eyes. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, I have something to say,” says Eames. “Leave us alone. Go. Do whatever the hell you want to, but you don’t get to drag us with you.”
“Oh,” says Vale. “I know what you did—trying to tear us apart. I’m not here for you.”
Eames tightens his grip on Piper. The girl is shaking so hard I can hear her teeth rattling.
“Persephone,” says Vale. “Come here.”
Oh shit, shit, shit. My pulse is a painful throb behind my ribs. So close. I was so close to saving Piper, to getting her and Eames out of this. But it’s falling apart now—and I can’t see a way out.