The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(200)

She had a moment to register Hannah through a sideways glance before Evan crouched to eclipse her view. He chuckled at her bug-eyed recognition, the long pink fingers that wriggled helplessly like earthworms.

“The tempis you’re trying to call is currently unavailable,” he teased. “Please try again later.”

“P-please . . .”

“Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t cork your weirdhole. That was the cute Asian solic you met downstairs. Her name’s Mercy Lee, but you can call her the Future Mrs.—”

“Leave her alone!”

“—Trillinger.” He spun around to glare at Hannah. “Don’t step on my lines.”

“She never did anything to you!”

“BAAAP! Incorrect.” Evan squinted venomously at Amanda. “She’s done plenty.”

Though Amanda didn’t know it, she and Evan carried centuries of animosity between them, dating back to his first days on this world. Even when he’d tried to be a good little Silver, the sharp-faced bitch never trusted him for a moment, never liked the way he looked at her sister. He, in turn, hated the gooey hold she took on his one true friend. She ruined Zack every single time.

As a full-fledged adversary, Amanda was even worse. Just months ago in his recollection, on a cold and rainy night near the end of his fifty-fourth lifetime, the widow came looking for blood in the wake of Hannah’s murder. She took Evan by surprise on a Boston rooftop, swooping down from the sky on her mighty wings of aeris. Before he knew what was happening, Amanda’s cold tempic sword burst through his chest. One inch to the left and he would have died instantly.

Instead, Evan spent sixty-two of the longest seconds of his life on the wet concrete, sobbing and pissing and begging for mercy while Amanda looked down at the wretched creature she’d made of him. Though her disgusted pity allowed him enough time to concentrate on a rewind escape, the phantom pain followed him for weeks. The memory still tortured him at night.

Now he walked a slow preening circle around his nemesis, basking in their reversal of fortune. Amanda didn’t piss herself, as Evan had hoped, but she was just a few pokes away from full emotional collapse.

“You know, I learned a long time ago why Tits McGee over there is such a train wreck. I know why all your husbands grow to hate you. You just have that effect on people. You beat them down with your high-and-mighty know-it-all-ism until they just want to stab a hobo. Godmanda, Judgmanda, Reprimanda. Hell, even now if I asked you to beg for your life, you’d beg for Hannah’s instead. And it’s not because you love her. You don’t. You just have to be the noble one.”

“She is the noble one,” Hannah snarled. “Compared to you, she’s Jesus in drag.”

“What part of ‘don’t step on my lines—’”

“—do I not understand? I get all of it, you weasel-faced shit geyser, just like I know your threats are worthless. You’ll either kill us or you won’t. Nothing we say will change that. So why don’t you shut your mouth and—”

“‘—do what you came here to do,’” Evan said, in perfect synch. He shook his head at her, chortling. “One of these days, you’ll come up with new dialogue. As for your ‘tough girl’ bit . . .”

Evan pulled a snub-nosed .38 from his holster and aimed it at Amanda’s head. In a sharp instant, all the bravada left Hannah’s face. She lurched forward in her cage.

“Wait! Stop!”

He balked in mock bother. “But . . . I thought my threats were worthless.”

“Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Don’t!”

Evan chuckled scornfully. “You always were a shitty actress.”

He checked the countdown timer on his synchron. Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds until Melissa’s speeding bloodhounds reached the fifth floor. He rooted through his duffel bag and placed two gas grenades on the reception desk. Evan had all the right lies and credentials to walk out of this building a free man, but he’d have to send the sisters to sleep so they wouldn’t rat him out. That came last, after the fun.

Hannah watched with furious perplexity as Evan donned a mortarboard and glasses from his bag. Now the young security guard was a professor from the neck up.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked him.

“What I came here to do.” He stooped down to poke Amanda. “Hey, honey? Snookums? I know you’re on the verge of passing out, but if you don’t want me to shoot your sister through her all-access fun tunnel, you’ll need to pay attention to what I say now. It’s very important. Will you listen?”

Amanda dug her taut fingers into the rug, nodding tensely.

Evan smiled. “Smart girl. Keep it up, A-Cup, and you just might hobble out of here.”

He cleared his throat, his brow crunched with scholarly gravitas. Behind his satirical expression, Evan glowed with rapture. This was his favorite part of the show, the absolute high point of his looping existence.

“There’s a crucial bit of information you gals have been missing, a piece of the puzzle that ties everything together. Now the Deps won’t tell you because they don’t know about it. The Pelletiers? Eh. They don’t care if you know or not. But the Gothams? Ah, this is where it gets interesting. You might have noticed they’re a little . . . edgy about something, some future event that has them all soiling their short pants. They might have even said something about it during their many attempts to kill you. Any idea what I’m talking about, class? Anyone? Bueller?”