“They’ll expect people coming through the side exits,” I called out.
“That’s why we’re not going through the side exit.” Mad Rogan showed me a blueprint on his phone. “There are five ways to access the lobby, front entrance, two side exits, elevator, and an internal stairway.”
“Perfect.” They’d evacuated the building, so they wouldn’t expect us coming from the internal stairway. “Now we just have to get into the building itself.”
Mad Rogan pointed at a pair of green industrial-size Dumpsters. They slid across the pavement toward us. The first Dumpster bumped into the wall. Mad Rogan strained. The second Dumpster rose in the air and landed on top of the second one, hanging off one side. Together, they were just tall enough to let us reach the second-floor windows.
I grabbed onto the first Dumpster and climbed up. Black and white bags filled it nearly to the brink, and I had to cross to get to the second Dumpster. I stepped down and sank in to my knees. The top bag popped, and a metric ton of old lasagna spilled onto my pants. The stench of soured spaghetti sauce washed over me. Ew. Of all the trash from this whole giant building, I had to step on a bag from the food court. Damn it.
Well, they’d definitely smell me coming.
I mashed my way through the bags to the second Dumpster, climbed up, pulled out my gun, and hit the butt of the gun against the glass. It shattered. I knocked the shards in and climbed inside.
A conference room: a long table, chairs, and a flat-screen TV on the wall. Mad Rogan climbed in behind me, pulled out his phone, and showed it to me. A text message from a blocked number with a video clip. He clicked the link. A grainy video filled the screen, showing a lobby of a building, with a polished greyish floor and two rows of wide columns. At the top of the screen the glass front entrance spilled sunlight onto the floor. A man in fireman’s gear leaned against the wall near it, a rifle in his hands. Below him, on the right, another gunman leaned against a marble column. A little lower still on the left, right past the elevators, three people stood by the wall. One held his hand against the marble, the other swung an axe, hitting the wall below, and the third covered them with the rifle. The clip stopped, barely five seconds long. Bug had come through.
Whatever it was they wanted was in the wall. The man with the hand on the marble had to be a sniffer. Sniffers had higher sensitivity to magic, and they could find a magical object even through stone.
“The stairway will put us here.” Mad Rogan pointed to the left bottom corner of the screen.
We’d be in full view of the three gunmen. “Are you bulletproof?”
“No, but the metal door that blocks the staircase likely is. Do you have your Ruger?”
I pulled the gun out of its holster.
“I’ll hold the door as a shield, but you’ll have to fire.”
“Why can’t you just slice them to pieces like that chopstick?”
“Because my telekinetic magic doesn’t work on living things. I can throw something metal fast enough to slice an opponent to pieces. I can hurl a board at him, because cut wood is dead. I can choke him with his own clothes if they are loose enough. But I can’t simply throw a body.”
Oh. “So the best way to fight you is to strip naked and attack?”
His eyes flashed with a wicked light. “Yes. You should try it and see what happens.”
Well, I did walk right into that one.
“I could try to slice the barrels off their guns, but considering the distance, I would need several seconds to aim, and they would likely shoot us. So, I’ll provide a shield, but the rest is up to you. I’m a less than mediocre shot.”
I leaned back. “Humility? I had no idea you had it in you.”
“No,” he said. “Honesty. I’m not very good with a gun. I don’t typically carry one.”
The pile of rubble that had buried Peaches flashed before me. Not that he ever needed one. “Good that I brought mine, then.”
“Nevada,” Mad Rogan said.
The sound of my name coming from him short-circuited my brain. All of my thoughts stopped. Damn it. I had to get over this, and fast.
“These men are well trained.”
Of course they were. They’d positioned themselves so that every entrance was covered by at least two intersecting fields of fire. No matter where we entered, at least two of them could shoot us from different angles.
“If we walk in there, they’ll shoot us. They won’t hesitate—they’ll do it on instinct. It’s second nature to them, a reflex, like stopping before a red light.”
“Mhm.” It’s good that he was here to explain it to me. I would’ve never figured it out on my own.
“You have to shoot them back. Is it going to be a problem?”
“There is only one way to find out,” I said.
He nudged the door open. An empty hallway lay before us. We ran down the hallway, passing the elevators. I stopped and mashed the down button. A diversion never hurt.
The elevator doors slid open with a chime.
“Good idea.” Mad Rogan stepped in, pushed the button for the lobby, and stepped out.
We jogged to the end of the hallway where a large sign said EXIT. Behind us, the doors of the elevator chimed as it began its descent to the lobby. With luck, they would all be looking at the elevator instead of the stairs.
We ran down the stairwell. My blood was rushing through my veins, my heart pounding too loud and too fast.
If I didn’t shoot them, they would shoot me.
I’d never killed anyone before.
The stairs ended in a large door. A grey-haired man in a dark security guard uniform sprawled facedown on the landing in front of it. The back of his head was one huge, red, wet hole. No, they didn’t hesitate to shoot. Not at all. They killed this man. Probably someone’s father, someone’s grandpa . . . This morning he got up, ate his breakfast, and came to work, and now he lay here facedown, alone and cold. He would never get up again. He would never speak, never hug anyone, never smile again. They killed him and left him here.
I had to stop Adam Pierce. Not only because I would lose everything if I didn’t, not only because he tried to kill Grandma, but because right now he was outside, spitting fire and not caring how many people he would hurt. The fastest way to stop Adam would be to get the thing he was after.
I was doing the right thing.
Mad Rogan stepped to the door, his feet shoulder-wide, his hands raised.
I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready . . .