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Did the Dark Watchers want this? Were they enjoying Dillon’s pain?
Malik grabbed Dillon’s hand, a desperate claw, and closed his fingers around the knife. “Jump . . . or cut.”
“Malik!” Shade said, but failed to slow it down, so that he’d have heard nothing but a millisecond buzz.
I can stop this.
Dillon screamed and cursed. And stuck out his tongue.
The world will never be safe unless he’s dead or . . .
Dillon had thought the bullet wound was pain. The bullet wound was nothing.
Nothing!
He was burning alive! The pain coming from every nerve ending, flooding and overwhelming his brain with an urgency unlike anything he’d ever felt. His entire body was under a blowtorch.
He felt the impact of the tank cannon blasts and prayed they’d kill him.
Then, the window! Yes, yes, jump!
But what was in his hand? What was the sleek-skinned black boy saying?
Cut and live.
Cut and live!
Flashes of memory.
Let’s make sure you never call me or anyone else names again. Bite your tongue in half.
The sound of teeth grinding on gristle.
Never again to speak. Never again to bend anyone to his will.
Never again to tell a joke.
With all that remained of the Charmer’s will and strength, he crawled on hands and knees, crawled to the broken window and the whistling night wind.
Below, tanks firing.
Fire burning.
The pain!
He did not leap, he just kept crawling. Crawling until his hands had nothing to crawl on. He tipped forward. His thighs slipped over broken glass, the cuts irrelevant.
And he fell, screaming.
Malik looked at Shade. He said nothing.
Shade de-morphed to be understood and said, “Francis? Get Malik and yourself the hell out of here.”
The tanks went on firing, round after round, but as Dekka wreaked her own careful destruction, the firing slowed and finally stopped.
Shade watched from across the Strip, now blessedly out of morph and cut off from the insidious Dark Watchers. Armo, Malik, and Francis stood defeated and exhausted.
“Cruz!” Shade yelled.
