The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(82)

“Listen to me. Your sister can run at over a hundred miles an hour. This van can’t even crack fifty. She’ll catch up. Trust me.”

“After all your stupid decisions, I don’t trust you at all!”

“You’re criticizing me for stupid decisions? What you just did—”

“Zack, I’m telling you for the last time . . .”

A small hand grabbed Amanda’s shoulder, turning her around. She barely had time to process Mia before the girl slapped her across the cheek. Heavy tears ran down her face.

“You didn’t listen! You didn’t listen to me and you almost got killed!”

Stunned and hurt, Amanda took a step back. “Mia . . .”

“Don’t you ever do that again! You listen to me!”

“I’m sorry.”

“I can’t lose anyone else!”

“Mia . . .”

“I can’t lose anyone else!”

Amanda pulled her into her arms, holding her tight with aching grief. The two of them had met right here, in the back of this very van. Six weeks had never felt like such an eternity to Amanda. Time never felt so broken.

Theo scanned the empty road behind them, then turned grim. “Zack . . .”

For the twentieth time in the last ten seconds, Zack checked the rearview mirror. The exit was approaching fast, and Hannah wasn’t. His stomach seared with acid.

“She’ll catch up,” he uttered. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Amanda took a deep wet sniff over Mia’s head. “Zack, I’m begging you . . .”

She didn’t have to. He slowed to a stop at the off-ramp. He hated making mistakes, even on small things. This was not a small thing.

“All right. I’m turning around.”

A dark blur crossed the windshield. Another blast of heat filled the front of the van. By the time Zack turned to look, Hannah glared at him from the passenger seat.

“Go!”

With a hot breath, Zack stomped the pedal. The van hugged the winding exit from Highway V, then disappeared into the tree-lined suburbs of South California.





FIFTEEN




Quint didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. At every stop on his morning commute, he examined the dark new bags under his eyes, the jaundiced hue of his skin. He’d spent a long and sleepless weekend devising a scheme to kill Zack Trillinger, for reasons he convinced himself were absolutely vital to science.

By the time he reached the garage, at 7:25, he’d smothered the last of his doubts. This could work. This would work. The plan would go off without a hitch and everything would be okay again.

At 7:26, the universe sharply corrected him.

Quint’s knees buckled with strain as he eyed the bloodbath in the lobby—four dead strangers in multiple pieces, plus a frozen body that Quint could only guess was once a Salgado. He sidestepped the blood on the landing, only to find another spatter on the wall of the second floor hallway.

Having spotted Czerny’s car in the garage, Quint unlocked the door to his office and found Beatrice Caudell splayed dead on the rug. Her small blue eyes were bloodshot and frozen open in shock.

Quint held the wall for support and staggered down the hall. His office was the last room in the building to contain life—ninety-eight rodents, plus two surprise visitors he only loosely deemed to be human.

“Hello, Sterling.”

Azral sat on the edge of Quint’s desk, his face a calm and genial mask. Esis stood among the mouse cages, petting the fur of a small white youngling. Quint noticed that all the other rodents were engaged in rampant copulation. The madwoman had redistributed his creatures, mixing browns with whites, males with females. Five years of meticulous breeding, ruined.

“What in God’s name happened here?”

“The facility was attacked,” Azral informed him.

“Attacked? By who? Who are those people downstairs?”

“Brown mice,” said Esis, with a look of wry mischief.

Though Azral smirked with humor, the joke flew several feet over Quint’s head. He wanted to wring both their necks.

“They’re natives like yourself,” Azral told him. “Though a more unique strain.”

“I don’t understand. How could this have happened?”

“How indeed?” Esis asked, with a pointed glare at Azral. He sighed with soft contrition.

“The error is mine. I underestimated these people, despite the warnings of my ever-wise mother.”

Esis crossed her arms in a showy pout. Quint studied her in daft surprise. The woman looked ten years younger than the man who called her Mother.

“Where’s everyone else? What happened to the subjects?”

“The Silvers are alive,” said Azral. “But they won’t be returning. The plan has changed.”

“Changed how?”

“That’s no longer your concern. Though I hold you blameless in this latest trouble, I’m afraid this is the end of your involvement in our project.”

Dumbfounded, Quint studied Azral in the vain hope that this was just another peculiar gag.

“No. You can’t cut me loose after all this time, without any explanation.”

“You’ll find I can indeed do such a thing.”