The stairs wouldn't open eitherâone of Segue's inner cages had been triggered againâand since she didn't have her handy door opener nearby, she opted to use her Glock.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
she fired the gun at the ceiling to alert somebody of her presence. If Adam was left at Segue, he'd investigate the shots. It took an interminable three minutes for two teams of soldiers to show up. She dropped the gun and held up her hands.
“Ms. Mathews?”
Yes, duh. A couple of the soldiers looked familiar, but she didn't know their names. “Are Adam and Talia okay?”
One of them spoke into a throat mic. “I'm to take you to them now.”
Oh, thank God they were okay.
Five minutes later, research level, and into Adam Thorne's supertechy inner sanctum, Layla was clobbered by an awkward, but beautifully tight embrace.
Talia was crying and incoherent. “Howâ” String of muffled words. “What happened . . . ? We all thought you were gone!”
Layla herself had sniffed. “Nope.” She shook her head. “Well, I was, but now I'm back.”
Talia opened a little distance but kept a grip on Layla's arms. “What do you mean âback'? Khan said you were under someone's skirt. Zoe and Custo are searching for you.”
Which made Layla bark a laugh and wipe her cheeks with the heel of her hand. If they knew about Zoe, they also knew Abigail had passed. “He meant Fate. Damn, she's a twisted bitch, but I guess I tricked her . . . and here I am.”
Adam came up beside Talia. “You tricked Fate?”
“Goes by the name Moira,” Layla said, nodding. She glanced around. “Where's Shadowman?”
“He's
mortal
!” Talia's eyes went wide. “As in flesh and blood. Maybe even angelic. And so worried about you.”
Mortal. That's what she'd been hoping for. Kicked out of Twilight. Busted.
“He was en route to the Annex building, the northeastern headquarters of the angels,” Adam said, “but he deviated at the river. Landed somewhere near Port Newark. Kev lost him from there.”
“What do you mean
lost him
?”
“As in, I don't know where he is.” Adam lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “He doesn't exactly keep me updated on all his movements. All I know is he wants to cross into Twilight to find you. Maybe he found another way.”
“But he can't cross on his own, right?” Layla had an idea where he might be heading. It was the only place she could think of. A dark and lonesome place that suited him well. The place they'd met during her second life.
Third time's a charm.
But not if he was gone before she got there.
“We have no idea what he's capable of,” Talia said, shrugging. She blinked hard, but her eyes still shone. “No idea what you're capable of either, it seems. I'm so glad you're back.”
“In the meantime,” Adam interjected, “we've got Rose Petty's husband here. We were just about to question him as to where she might be heading, what she might do next.”
Rose. Right. From one bitch to another.
Layla's high crashed. She knew exactly where Shadowman was. Wanted to jump on him and tell him all about her job well done. But, yeah, she had to deal with her devil first, no matter how bad she wanted to dash to the warehouse.
Rose had shredded her heart and made her weak enough to consider suicide when she had just found everything she'd chanced this second life for. Layla had just tricked Fate. She needed to face Rose down, too.
She took a deep breath for energy. “No. That'll take forever, and I'm in a hurry. I've got a better idea.”
Â
Â
Rose had to be quick.
She filled an old plastic bag with foodstuffs from the diner's shelves. She'd skipped the modern (and busy) truck stop directly off the exit and gone for the place with the old-style gas pumps and the peeling yellow paint instead. The diner smelled of petrified cigarette smoke, grease, and mildew, even though the earth was frozen right outside.
Only a local would come here, and even that person wouldn't eat.
Potato chips. Mashed packaged chocolate-covered donuts. The cans of tuna would need a handheld can opener. She dug into the drawers to find one, shifting all manner of utensils, and settled for a screwdriver mixed in with the forks.
She needed enough to get her to Macon without any stops. They had to be looking for her by now. She'd been careless in Middleton, so sure that she'd be able to kill Layla with no trouble. She'd been warned about Death, but did she believe it? No. She'd gotten cocky. Lesson learned. And now she had to hide.
Mickey would take her in, and they'd figure out what to do together. Of the two, she knew she had a quicker mind, but he gave her the sense of calm to use it right. Mickey always believed in her. With Mickey, she could do anything.
She grabbed a handful of plastic dinnerware.
Of course, she'd had to kill the fool behind the diner counter. He'd been drinking coffee and watching the news on the TV mounted in the corner when she came in. Went pasty at the sight of her arm. Maybe if he'd worked harder, the place wouldn't be in such straits. Now he just bled on the floor while morning news anchors chattered on about the weather.
The bags of flour wouldn't do her any good. Some green beans. Rose made a face. Fine. One can, just in case. Her belly had been making noises for hours now, and she had to mind her food groups.
“Citizens of Middleton can rest easy this morning,” a reporter said, coming over the television. “A recent crime spree has been stopped with the apprehension of escaped convict Mickey Petty.”
Rose's attention snapped up. Mickey?
She dropped the bag of food. With the strength of her bad hand, she vaulted over the counter to view the TV screen.
Sure enough, her Mickey was handcuffed, led by a crew of police officers to a large black SUV. Her sweetheart's hair had gone gray and a little thin up top. His face was covered with at least two days of stubble, skin a little saggy at the chin. And those eyes, the ones she loved so very much, were ringed with puffy pink bags of exhaustion and darting in fear.
“The heroine of the hour?” the reporter continued, following the crowd down the street. “A tourist to our small town, Ms. Layla Mathews.”
