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“But if she tried to go after them inside, she’s not coming back,” the other said, trying to sound tough, even though his hands were in the air.
“Taylor,” Sam said. “Double-check the guardhouse.”
Taylor bounced into the guardhouse. She was on a hair trigger, ready to bounce back out again. But she saw no one inside.
Outside, through the window, she saw Edilio’s soldiers piling out of the last car, machine guns ready. Howard stepped out of the SUV, scared, cringing. And slowly, like he was an old man with arthritis, came Orc. Howard was a tiny shadow beside him.
Taylor bounced to them.
“No one’s in the guardhouse,” Taylor reported. “And no Brianna.”
Dekka looked at Sam. “If anyone’s hurt that girl, they don’t get the chance to walk away.”
“Dekka, we need to play this smart,” Sam said.
“No, Sam,” Dekka said with sudden, savage ferocity. “Anyone who hurts that girl dies.”
Taylor expected Sam to put Dekka in her place. Instead, he said, “We all love her, Dekka. We’ll do what’s right.”
Taylor bounced next to Dekka. She put her hand on Dekka’s strong shoulder. The girl was trembling.
TWENTY-FOUR
18 HOURS, 1 MINUTE
SAM WISHED CAINE would come out after him. That would be best. That would be the thing. A straight-up fight, out in the open. Last time they’d had that fight, Sam had won.
But Caine wasn’t going to step outside.
The fight had barely begun and already he had lost Brianna.
Poor Breeze.
“What do we do?” Edilio asked. He was at Sam’s side. Edilio was always at his side, and Sam was profoundly grateful for that. But right this moment, standing here in the shadow of the hulking power plant, with images of Brianna filling the next hole in the town plaza, he wished Edilio would shut up and leave him in peace.
But Sam was the guy who made decisions. Win or lose. Right or wrong. Life or death.
“I should have brought Astrid along,” Sam said. “She knows the plant better than either of us do.”
“They gotta be in the control room,” Edilio said. “Whatever Caine is up to, he’d want to have the control room.”
“Yeah.”
“Only two ways in, as far as I remember. Either in through the turbine building or back through all the offices. They’ll have both covered.”
“Yeah.”
“Kind of narrow hallways from either direction. Come through the turbine room, maybe they won’t want to get crazy and do anything that messes up the plant, right?”
Sam looked at him sharply. “You’re right. That makes sense. I should have thought of it. Caine doesn’t want the plant destroyed.”
Edilio shrugged. “Hey, man, I’m not just your good-looking Mexican sidekick.”
Sam smiled. “You’re not Mexican. You’re Honduran.”
“Oh, yeah,” Edilio said dryly. “Sometimes I forget.” Then, serious again, he said, “Caine didn’t come here to wreck the place. He came here to take it over, use it somehow. Boy doesn’t want to sit in the dark any more than we do.”
“But he’ll do what he has to,” Sam said.
