The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(206)

She activated her transmitter. “Disregard my last order. The targets are ascending. Follow me in pursuit.”

Amanda locked her arms around Hannah’s shoulders, biting her lip to keep from screaming. Every stride was murder on her jostled ankle. Worse, she knew it’d be just a matter of moments before Hannah’s legs screamed with an agony all their own. It was a seven-story climb to the roof. Hannah couldn’t possibly carry her the whole way.

Halfway past the eighth floor, the actress began to stagger. Her lead on her pursuer shrank with each step. Melissa fired a quick shot as Hannah turned the ninth-floor landing. The bullet pierced the wall, missing her thigh by inches.

Hannah’s calves burned with fury. Her lungs stabbed her with broken glass. Between all her dread and blinking red gauges, a cold inner voice assured her that death wouldn’t be so bad. There was a Heaven, it insisted, even for mediocrities like her.

No.

She gritted her teeth and floored her inner pedal, pushing herself past 50×. The air turned ten degrees colder and three shades bluer. The sisters shot ahead of Melissa.

Amanda leered in astonishment at the strange new artifacts in her senses—the rainbow streaks of color in the corner of her vision, the distant sound of wind chimes. A large white butterfly dawdled past her, trailing arcs of light in its fluttering wake. Amanda wasn’t sure if she’d lost her mind or found a strange new corner of her sister’s world. It was mad and it was beautiful.

She glanced up through the indigo haze and saw the metal door to the roof. God, she did it. She really did it.

Hannah kicked the door open and stumbled out into the sunlight. Between all the air vents and glassy solic panels lay a sprawling gray aerolot. Every parking space was empty.

“They’re not here,” Hannah wheezed. “I don’t see them.”

Amanda caught moving shadows on the asphalt and squinted to look up. Three flashing NYPD cruisers circled above like birds of prey. They began their quick descent.

“Go to the edge,” she told Hannah.

“What?”

“Go to the edge. Trust me.”

Hannah staggered beyond the parking lot and stopped at the roof’s southern lip. The last of her temporal energies sputtered away. The world fell back to normal speed and color.

Amanda peered over the side, all the way down to the bustle on Battery Place. She wished she could grow wings and fly them away. She wished she had more than a cruel and desperate gambit.

“Turn us around.”

“M-my legs won’t hold. I can barely stand.”

Amanda squeezed her. “It’s okay, Hannah. You did such a good job. You were amazing. Just one last move and you can rest.”

As the actress spun around, Amanda cast slim white tendrils from her hands. They stretched twenty feet in each direction, forming a tight grip around air vents.

Hannah fell back into her like a sling, her muscles moaning with relief. She didn’t want to think about the cagey white ropes that kept them from plummeting to their deaths.

“You sure about this, Amanda?”

“No, but it’s our only leverage. I don’t want to hurt any more of these people.”

Neither did Hannah. She nodded darkly. “Okay. Okay.”

Melissa burst through the doorway and stopped cold at Amanda’s new threat. She holstered her gun and de-shifted, waving her palms at the policemen as they hopped out of their cruisers.

“Lower your weapons! Keep them down!”

One by one, the speedsuit agents made their way to the roof. Now fourteen law officers clutched their pistols at their sides as they nervously eyed the Givens.

“Don’t come any closer!” Amanda yelled. “I mean it!”

Melissa removed her helmet and dropped it. She raised her voice above the whistling wind.

“All right, Amanda. It’s all right. Despite all appearances, this is a very simple situation. You don’t want to die and we don’t want you to die. We’re proving that as we speak.”

“You’re the one who shot at us.”

“I shot at your sister’s leg,” Melissa replied. “Can you blame me? Last we met, she broke the spine of one of my men.”

Hannah’s stomach twisted. “How is he? Is he okay?”

Melissa eyed her somberly. “We got him to a reviver. He’s back in Los Angeles now. Resting.”

Though everything she said was technically true, Melissa omitted the fact that Ross Daley had suffered a fatal aneurysm inside the machine. Reversal was not a foolproof process, as 1.1 percent of patients learned the hard way. Ross had spun the wheel and lost. The outcome didn’t bode well for Hannah, who was now on the books for murder.

“When you see him, can you please tell him I’m sorry?”

“I’ll be sure to do that.” Melissa looked to Amanda with concern. “Those bodies in the elevator bank . . .”

“Esis.”

“That was Esis,” Hannah yelled. “Amanda would never do that.”

Melissa nodded eagerly. “I believe you. I do. I believe you’re both good people in a bad situation, never more so than now. The way I see it, you only have two directions to go from here: forward or down. I know neither option appeals to you, but if you fall, there’ll be no reviving you. At least with us, you’ll have a chance.”