But the men started laughing. Drew’s hold on his weapon tightened.
“You don’t really think we’re letting you all go, do you?” the taller guy demanded.
“Ten, nine, eight...” his sidekick began.
Drew tensed. “What the—?”
“Your sisters were wired, Agent Lancaster. Hell, I don’t think they even knew those collars we snapped around their necks were set to blow—”
Drew spun for the door. He rushed outside.
“The EOD agents got them, right? Those guys who are surrounding us? Guess they’ll all go boom soon enough.”
“Three...two...”
An explosion erupted, shaking the ground and sending Drew flying.
* * *
TINA SCREAMED WHEN she heard the explosion.
The knife sliced the side of her neck.
“That will keep those agents busy.” Carl smiled at her. “I’m supposed to take my time with you, so let’s go, honey. Let’s go enjoy ourselves.”
More men rushed inside. They all headed to the back of the building. Carl was trying to haul her that way, too.
More explosions erupted, only this time they were in the building. The detonations seemed to come one right after the other. Devast’s men were destroying everything—and making it impossible for anyone to follow them as they fled through the float graveyard.
Chunks of the old floats flew into the air. A dragon’s papier-mâché head ignited a few feet from her.
“You think Devast didn’t plan this end?” Carl jerked her head back with a painful grip on her hair. “He made sure we could escape—and that we’d take you with us. Mercer will be getting pieces of you sent to him for weeks.”
They were sick. “I’m not...going...” The smoke was rising. Filling her lungs.
Breathe.
They’d taken her inhaler. When they’d searched her at the door, they’d taken her weapons and her medicine.
The smoke made her eyes burn. The flames heated her skin.
The men kicked open the back door. Fresh air blew inside and she tried to take deep, greedy gulps.
But then gunfire erupted. The rat-a-tat sent the men scrambling back inside the building. Tina tried to duck for cover, but Carl wasn’t letting her go.
The back door swung open. A man raced inside. His blond hair gleamed in the faint light. He wore black, and she could see the bulky outline of his bulletproof vest. He had a gun in each hand, and his bullets hit with deadly accuracy, slamming into the men who’d thought they’d had an easy escape.
With the EOD, nothing was ever easy. Devast had underestimated his opponents.
“Stop!” Carl yelled. Tina was in front of him. His human shield. “Throw down your weapons and get back or she dies!”
But the man shook his head. He lifted his guns. Seemed to be aiming—
At me? Yes, he was.
“You aren’t getting away. The EOD doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.” She didn’t recognize the agent’s unaccented voice, but she sure recognized Mercer’s familiar line.
He’s going to shoot me. To take out Carl, she realized the agent would need to get rid of Carl’s protection. Tina braced for the pain.
Before another gunshot erupted, someone slammed into them. She and Carl both hit the ground with an impact hard enough to crack bones. Tina was pretty sure she did hear one of Carl’s bones break, and that savage sound made her heart race faster. The knife had sliced over her collarbone when she fell, and more blood soaked her shirt as Tina rolled away from her attacker.
She pushed up to her knees and saw—
Drew.
He’d come back. She’d known that he would. Happiness and hope fought inside her.
But...his expression was brutal. Wild. He was driving his fist into Carl’s face again and again.
Carl’s head slammed into the concrete, and he stopped moving.
“Come on!” It was the EOD agent. The one she didn’t know. He was grabbing her arms and pulling her up to her feet. “My orders are to get you out of here!”
The flames were spreading. Would more bombs be detonating soon?
“The whole place is going to blow—it’s their distraction. They thought they’d get away while the whole block burned.”
His hold on her wrist was unbreakable.
Drew rose to his feet.
Tina tried to reach for him. “Drew! Come on!”
He looked up at her.
Her heart stopped.
Something was...wrong. Drew’s eyes looked dead. His face was a mask of fury and rage—but his eyes were dead.
“Drew?”
Another detonation shook the building. Cracks ran across the remaining walls and chunks of the ceiling fell, narrowly missing them.
“They were timed to start right after Lancaster went out the door,” the agent shouted. “Come on, we have to move.”
Wait, Drew had gone out and then come back through that hell? He’d walked back into the flames?
Her breath heaved out as she fought to break the mysterious agent’s hold and get back to Drew.
But the agent wasn’t letting her go.
“Drew!” He seemed frozen. He needed to move.
Because Carl was moving again. Carl had just grabbed the knife from the floor. He wasn’t unconscious; he’d just been waiting for his moment to attack. He lunged up and went straight for Drew’s back.
“Behind you!” Tina screamed. The fire was crackling so loudly she wasn’t sure he even heard her. “Drew!”
At the last moment he spun around. He grabbed Carl’s hand, stopping that knife before it could shove into his body.
Drew twisted Carl’s hand. Carl howled—she could hear the stark cry of pain rising over the flames—then Drew plunged the knife into Carl’s chest.
This time, when he hit the ground, Carl wasn’t pretending to be unconscious. He was dead.
“Have to do this...” the agent muttered as Tina kept struggling against him. She needed to get to Drew. “Orders...”
Forget orders.
Drew looked up then, staring at her with the eyes that weren’t his.
He shook his head, as if waking up, then he ran toward her. Tina stopped fighting the other agent. She ran with him—and Drew.
The smoke was choking her, her lungs were burning, but she wasn’t about to let the attack stop her. Not now, not when they were home free.
The fresh air was just steps away.
Steps—
“Bomb!” Drew yelled. “Above the back door. The timer’s counting down—”
She could see it. The seconds were showing in a digital red flash. They only had four seconds. Four.