Time Bomb(65)

People see what you want them to see.

And she hadn’t really wanted to help her father, no matter how much she’d told herself she did. She had just wanted him to realize what could have happened had she been in the building when the bomb went off. She just wanted him to see her. Only things had gone wrong. She was trapped in the building. And now everyone would see who she was.

She straightened her shoulders and tightened her grip on the gun and fired.

Diana stumbled back. Her ears rang. Tad’s eyes opened wide as the bullet bit into him.

“Tad,” Frankie cried, hobbling forward.

Diana swung the gun toward Frankie as Tad grabbed his stomach. Blood oozed over his fingers. His mouth opened with surprise as he sank to the ground.

She couldn’t breathe as she clutched the gun tighter in her sweat-slick hands and altered her stance to point it at Z, who was leaning over Tad, telling him everything was going to be okay. That he was going to be okay.

Nothing was going to be okay. Not for her. Not for anyone, she thought as Rashid burst through the smoke.

“The firefighters have an air cushion down below. We lowered Kaitlin down and Cas—” Rashid stopped twenty feet away and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “You?”

She didn’t bother to nod. She just stood there with the gun raised. Her heart pounding.

“We can all leave,” Rashid said calmly, taking a step forward. “It’s over.”

He was right. It was over.

But Diana didn’t drop the gun. Because it couldn’t be over. Not for her.





2:05 p.m.





Rashid





— Chapter 45 —


WHAT SHOULD HE DO? Rashid kept his eyes focused on the gun in Diana’s hands. He had no idea what to do. Frankie was favoring one leg. Z was leaning over Tad, who was coughing and clutching his bloody stomach. And Diana’s eyes were narrowed and her face tense with concentration as she prepared to shoot again.

Something crashed behind him. Sweat ran down his back. After Frankie had yelled that he and Tad were going after Diana and Z, Rashid had made sure the ropes they’d made were tied as securely as possible to the legs on a desk near the window. He had Cas yell to the firefighters that they were sending an injured girl down and with her help got the stretcher and Kaitlin out the window.

At first, he hadn’t been able to breathe as he slowly eased Kaitlin down a few inches at a time, but the ropes held. Cas lost control of the side she’d been lowering, but Kaitlin had been far down enough for the firefighters to catch her. She was in their hands now. So was Cas. She hadn’t thought she could make it through the window or jump to the cushion below, but she’d done both. As soon as he saw her safely hit the yellow inflated mattress and the firefighters reach for her, Rashid had run out of the room to find Tad and the others. He could have jumped too. He’d told Cas he would, but not yet. If Z was the bomber, maybe learning that Kaitlin was with the paramedics would stop him from whatever he was going to do. If not—well, Rashid couldn’t leave Tad and Frankie to die, knowing he might be able to save them.

The temperature had grown hotter with every step as he’d hurried around the wreckage and down the hall. The tiles above this floor were blistered as he raced through. The ceiling looked as if it could come down at any second. If another bomb did go off—

“Rashid.” Frankie looked over his shoulder at him. His face was tense with pain and fear. “Get out of here.”

Blood dripped down Frankie’s leg. He looked ready to drop.

“Don’t move,” Diana called. The gun pointed at Frankie swung toward Rashid. Diana’s voice was firm and in control, but the way the gun shook in her hands told a different story. Rashid focused on that and not on the way the barrel was leveled at him or how hard it was for him to catch his breath.

“Go, Rashid.” Z yelled. “Run!”

“No one is going anywhere!” Diana took a step forward and glanced down at Tad.

Rashid watched Diana’s eyes rise and flick back and forth from person to person, as if she wasn’t sure what to do. And even though he wanted to run—everything inside him screamed to flee—he stepped forward so that he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Frankie.

“What are you doing?” Frankie hissed. “She has a bomb. In that bag, there’s a bomb.”

Rashid swallowed hard but held his ground.

“Stay where you are!” Diana shouted. “One more step, and I’ll shoot.”

She might. She’d shot Tad. She could shoot him. Rashid didn’t want to die, but he moved in front of the football quarterback. And no shot was fired.

Diana backed up against the wall. The gun was now aimed at Rashid. The bag in Diana’s hand dangled just above the ground.

“Get out of here, Frankie,” Rashid said, then held his breath and took another step forward.

If the bomb went off, all of them would get caught in the blast. Frankie and the others weren’t going to be able to move quickly. Tad had been shot. He was losing blood fast and needed help. Z did too. Frankie couldn’t move very fast. He might not be able to stand much longer on that leg. And Z couldn’t carry Tad—not with his injured arm. Rashid needed to buy them time to get away. If they could get around the corner, he’d run. He really wanted to run.