"Roger that. Stand by for further instructions." Clementine clicked off her walkie-talkie and stuck it back onto her belt.
She paced back and forth for a few seconds before whirling around and facing Opal and Dixon again. Her features, which I'd thought so attractive before, were twisted and mottled with purple rage. Lips flat, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed to slits.
Opal and Dixon glanced at each other and took another step back. Dixon swallowed, and Opal wiped a bit of nervous sweat off her forehead.
"How the hell could this happen?" Clementine finally barked at them.
"Now, Mama, just calm down," Opal said, holding her hands palms up in a placating gesture. "I'm sure we'll get this all figured out. Whoever set off that bomb couldn't have gotten far. It's not the cops, so that's a good thing. We'll take care of whoever it is."
Clementine cocked her head to one side, and she advanced on Opal, who immediately sucked in a breath and plastered herself against the wall. Dixon scooted out of the way. Opal glanced at her cousin for help, but he smirked at her. Opal sighed and turned her head back in her mama's direction.
Clementine coldly eyed her daughter. After a moment, she drew back her fist. Opal shuddered, waiting for the blow - but it never came.
Instead, Clementine slammed her hand into the wall beside Opal's head. The sharp, stinging crack reverberated down the hallway, seeming almost as loud as the bomb blast. But the giant didn't stop with just one punch. Again and again, Clementine rammed her fist into the marble inches away from her daughter's head. Opal stood there and watched her. Mouth open, nostrils flared, eyes wide. Her expression a far more terrified version of her mother's murderous one.
Finally, Clementine stopped her assault on the wall and glared at her daughter once more.
"I don't care about the damn bomb," Clementine said, every word as sharp and clipped as the punches she'd just plowed into the wall. "What I do care about is the fact that someone used it to lure us away from Grayson and the vault. Something that is your fault, my darling girl, since you assured me that everyone was corralled inside the rotunda."
"Yeah, Opal." Dixon sneered, sidling up to Clementine's side. "That was your job. Looks like you're the screw-up tonight. How does it feel, cuz?"
Clementine immediately turned on her nephew, grabbed him by the throat, and lifted him off the ground. She slammed him back into the wall and kept him there.
I eyed Dixon's feet, which were dangling six inches above the floor. Dixon was no lightweight, but Clementine was holding him up with one hand like he didn't weigh any more than a wet kitten. My gaze flicked to the basketball-size dent she'd punched into the marble wall. Impressive, indeed.
"And you, you little weasel," Clementine growled. "You can't do anything without half-assing it or f**king it up completely. Where do you think our surprise guest got the bomb from? My guess is the bridge or one of the moving trucks. Which means that whoever it is has probably been following you around for who knows how long, watching you check the charges with your phone, and you were too stupid to even notice."
Dixon's mouth opened and closed, and opened and closed again, but the only sound that came out was a faint, pitiful squeak, the kind a rabbit might make before a wolf snapped its jaws around the rabbit's throat. Clementine shook him once, then dropped her hand and stepped back. Dixon landed in a heap on the floor, a perfect red handprint ringing his throat like a rash.
"We'll fix it, Mama," Opal said, her voice a little higher and more desperate than before. "We'll find whoever's responsible for this and make them pay."
"You'd better hope so," Clementine growled. "You'd both damn well better hope so."
Opal vigorously nodded, trembling as badly as a bobblehead doll someone had set to bouncing.
More footsteps sounded, saving Opal and Dixon from any more of Clementine's wrath - at least for the moment. The giant smoothed out her features and turned to face the two men who were running down the hallway toward her.
"Anything?" she asked when they finally stopped in front of her.
They both shook their heads. Like Opal and Dixon, the giants took obvious care to stay out of reach of her long arms. Smart move, given the murderous rage that still glinted in her hazel eyes.
Clementine raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. "All teams, report in."
"Team one, here."
"Team two, here."
And on and on it went, with the giants reporting back to Clementine - all except the ones I'd killed.
When Clementine realized that she couldn't raise her people in the security center or the two who'd been down by the bridge, she let out another loud curse. She lowered her walkie-talkie and stabbed her finger at the men standing in front of her.
"You two, come with me," she growled before glaring at Opal and Dixon. "You two, stay here and start organizing a search. I want to know who was in the vault, how many of them there are, everything they took, and where they and Grayson are now. So move! Now!"
Opal and Dixon scurried back into the vault area to do her bidding. Clementine marched off down the hallway with the other two giants, heading away from Owen and me. I waited until I was sure she wasn't coming back, then looked at Owen.
"Come on," I whispered. "Let's get while the getting's good."
* * *
The giants had started their search from the vault and the rotunda, spreading out toward the exits. They didn't bother checking behind them, so Owen and I were able to trail along in their wake, weapons in hand, eyes open in case any of them doubled back on their search pattern.
"We need to get outside," I told Owen. "Bria and Xavier should be here soon. Jo-Jo too. She can heal Phillip after we take out the guards in the rotunda."
"If he's even still alive," Owen said, his forehead creasing with worry.
I shrugged. Another twenty minutes had passed since I'd first gone into the vault after Owen, but there was nothing I could do about the time that just kept tick-tick-ticking away. First, I had to get Owen to safety. Then I'd worry about rescuing Phillip and the others.
Finn would realize that I was planning something, though. Knowing that I was still alive, he would have figured that I was up to my usual tricks as soon as I set off that bomb. He'd help Eva, Roslyn, and Phillip until we could free them. Finn might be selfish, flighty, and infuriating and have an inflated sense of his own self-worth, but if there was one thing I could always count on, it was for him to be there when the chips were down - and they were certainly down tonight.