Layla. The one who played whore to Death. The one who threatened the existence of the gate.
“Ms. Mathews single-handedly took down the criminal.”
The whore had the gall to lift her face to the camera and wave. Rose knew that she was waving at her. Mickey never did anything to Layla. Mickey was the soul of sweetness.
Rose's vision went red as a wave of heat swept her.
“Ms. Mathews!” The reporter jogged around the officers to get a microphone in Layla's face.
Layla smiled at the camera as she ducked into the passenger seat of the SUV. “I'm just glad I could be of service,” she called out. And then winked for the world to see.
Rose started to shake.
Mickey was loaded into the backseat, a cop on either side. Not that they looked like normal police officers, much less small-town police officers. The gray uniforms they wore didn't fit well, straining at their arms and thighs. Those were some of Segue's soldiers, beefy and stupid.
The SUV took off out of Middleton, heading up the mountain and into the tall trees, but not heading for the jailhouse, as would be expected. Layla had to be taking Mickey to the Segue compound and was telling her so. That
hateful
place.
Mickey. Twelve years! Oh, how the world was cruel.
Rose stamped her foot. Her chin trembled. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She had promised herself that she'd never go back to Segue. Death lived there, the monster of everyone's worst nightmares.
She bit the wide knuckle of her bad hand. Debated. Decided.
“Gate?” she said aloud. The last time she'd called, the gate hadn't answered.
This time the familiar
kat-a-kat-a-kat
rattled her bones.
She looked up at the ceiling as if talking to God. “Layla's got my Mickey. I'll do anything”âexcept face that Death monsterâ“if you help me save him.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: One last chance to kill. Your best chance to kill her.
“No, see . . .” she said. The gate didn't get it. “That m-m-monster lives there. He'll kill me. He'll kill Mickey.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death has fallen. He can't touch you. Go get your Mickey. Make the ground run with blood. You have nothing to fear.
“Death what?”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death is now weak and mortal.
“How?” She could hardly believe it, though her heart and mind were already halfway back to Segue. No Death?
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He brought it upon himself.
Of course he did. A creature like that. “Then I can kill him?”
kat-a-kat: Easily.
Rose grabbed her car keys off the counter, then dropped them on the pavement outside when she got a look at the Mack trucks at the stop up the street. That red one just turning in, the one with the fire painted on the sides, was muscle on wheels, mean with bulk, like a giant steel boar, nosing the road while its tusks belched smoke. That truck should be able to take the wall at Segue.
A couple of run-run-pushes of her favorite arm and Rose was there in seconds.
She fastened the panicked and wheezing driver to the front grill, just in case those soldiers got the idea to blow her off the road with a missile or something. The driver's ride-along wife, a dumpy sack of potatoes, sat next to her, whimpering in a mess of tears and snot.
Rose let her bad hand do the steering when she got upward of ninety on the straightaway. The growl of the engine stirred her blood. When she hit the turns of the mountain, the narrow two-lane road wasn't big enough for the truck and oncoming traffic. A VW Beetle almost pitched over the edge but managed to skid to a stop.
Middleton was empty when she barreled down Main and took the corner that would lead her to Segue. They had to know that she was coming. That she wouldn't stop. If they thought they could cow her, they were going to get a surprise. She knew their secret: Death was as good as dead.
The gate was retracted, for her convenience no doubt. She followed the lane that led to the main building, but she veered onto the stiff grass in view of the forward-facing windows. No one fired on her, so the man on the grill, still bobbing his head, had done his job. Rose dragged the sack of potatoes out of the cab with her and put a claw to the woman's fleshy throat.
“I'll kill her if I don't see Mickey right now!” Rose shouted.
Movement from a downstairs window. Mickey stepped into view and then was pulled back. Oh, her sweet man.
The potato sack woman dropped suddenly, the whites of her eyes twin sneaks under slightly parted lids. The silly woman had fainted. Rose couldn't very well drag the sack's weight, so she flung her to the side and charged the stairs with her run-run-push, nearly vaulting her to the top in one great thrust. Gunfire bit her, but she couldn't see the source. Invisible marksmen had to be everywhere. Fire scored her cheek and darted into the muscles of her back and thighs to lodge, but she didn't stop. Mickey was behind that door. She could heal later. He would gently tend her with loving caresses.
She punched the front doors with her bad hand and the wood splintered, ripping her skin. An inner metal framework reinforced the entrance, but another strike buckled that, too. This was really too easy. With a victorious step, she was inside. Her knuckles dripped blood in Segue's fancy hallway. She took the left passage, in the direction Mickey had been only minutes before. They couldn't have moved him far.
I'm coming, honey.
An earsplitting scrape and resounding bang had her whipping around. The entrance was suddenly blocked with a wall of close-set bars. The ceiling abruptly loweredâRose duckedâbut the gorgeous chandelier overhead smacked her in the face, crystals tangling and tinkling in her hair. The floor moved, folded up around her. She swung out with her bad hand, but it didn't even dent the metal. Before she could get her bearings, she was caged.
Metal screeched until booming into final prison position.
That whore Layla immediately stepped out from a room beyond the bars, flicked her gaze at Rose's bad hand, musing,
It's gotten worse.
She bent her mind to master Layla's. “Release me!”
“It's safe,” Layla said over her shoulder, but thought,
Unless she can shoot venom.
Rose lunged at the bars, reaching her bad hand through to claw Layla's face off. She pushed harder on her brain. “Release me!”