Page 89 of Till Death Do Us Part

“Vera, no!” Elaine shouted, but Petra swept her up and took off racing for the front of the lot, back towards the car. Quayle moved to stop them, but I cut in front, catching him in a quick grapple where we both got sent backwards.

“One at a time, Quayle,” I said. “If you’re going to kill someone, at least pick the dead woman walking.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. Elaine screamed from the other side, calling out to me, and I tried not to think about it. About Elaine getting back to the manor, having to figure out what to do next now that I was dead.

Now that I’d finally fallen.

He moved in one motion so quick I couldn’t follow it—another flashbang, and I shielded my eyes and turned to guard one ear just in time before it went off, and he was gone, the snap of his coat as he went after Elaine, clearing the fence in one vault off a crate.

“Dammit,” I called out into the night, scrabbling after him. My head was still fuzzy, and he was faster than me when I was at my best, but I couldn’t let him catch up to the others.

I picked up one of the discarded guns, and I stumbled out of the yard, vaulting over the fence after him, and I saw him down a stretch as he had another gun in hand and took a shot after Petra’s car, hitting a back tire and sending it squealing, hitting a fence and struggling to recover. I grimaced, and I aimed a shot upwards, shattering the band on a crane hook and dropping a beam. He leaped back out of the way, and I chased to catch up as he vaulted on top of the beam instead, sprinting and catching the loose band as it swung back the other way, towards the others.

It took everything I had in me to catch up, the gas clearing as I got further away from the pipe breach, the wailing of alarms getting louder around us, but Quayle swung higher up to a catwalk above me and slammed his fist on a panel, shattering it and releasing a pyramid of steel pipes that came tumbling down after me.

I leaped out of the way, hoisting myself up onto a container, but I let my guard down, and this time when he fired a shot, it landed—I felt it stab into my leg, and I gasped as the pain surged through me, and I dropped to the ground below, hitting hard next to the pile of steel pipes, and when I saw him aiming down at me from above, I grimaced and pushed myself inside one of the pipes instead, the bullet ringing off the steel inches from my face, the ringing sound deafening all around me.

I heard him taking off above me, still trying to catch up to the others. Leaving me for dead.

Dammit. With a bullet in the leg, I wasn’t catching up.

I dragged myself out of the pipe again and stumbled up to my feet, running as best I could, and I grabbed onto a chain, climbing up to the catwalk level and above, up to a long row of shallow metal roofs. In the darkness below, amidst the tangle of machinery, I saw glimpses of Quayle moving after the others, sparks flying from the car as one wheel was catching on pavement, and another gunshot took out another tire, with a bang that echoed off the machinery.

The network of chutes.

I grimaced as I took a spool of cable and threw it up over one of the chutes, and I gripped it tightly in both hands and faced the drop below.

Ziplining was the worst thing I could do for my fear of heights. But I thought about Elaine trapped in the car as Quayle approached, and I stepped off from the roof.

Everything was a blur as I went, panic pooling in my stomach as the dizzying drop below me streaked past, and I came flying towards where a third tire exploding sent the car drifting and slamming sideways into a concrete wall, just short of the road out of the yard and to safety. From the catwalk above it, Quayle lowered his gun, and he put his hand on the railing to vault, but he must have heard the sound of the cable on metal—he looked back up at me just as I released from the zipline, and he braced just as I released with an attack, slamming into him and knocking him down onto the cold metal of the catwalk, both of us sliding as our guns scattered to either side and fell off the catwalk into the churning industrial equipment below.

“You’re not getting them,” I gasped, pushing myself up to my knee, my other leg not cooperating as I felt blood pooling on the back of it.

“You’re too late, Farkas.” Slowly, he stood up, bearing down on me. “This is your chance. Surrender Elaine.”

I smirked.

Here on a high platform… just like where it all began. Back then, I loved people. I was supposed to die like that, capable of love.

And now I was here, to die on a high platform, for the sake of love.

“Over my dead body, Quayle,” I said, and I pulled the detonator.

Chapter 43

vera

The detonator clicked.

My blood ran cold at the empty, dry click. I mashed the button again.

The gas? Then the reason Quayle even did it… he knew about the explosives pack. And that I was ready to die here.

The world spun as he lunged in, slammed me back into the railing, and I tried to push him away, but he was too strong, his grip too tight, as his hand clutched around my neck, choking me as he lifted me up off the ground, thrusting me out over the drop, holding me in the air above the churning industrial machinery below.

“Over your dead body,” he repeated, his face half-shadowed in the long, stark emergency lights through the industrial yard. A smirk pulled at his thin, pale lips. “That can be arranged.”

I grimaced. This was at least buying time… critical seconds for Petra to commandeer another vehicle. I had to believe they’d survive. “You won’t win, Quayle,” I choked out, holding his arm.