The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(124)

“Put me down,” Zack said. “I can walk.”

The moment he touched the ground, he winced at another painful chest stab. Amanda held his arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m all right.”

The elevator was two floors away. Theo shifted Hannah in his arms. “We’re never going to make it through the lobby. Not like this . . .”

“We have no choice,” David said. “We’ll have to fight our way through.”

Amanda eyed him with dark concern. “There has to be a better way.”

“Here it comes . . .”

As she lifted her knapsacks, Mia felt a familiar twinge in the back of her mind. Oh no . . .

The doors opened to an empty elevator. “Come on!” Theo yelled. “Hurry!”

They rushed into the lift. Mia dropped her bags and propped a door.

“What the hell are you doing?” Theo asked.

“I’m getting a note!”

A small bead of light floated a foot above the carpet, an arm’s length outside the elevator. Theo looked to the display across the hall. The other elevator was at Floor 7.

“Forget it! We don’t have time!”

“It could be important!”

“Mia, I’m almost positive there are six security guards in that other elevator . . .”

“We wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d seen my other note! I’m not making that mistake again!”

David pressed the hold button. “I got this. Move your hand.”

Mia pulled her arm inside. David ghosted a pair of closed elevator doors just as a chime issued from across the hall. The Silvers stood frozen behind their illusive cover, listening to the gruff voices and heavy footsteps just ten feet away.

The clamor quickly moved down the hall. David breathed a whisper at Mia. “Be careful.”

She dropped to the ground and crawled through the ghost doors. Once she plucked the note from the carpet, she glanced down the hall. Theo was right. Six armed guards now stood outside the Baronessa Suite. They didn’t bother to knock before keying into the room.

With a deep exhale, she backed into the lift. The real doors closed over the ghosted ones. Mia read the note with bulging eyes, then pressed the emergency stop.

“What are you doing, Mia?”

“We can’t go down. We have to go up.”

David blinked at her. “Are you insane?”

“What’s the message?” Theo asked.

“‘You won’t make it to the garage without hitting cops. Go up to Suite 1255. It’s being repainted but nobody will touch it until Monday. Hide in there until things quiet down.’”

She pushed the cancel button until the lobby light went dark, then reset their course for the top floor.

David shook his head. “I don’t like this. In a matter of hours, this place will be crawling with Deps. They have ghost drills. They’ll track us.”

Amanda felt ill at the thought of federal agents watching a spectral reenactment of her balcony attack. If that didn’t put her on their Ten Most Wanted list, nothing would.

“They need warrants to use ghost drills on private property,” Mia told him. “We have at least forty-eight hours before they start.”

“Yes, I read the same book you did. The law could have changed since that was written.”

“David, why would I send that note from the future if the plan didn’t work?”

“Because there’s more than one future! Why haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Mia looked to David with wide-eyed hurt. He lowered his head.

“Let’s just go there,” Zack said, through a pained wince. “At least until Hannah wakes up.”

They scanned the hall for witnesses, then made a run for Suite 1255. In Zack’s impaired condition, it took him four tries to reverse the door lock.

Their new hideout was just a quarter the size of the Baronessa Suite, with only two beds and one bathroom. Half the furniture had been stowed in a bedroom while the other half was covered in spattered sheets.

The smell of new paint made Amanda light-headed. She wobbled toward Theo.

“Put her down on the couch. I need to check her head. Mia, get me some hand towels from the bathroom. Soak one in cold water.”

David held her arm. “I think you need to rest.”

“Someone has to sneak out to a pharmacy. I’ll make a list. We need bandages . . . We need . . .”

Amanda’s eyelids fluttered. Her legs turned to jelly. David caught her in mid-faint.

—

She woke up in bed, grimacing. An awful taste filled her mouth, like cardboard dipped in sour milk. She touched her forehead, surprised to feel adhesive bandages over her cuts.

Hannah lay unconscious on the other side of the bed. Someone had wrapped a long gauze strip around her skull, securing a folded towel to the back of her head.

Mia watched her from the doorway. “You all right?”

Amanda dazedly blinked at her. “How long was I out?”

“A while. It’s almost four o’clock now.”

“Did you do the bandages?”

“Yeah. I hope they’re okay.”

“They’re fine. Who got the supplies?”

“David. He was careful. He brought back a little food too, if you feel like eating.”