My gaze skims the construction site. Scattered tools. Buckets of nails. PVC pipe. And there—a bright red fire extinguisher, still strapped to a column a few feet away. Close enough to reach if I’m fast.
I take a breath. “Please don’t die, please don’t die,” I whisper to myself.
Then I run.
I vault over a coil of extension cords, grab the extinguisher with both hands, and yank. It comes loose with a jerk that nearly dislocates my shoulder. Rook doesn’t see me until it’s too late. I swing the extinguisher like a bat and catch him full force in the ribs. The impact rings through my arms. He cries out, stumbles—gun dropping to the concrete.
Rook staggers, clutching his side. “You little—”
I yank the pin from the extinguisher and squeeze the handle. A blast of white foam hits him square in the face. He chokes, swears, stumbles back—temporarily blinded.
“Come on.” I drop the extinguisher with a clatter. “We have to move. Now.”
Mr. Edmond is conscious—stunned, wide-eyed, but not hurt. I reach for him.
Sebastian groans, trying to push upright, his good hand pressing hard against his bleeding arm. He’s pale, sweating, but his jaw is set with sheer determination.
“I’ve got him,” he grits out, shifting to help his father.
“Nowis not the time for your ego,” I mutter, looping an arm under Edmond’s shoulder as Sebastian does the same on the other side. Together we hustle him toward a stack of concrete blocks.
I spot the gun, tucked against a cracked paint bucket and someone’s abandoned thermos.
Then Rook hits me. I don’t see him, justfeelhim, a wall of rage and limbs as we go down hard against the concrete. My shoulder slams into the ground, the gun skidding out of reachagain. We grapple, elbows and fists and gritted teeth. I manage to land a knee in his stomach, but he recovers fast, slamming me back against a steel beam.
“You’re not going to win this one,” he snarls.
I glare up at him. “You’d be amazed what I can accomplish when I’m ticked off.”
He tries to wrap his fingers around my throat. I claw at his hands, fighting against his grip. Sebastian charges into view, swinging a pipe like a one-armed knight. The blow knocks Rook sideways, long enough for me to suck in a breath.
But Rook is like a cockroach that won’t die. He grabs Sebastian’s injured arm and slams him into a support post. Sebastian groans, slumps.
I crawl toward the gun and twist just in time to see Rook looming toward me. My eyes flick up. A rope is tied haphazardly around a bundle of metal framing bars suspended from a crane hook about fifteen feet above him. I aim and pull the trigger. The pulley snaps, sending the bars crashing down and burying Rook in a tangle of steel and dust.
I wait to see if he stays down because, you know, cockroaches. When he doesn’t move, I scramble to Sebastian. He’s groaning but conscious.
“I’m okay,” he rasps. “The laptop?”
I spin to check. “It’s gone.”
So is Ramirez.
Sebastian slumps against the beam, chest heaving. “Go.”
I apply pressure to his wound. “I’m not leaving you—”
“We’ll be fine.” Mr. Edmond is at my side now, and he takes my place, gently pressing his hand on his son’s injury. Sebastian winces but continues. “If he gets away with that laptop, none of this matters.”
“He’s right,” Mr. Edmond says. “Go—I’ve got him.”
I give them a tight smile, then spin toward the stairwell. And run.
Chapter 42
Cybil
Dallas, Texas
