The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(179)

Mia barely had a chance to process the gunfire when she saw the false Peter run away in a speedy blur. Her mind stammered with shock. He shifted. He shifted. He’s a—

Zack grabbed her and yanked her down, just as a bullet cracked the arm of her chair. He pulled her under the coffee table.

Amanda’s thoughts turned white, and a geyser of tempis erupted from her hands. It quickly bloomed into a crude but massive shield that covered the sisters and Theo. She had no idea if tempis could stop bullets until she heard two gunshots and felt a pair of agonizing stings in her thoughts, like hot knitting needles. She shrieked and toppled to the ground, her barrier vanishing in a blink. A pair of crushed bullets dropped to the marble.

David was the last to stand his ground, caught like a pinball between reason, panic, and rage. For the boy who could dredge up the past, it was easy to look back thirty-one hours and relive his recent errors. He’d hurled a gunshot noise at an armed and twitchy Dep, a foolish move that cost him two fingers. Now he waltzed right into an ambush, ignoring his instincts as this false Peter Pendergen tried to get him to stand still for the rifle scopes.

No more mistakes, he thought, and then dredged up the past again.

The lobby suddenly filled with screaming people and flames, a spectral re-creation of the great blaze that engulfed Battery Place in August 1931. Firemen in tin helmets ran back and forth with axes while smoldering wooden furniture lay juxtaposed among the sleek sofas of the present. The images were so realistic that Hannah shrieked with pain when her arm fell into fire. It took three full seconds to realize she wasn’t burning.

“What’s happening?!”

Amanda seized her arm, shouting above the ghosted din. “It’s David! He’s giving us cover!”

“Where is he?”

The pair frantically looked around, but they couldn’t see anything through the eighty-year-old smoke. Amanda flinched when a burning woman ran through her.

“I don’t know! We’ll get Theo out and come back!”

The sisters struggled to ferry Theo through forty yards of ghosted chaos, retreating all the way to the entry hall. Amanda jostled the knob of a utility door, then broke it open with a tempic shove.

They scrambled down a narrow white hallway, its concrete walls echoing with loud clamor. Hannah kicked open the first door on the left, a locker room for security guards. Wooden batons hung from wall hooks while a leaky faucet dripped into a moldy sink.

Amanda swatted the towels from a bench and sat Theo down. He panted with strain, still lost in branching futures. He glimpsed David four minutes from now. Through a half-bloody face, the boy calmly asked Theo not to tell the others about the awful thing he just did.

“I won’t . . .”

Hannah kneeled by his side. “What?”

“I don’t know. I’m all . . . I’m all messed up.”

Amanda doused a towel and dabbed it against his forehead. Hannah looked at her nose.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?”

The widow ran a finger under her nostrils, then shook the blood off.

“It’s okay. It’s from the tempis. We need to find the others.”

The thundering ruckus from the lobby came to a stop. Hannah and Amanda hurried back to the hallway to see a lone figure stagger through the archway. Blood poured from a thin gash in his forehead, striping the left side of his face.

The sisters ran to him. “David!”

“Are you hit?”

He closed his eyes and leaned on Amanda as she walked him into the maintenance hall.

“I tripped over a coffee table. Smacked my head on the edge.”

“Where are Zack and Mia?”

He glanced behind him, throwing flecks of blood. “I thought they came this way. You didn’t see them?”

“No.”

Hannah covered her mouth. “Oh my God . . .”

“Shit. Shit!” David broke away from Amanda and unslung his knapsack. Between his T-shirts and spare jeans lay the two compact service pistols he’d seized from his Dep hostages. Each one was loaded with a dozen .40 caliber rounds.

Amanda bounced her hot green stare between the gun and David. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“Going back for them.”

“The hell you are. You cracked your head open. You probably have a concussion.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“No you won’t!” Hannah yelled. A half hour ago, Ioni painted a quick glimpse of the future that had suspiciously omitted David. Now the actress had a dark hunch why.

“Amanda and I will find them. You go in there and watch over Theo. Keep him safe.”

“Look, I’m telling you—”

“And I’m telling you, David, if you don’t listen to me right now, I’ll never speak to you again!”

David eyed her with wide surprise, then plucked the baton from Hannah’s hand. He thrust a pistol in its place. “Okay, but you’re not going out there with that stick. These people are shooting on sight. You can’t give them the chance.”

While Hannah tested the frightening weight of Ross Daley’s weapon, Amanda took a cautious peek into the lobby.

“Those can’t be Deps. I mean they wouldn’t just fire at us. Would they?”

Like Mia, David had seen the false Peter Pendergen flee the scene in a streaking blur. These weren’t Melissa’s people at all.