The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(71)

“Zack!”

He snapped out of his trance. Amanda motioned to the stairwell. “Dr. Czerny’s badly hurt. We need to get him to a hospital. Can you get Theo downstairs?”

He wiped the blood from his mouth. “Yeah. Go help Czerny.”

Amanda hurried back downstairs. Zack lifted Theo to his feet. They both kept a wary eye on Rebel.

“Jesus,” Theo uttered. “What did we ever do to that guy?”

Zack wasn’t sure he followed the man’s vague account of ominous holes and preventable futures. All he knew, from looking at that hand, was that Rebel sure as hell had a reason to hate him now.

—

By the time Zack and Theo rejoined Amanda on the landing, the orphans had entered the lobby from the east hall. With a high cry of relief, Mia ran up the steps and wrapped her arms around Zack.

“Oh my God! I thought you were dead!”

Zack returned the hug, reeling with guilt. When he’d first decided to leave the others, he didn’t think his absence would hurt them any more than the loss of a funny co-worker. In the wake of Mia’s hug, her warm correction, he never felt so cruel.

“It’s okay. I’m all right.”

Amanda passed Zack a roll of sterile gauze and some alcohol wipes.

“Take Theo down to the couches. Clean his wound and wrap it as best you can. Mia, keep his arm raised above heart level. That’ll slow down the bleeding.” She looked down the steps. “David, where did you go?”

“Right below you.”

Zack reached the ground floor and saw David kneeling at the side of the Roosevelt Man. The boy had two fingers pressed against the intruder’s neck.

“Are you insane? Get away from him!”

David stood up. “I was just checking his pulse. It’s weak but he’s alive.”

“Yeah, well, be careful. He still could get up.”

Theo had the same concern about the large man upstairs. He’d snatched away Rebel’s revolver, fiercely determined to keep it away from its owner.

Amanda peered over the railing. “David, go to the medical lab and find a stretcher. We need something to move Dr. Czerny.”

David nodded, then left the way he came. Mia stared at Czerny’s wound with nauseous dread.

“Will he be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Czerny weakly assured her. “Just have to get to a reviver.”

“Can’t Zack heal you now?”

“No,” said Amanda and Zack, in unison.

“No offense to him,” said Czerny, “but his healing experience is currently limited to a four-ounce mouse. Should he fail to capture all of me within his temporic field, the results would be far worse than my current predicament.”

Zack turned his white gaze to Czerny. “Wait. What do you mean?”

The physicist grimaced as Amanda placed a bandage on his wound.

“To manipulate the flow of time on a living creature is to manipulate the flow of blood. If you reverse just part of a person, it creates chaos in the vascular system, which can lead to all things from blood clots to a fatal embolism. That’s why revivers are full-body devices, and why shifters only work in enclosed spaces.”

Zack felt a high scream in his throat. For all he knew, he’d just sent dozens of air bubbles on a murderous path to Rebel’s heart. He may have just killed a man.

Throughout all the blood and chatter, Amanda kept glancing at the frozen corpse of Eric Salgado. She fought back tears.

“Can someone please go find my sister?”

“I’m here.”

Hannah hobbled through the west archway, covered in scrapes and grass stains. She looked ten years older now, and utterly miserable.

Amanda moaned in relief. “Oh thank God! What happened?”

“Some * with a sword tried to kill me.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right. I got lucky.”

“Where’s the sword guy now?” Theo asked Hannah.

“Out on the front lawn. I hit him with a . . . Jesus, Theo! What happened to you?”

“Got stupid. Got shot.”

Mia glanced at the unconscious man on the floor. “I think that’s all of them. I only saw four people on the monitors.”

“I don’t care,” Zack said. “We’re getting out of here. All of us.”

“And going where?” Hannah asked.

Amanda finished placing her bandage on Czerny. “We have to get to the hospital as fast as we can.”

Czerny debated the notion of mentioning Beatrice, who was still hiding in his office. He figured her best chance for survival was to stay here, away from the targets.

“How exactly are we getting there?” Theo asked.

“Driving,” said David. He emerged from the north wing, an aerostretcher in one hand and a jingling key ring in the other. “I grabbed these from the security room. I assume one of them starts the Salgados’ van.”

Zack grabbed the keys from him. “Good thinking.”

“Are you okay driving? I’m not sure how differently the vehicles operate here.”

“I’ll figure it out. Let’s just go.”

Mia looked through the windows at their escape vehicle. She recalled the warning she’d received ten hours ago about Amanda. If she gets out of the van, they will shoot her. They will shoot her and she will die.