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"Then give up the singing career or you'll be doing it as a soprano."
I laughed and glanced at Clay. He was holding his right arm out straight and bracing it with his left hand. Sweat dappled his forehead as the muscles beneath his forearm began to pulse.
"What are you--?" Paige began.
I motioned her to silence. Now was really not a good time to pester Clay. Since we couldn't exactly lug around a box of tools, he had to improvise a way to remove the dead man's head and hand.
Adam stared at Clay's hand as it began transforming into a claw. "That has got to be the coolest thing I've ever seen. Or the grossest."
"Come on over here," I said to Paige. "T
his isn't something you want to see."
We moved farther into the woods. Paige kept her gaze trained on a tree in the distance, cheek twitching, as if trying unsuccessfully not to think about what was happening behind us. There was a wet tearing sound, then a dull thud as the guard's decapitated head hit the ground.
"Nope," Adam said. "That was the grossest. Hands down."
"Heads down," Clay deadpanned. "The hand is next."
Adam hurried over to Paige and me.
"You know," Paige said, looking at Adam. "I always thought 'turning green' was only an expression. Guess not."
"Go ahead and laugh," Adam said. "That's one advantage to my powers, though. Burning flesh might smell awful, but at least it's bloodless."
"Okay," Clay said, stepping from the woods. "I'm ready. We're going in."
CHAPTER 43
INFILTRATION
We headed for the exit, checking first to ensure no one else had come outside for a nicotine fix. Once there, Clay removed the head and hand from the bag. I took the hand. As he lifted the head to the camera, I poised the still-warm hand beside the door handle, ready to grab it as soon as the first light turned green. Instead, the indicator stayed red and something beeped. I turned to see a numeric keypad attached to the wall. "ID#?" flashed on the tiny screen.
"Shit!" I said. "A key code. How did I miss that?"
"Because you were breaking out, darling, not breaking in," Clay said. "I didn't notice it either. Must be added security for getting inside."
"No problem," Paige said. "Let's break this down logically. First, find the number of digits." She started pressing the "9" button.
"Don't!" Adam said, snatching her hand. "If we punch in the wrong code, we might set off an alarm."
"I know that. All I'm doing is seeing how many digits it'll accept. Looks like five. Okay. So let's go back to this guy's body and see if we can find a five-digit number."
"Maybe tattooed on his chest," Adam said.
"No need for sarcasm," she said. "He might have a card or something with the number on it. Even if it's a secret, like a PIN, lots of people write it down and hide it in their wallet. We just look for anything with five digits."
"This is stupid," Adam muttered.
"No," I said. "It's logical, like Paige said. I'll run back--"
"We don't have time!"
"We'll make time," Clay said. "You two step into the woods and stay hidden."
Clay and I returned to the headless corpse and searched the pockets, finding neither a wallet nor anything bearing a number of any sort. When we returned, Adam was pacing just beyond the forest's edge.
"Nothing, right?" he said.
