Page 119 of Till Death Do Us Part

And then he collapsed, falling forwards, a bullet hole in the back of his skull. And behind the bullet, Quayle’s gun, held out towards us, where Glenn had been just a second ago. My heart stopped at the sight.

“I won’t let the Blackbirds be compromised by a weak old man,” Quayle said. “I’m afraid the deal is off, Whitner. If Farkas’s family is four in the end… I’ll kill all four.”

“Elaine, move!” Vera shouted, pushing me, and I did move, but not in the direction she pushed me.

I lunged in the opposite direction, pointing the gun Vera had given me. Quayle pulled the trigger, and a gunshot exploded through the hall, and burning pain filled my senses as I fell to the floor.

Chapter 61

vera

He’d already taken everything away. He killed my mother, turned my father into a monster, pulled me into the Blackbirds and watched it break my soul away to nothing, and now, Quayle shot Elaine.

The rest of the world disappeared—the complex, the others upstairs, the assault, the Horizon project, everything. The only thing I could see was Quayle, the only thing I knew was the moment that crack filled the air and Elaine took the bullet for me. Her gasp was so small and delicate, like a baby bird being crushed, and time dragged to a standstill as she fell, Quayle moving his gun.

Not fast enough, though.

The rage was icy in my veins as it awakened something terrible, the demon inside me exploding to the surface, and I acted before I could think, the muscle memory of a killer taking over.

I fired a shot, and it hit Quayle’s hand, sending the gun from his hand, flying back into the room and over the railing into the archive as he escaped, leaping back through the doorway and out of view.

As much as I wanted to chase him down and finish him, to kill him slowly and watch the light drain from his eyes like it had mine, I had something more important here.

“Elaine!” I threw myself to the floor, my hand on her shoulder, turning her to look at the bloody mess in her side.

“I’m okay,” she coughed, grimacing hard. “Just go! We won’t get another opportunity!”

An opportunity. She’d leaped in front to take a bullet just to buy me an opportunity.

Dammit. I’d sworn to protect her. And I was failing.

“We’ll get out safely,” I said, and I kissed her quickly. “I love you.”

I sprinted into the room, and I threw the door shut behind me, closing off the barrier between us and Elaine.

The archives. Even I’d only been allowed in here twice. It was a massive room that opened up below us, a railing in front of me and two stairways down into the towering stacks, tens of thousands of documents and old books, every strategic advantage the Blackbirds had ever had. Insider information on the city networks, logistics routes, passwords secretly stored away waiting to be used, secret names lists…

Information was power. And this was the Blackbirds’ power.

And I was going to burn it to the fucking ground.

Quayle had already disappeared down into the archive, and I didn’t doubt he was reclaiming his gun and waiting to ambush me—I’d hit his good hand, and he was ambidextrous, but he’d trained shooting more with his left hand, and forcing him to use his right would give me the slightest advantage. He’d be waiting to get the drop on me when I went after him.

Instead, I reached into my jacket, and I pulled out the first incendiary grenade, pulling the pin and throwing it down into the stacks. I moved along to the next right away, and I’d just thrown the last of the six when the first went off, erupting into a fireball below me, and the others went off in sequence, fireworks turning the archive into an inferno.

Old wood and old books made perfect kindling. The incendiary cocktail from the grenades doused whole sections before they erupted into flame, and the heat wave battered me as I held my gun firmly, scanning the archives.

He’d be coming out from hiding with the fires starting. I just had to keep watch, and…

“Vera!”

Elaine’s voice called out from behind me, and I whipped back to where I saw Quayle dropping down from the ceiling scaffolding, a combat knife gleaming in the light of the flames as he lunged for me.

I deflected the blow, but he knocked the gun out of my hands, sending it down into the fire. I grabbed his arm, twisted it to shove him into the railing, but he went along with it willingly, jumping up onto the railing and leaping—not into the growing inferno below, but up onto the scaffolding hanging from the ceiling. He landed on one beam and grabbed me, wrenching me after him, and I let out a curse as he ripped me off my feet and dangled me below the scaffolding, holding me over the drop into the flames.

The sensation of it—a drop below me, the ground giving out under my feet—stabbed into my gut with primal panic, threatening to overwhelm my senses, but I thought of Elaine, back in the doorway. Elaine, bleeding out for me. For us.

I kicked my feet hard, swinging up and catching the beam behind him just as he released me, and I held on and flipped myself up onto the scaffolding with him. He whipped back around and lunged with the knife as I stood up, and I stepped back out of the way.