Rachel paced the hospital room until Jason Umlaut tapped at the open door. She turned and saw him standing there with an armful of clothes and an air of satisfaction.

"You found something," she guessed. "The helicopter?"

"There’s no trace of that, or the boat. I checked Dynamic Resources Group, and there's nothing there. They're legit, just a subsidiary--" His brow furrowed when he saw her bruises. "Are you okay?"

"I'm peachy."

"Who attacked you? PJ? Your father?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don’t think so."

"Why not?"

"They didn’t kill me. This is something else. Four guys with a terminal skincare issue, what’re the odds?"

"Does your father …" Umlaut hesitated. "He'd really kill you? His own daughter?"

"If he thought he needed to. I'm guessing there's a reason he hasn't tried."

"What reason?"

Rachel rubbed her stinging eye. "I've got a theory. Tell me what you found."

"I got you a new cell phone. It's in the bag, and there's--"

"That’s not what you’re dying to tell me." She dropped her gown and stood before him half naked. After years in institutions, she didn't care much about privacy. "The guys I shot, one of them’s talking?"

"No," Umlaut said, flushing red and turning away.

She grabbed a shirt from the bag. "Then tell me."

"I called you on your cell phone, the second one you lost?"

"The disposable one from the cop," she said.

"Yeah, well, Shandra answered."

Rachel’s hands froze with her shirt half-buttoned. "She stole my phone. In the hammock, in the stairwell,when she grabbed me--she stole my phone. What’d she say?"

"Nothing. I said wrong number and hung up."

"Oh, you beautiful man. You tapped her phone?"

"I don’t know how," he said. "I should probably learn. But tracking a cellphone, it turns out, is only a matter of submitting an authorization form. Which I did."

"She left the hospital? Shandra Emerson? She’s in the streets?"

"She’s in motion."

"Give me the car keys."

He eyed her. "Maybe I should drive."

"No. I already saw--" Rachel frowned, trying to keep the tears from her eyes. She'd already seen Dewitt die, she didn't want to put anyone else in danger. "You stay safe."

----------------------------------------

When the mercenary fired, Teegan stopped screaming. He fell dead on the asphalt with a bullet in his heart, and the SUV jounced over his legs.

In the passenger seat, PJ exhaled.

Even at a distance, on a city street, his stench swirled around me. The crowd murmured, and I started breathing through my mouth.

He drove closer. Almost in range. The mercenary took aim again--at me.

PJ murmured and the gun barrel lowered from my face to my leg. The soldier’s finger tightened and I touched the orbs with my mind and waited, trembling in fear.

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In two seconds, it was the final goodbye. I'd kill all of us at once. Which sucked. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to do so many things. But I’d share a grave with PJ before I let him hurt anyone else on the Rock.

So I focused on the orbs and an engine screamed and colors flashed. Wind smaked my face, then a Chevy Impala screeched to a halt in front of me.

Between me and the SUV. Gunfire pinged the Impala and the driver’s door swung open, narrowly missing my cheek. Rachel grabbed the front of my vest and I lurched forward, face-down onto her lap, and she punched the car into reverse and stomped the accelerator.

My feet dangled on the street, and the door banged my legs. Rachel twisted in her seat, hooking her right arm around the passenger seat, driving backward. She was a terrible driver, swerving everywhere, constantly on the verge of losing control. It made her hard to hit. Four more gunshots, then we screeched around a corner--horns blaring, the engine screaming, the car swerving--and I wormed farther inside.

Rachel steadied the car, still speeding hellbent backwards, but in a more-or-less straight line. A few seconds crept past.

I exhaled. "Damn, that was--"

"Shit," she said.

The car jounced violently, then slammed through an obstruction. Flass shattered, a downpouring of shards as we jerked to a halt, my face jammed against Rachel’s knee. I lay there in a daze, listening to screams of fright and surprise.

Rachel rummaged in her bag and unlocked my cuffs. "Let's go."

She stepped out of the car and I pulled myself up and didn’t understand what I was seeing. We were inside a room, a trendy restaurant with five big-screen TVs behind the bar and a freestanding stairway rising to the second level, with the rear bumper of our Chevy nudging the hostess’s podium.

