Checkout #10
Tessa caught the cable.
Owen pulled it from her hand.
“Last call.”
His voice filled the ballroom.
Avery grabbed the switchboard cords and ripped them from the wall.
Sparks jumped across the sockets.
The speakers shrieked with feedback.
Owen covered one ear.
Avery pulled again.
The old panel tore from the plaster.
Bundles of wire spilled behind it.
Several ran toward a new battery unit beneath the counter.
She drove the bolt-cutter jaws into the cables.
Owen saw.
He lunged.
Avery cut.
The ballroom went black.
The exterior doors unlocked with a heavy mechanical clunk.
The cords around Tessa loosened.
Emergency lights activated above the exits.
Owen reached Avery in the dark.
His hand closed around her throat.
He drove her backward across the ballroom.
She struck the revolving entrance.
The boarded glass shook behind it.
Owen pressed his forearm beneath her jaw.
“You locked me in.”
Avery clawed at the sleeve.
“Yes.”
“You watched the fire.”
“Yes.”
“You let me burn.”
“Yes.”
His grip tightened.
Her vision narrowed.
She could have apologized.
She was sorry.
The apology would not resurrect Felix, Cass, Malik or Jude.
It would not turn Bellwether into something they had not chosen.
“I should have opened the door,” she forced out.
Owen moved closer.
“Yes.”
“I should have called the police.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told them everything.”
“Yes.”
“I’m telling them now.”
His good eye changed.
Avery drove the pointed edge of the broken mask into it.
Owen jerked backward.
The plastic entered beneath the eyelid.
He screamed and pulled it free.
Blood poured down his cheek.
Avery shoved herself into one compartment of the revolving door.
Owen followed.
The brass frame turned.
Maya reached them first.
She pushed the opposite panel.
Owen caught Avery’s shirt and dragged her toward him.
Nina joined Maya.
Together they forced the door around.
Owen’s damaged arm became trapped between the moving panel and the entrance frame.
Bone snapped above the wrist.
His hand remained inside with Avery.
The rest of him stopped outside the compartment.
The door jammed.
Owen screamed.
His broken arm folded around the brass.
Avery kicked his hand until it released her shirt.
Owen drew a narrow blade from his sleeve with the other hand.
He stabbed through the cracked glass.
The point entered Avery’s side.
She felt pressure before pain.
Maya rammed the revolving door again.
The blade tore sideways out of Avery.
Owen pulled himself partly through the broken panel.
Glass opened his chest and stomach.
He kept coming.
Nina drove Felix’s knife into the side of his neck.
The blade entered to the handle.
Owen struck her.
Nina fell against the stone wall.
He pulled the knife free.
Blood pulsed from the wound.
Tessa stood behind him.
Her dislocated arm hung uselessly. The broken bell stem remained through her other hand.
She wrapped the microphone cable around Owen’s throat.
He turned.
Tessa crossed the ends and pulled.
Owen stepped backward into her.
She braced one foot against the door frame.
The wire cut beneath his jaw.
He reached for her face.
Tessa pulled harder.
The cable entered Nina’s knife wound.
Owen’s fingers closed around her injured shoulder.
He squeezed.
Tessa screamed but did not release him.
“Avery.”
Avery understood.
She pushed the revolving door.
Maya pushed beside her.
The brass panel rotated against Owen’s body.
His trapped arm twisted farther.
Bone tore through the burgundy sleeve.
Tessa moved with him, keeping the cable tight.
The door forced Owen toward the shattered outer pane.
A long triangle of glass remained fixed in the frame.
Its point entered beneath his chin.
Owen tried to stop the movement with his free hand.
The glass pushed through the floor of his mouth.
His tongue rose around it.
The point emerged between his teeth.
The brass slot had hidden his damaged mouth all night.
Now glass filled the place where the mask had been.
Maya screamed and kept pushing.
The door turned another foot.
The shard traveled upward through Owen’s mouth and into his skull.
His body stiffened.
The microphone cable cut deeply into his neck.
Tessa pulled until the skin separated beneath it.
Blood covered the entrance.
Owen’s remaining eye moved toward Avery.
For an instant, she saw the boy from the Bellwether office.
Then the door rotated again.
The glass broke inside his head.
Owen collapsed between the brass panels.
The severed cable remained embedded in his throat.
No one moved.
A bell rang once.
Tessa looked toward the desk.
The bell no longer sat there.
Its base lay several feet away beside the broken stem.
Avery heard another sound beneath the ringing in her skull.
Sirens.
Real ones.
Tessa released the microphone cable.
She looked at Owen’s body.
“Is he dead?”
Nina pressed one hand to the wall and stood.
Blood ran from her mouth where he had struck her.
She reached the revolving door.
The wound in Owen’s neck no longer pulsed.
She touched two fingers beneath his jaw, avoiding the glass.
“Yes.”
Tessa laughed.
The sound broke into a sob.
Maya helped Avery away from the entrance.
Blood had soaked the side of her shirt.
Nina lowered her onto the lobby floor and pressed both hands over the wound.
“Stay awake.”