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Rachael Elle screamed.
She had reason to.
Out in the hallway, Brett screamed too.
Other screams tore through the air and burst in through the open door.
So many voices torn by screams.
Rachael was caught in a moment of terrible indecision. Stay with Gayla, keep the pressure on the wound.
Or try to help Brett.
Which?
Which?
The decision was stolen from her in the next moment.
Gayla shuddered once, arched her back, went intensely rigid, eyes wide and staring.
And then she flopped back onto the floor. A long, ragged, empty breath hissed from between her teeth. Her eyes looked at Rachael, and through her, and into nothing at all.
Rachael said, “Gayla . . . ?”
But even in that fleeting moment, she knew that Gayla was no longer there.
Gayla was gone.
Gone.
And Brett was screaming.
She felt herself rise, felt herself move even though her mind seemed to be anchored to the girl who lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Her friend. Even in the blinding heat of the moment, Rachael realized and understood that Gayla was really her friend. A rival, sure. Even a hated rival. But on the ground floor of all things, she was a friend.
Brett was outside in the hallway. Screaming and fighting.
He was her friend too.
He was still alive.
Rachael was not a fighter. She played one at Comic Con and Dragon Con. At science fiction conventions all over the country. In photo shoots with her friends. Even the few karate classes she’d taken were more to get the form right when she cosplayed action heroes.
She was not a fighter.
No.
Not until that moment.
As she moved from the dead girl to whatever was happening in the hall, something changed. She changed.
She was dressed like a hero.
And this moment, against all possible variations on the reality of her actual life, required a hero.
Rachael raced into the hall and saw that it was not just she who had changed. The world had changed. It had gone wrong. Somehow . . . wrong.
People were fighting everywhere. Some of them dressed in costumes. Some of them in ordinary clothes. One man was naked except for bedroom slippers. Everyone was screaming and yelling. And bleeding.