The rest of the car hunched in the demolished front window. She’d driven backwards over the sidewalk and through the glass. Why? By accident, I thought. I was ninety percent sure. Though with Rachel, you never knew.

I clawed at the vest, trying to loosen the buckles while Rachel shouted at the customers, telling them to leave via the side door. She showed them her gun, and the place emptied--and one of the big-screen TVs shattered.

Somewhere in the dimness of my mind, I realized that a bullet must’ve shattered it. I turned stupidly to see who was firing at us, and Rachel yelled, "Get down!"

A second bullet caught me in the chest. The impact felt like a sledgehammer. It took my breath away, but didn’t penetrate the vest. It shoved me hard, though, and I slipped on the scrum of glass and sprawled beneath a table.

"That works," Rachel said, eying the street from behind the bar.

A familiar reek swirled in the air and I crawled beside Rachel, behind the bar. I clumsily unstrapped the vest, now that my hands were free. I scratched my chest then touched the orbs, one-two-three, to reassure myself.

"You look like roadkill," she told me.

I ran my fingers along my bruised ribs. "You’re not looking so hot yourself."

"Got my butt kicked. You?"

"Tossed from a roof."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Madeline?"

"And her mozzies."

"That sounds like--" Glass crunched near the sidewalk, and Rachel fired twice, into the brick wall. "--a band."

"Um," I said, looking at the bricks she'd shot. "I think you missed."

"There are people outside," she told me. "I can’t risk a stray bullet."

I closed my eyes, and the world tilted. "Do we have a plan?"

"Wait for the NYPD."

"And take potshots at bricks?"

She shook a strand of hair from her eyes. "I'm trying to keep PJ outside."

"What if he turns the cops, and sends them after us?"

"He doesn’t have time for that."

"Are you sure?"

She pulled a face. "Four years ago, I would’ve said yes."

"Wonderful." I opened my eyes. "Shandra said something about tonight. That a thousand killers would be in the street tonight."

"Tonight? Jesus. I can't …" She took a breath. "Tonight. Okay."

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then I said, "Do you have any aspirin?"

"No." She fired again at the brick wall.

I winced at the sound. "That's not helping the headache."

"Are those peanuts?" she said, pointing with her chin at the floor beside me. "In that bowl under the--yeah."

"Uh, looks like snack mix."

"And that bottle with the red label, that’s rum?"

I checked. "Bacardi 151. You need a drink?"

"I need a vacation." She grabbed the bottle, then glanced at the snack mix. "What’re those green things?"

"Wasabi peas."

"Too hot for me." She half-smiled, which was somehow sadder than most people's tears. "My sister Audrey loves spicy food. She was weaned on jalapenos, is what mom used to say. And mom used to cook--six hours in the kitchen to make dinner. Did you ever see Like Water for Chocolate?"

"No."

"Well, it broke her heart, that I can't do anything girlie. Cooking, art, dressing up. Expression emotions. But we both loved Audrey, that made up for everything else. I mean, Mom loved me, too, even though I took after Boone. I mean, I shot him, y’know, um--" Rachel sighed. "I’m no good at this."

"At what? What are you doing?"

She looked a bit embarrassed. "I'm sharing the lessons of my grieving process."

"Is that what you’re doing?"

A wry grin. "Yeah. About my mom."

"Wow. You really do suck at expression emotions."

She looked at me, and there was warmth in her eyes. "I just wanted to say, I'm sorry about Dewitt. I know how hard that is."

"Thanks."

She shifted, aiming at the side door, ending our little Hallmark moment. "So what’s PJ planning?"

"More bombs, I guess. He said … I don’t know, that he’s in charge, after tonight. That even your father will bring him breakfast in bed."

"My father?"

"Yeah, PJ wanted to kill me and Shandra and turn himself invincible."

"Without my father? Against my father? I don't know, Lark. PJ's not smart enough to be working his own plan, he's more of a--"

She swiveled her gun when footsteps sounded from outside, and wheezing breaths. Then the scrape of a chair and the crunch of glass, people approaching through the ruined window.

Rachel glanced around the side of the bar. She said, "Um, Lark?"

"Yeah?"

"Run."