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“Okay, then. Pedal to the metal.”
“And?”
“And what?” Shade asked.
Dekka smiled. “Lights and siren, girl. Lights and siren.”
“Hah!” Shade said. “Hell yes, lights and siren.”
CHAPTER 37
Justifiable Homicide(s)
IN THE BACK of the speeding ambulance, Sam Temple winced as the paramedic went to work on him, shooting lidocaine into raw flesh to dull the pain of the sewing needle. It still hurt, especially since the ambulance continued to hurtle through traffic at ridiculous speeds, causing the paramedic to jab her needle repeatedly in the wrong p
laces.
“Sorry to have to hijack you this way,” Sam apologized.
The paramedic was intensely focused on her work. “You’re the Rockborn Group, right?”
“Gang, but yeah, that’s us.”
“Are you after that bastard from New York?”
“We are.”
The paramedic met his gaze. “Then no problem.”
Francis lay on her back opposite Sam, behind the paramedic. The paramedic had eased her broken fibula back roughly into place and had cleaned and bandaged it. But Francis would not be walking any time soon.
Armo had de-morphed out of necessity—the ambulance was capacious, but not enough for a shaggy nine-hundred-pound beast. He sat on the corrugated steel floor with Cruz, holding gauze to her forehead. She was the next in line for the paramedic. Simone was squeezed in a corner, nursing her wrist, morphed, with her coat of tiny wings buzzing but not enough to cause her to lift off.
Sam itched to ask Dekka what she was doing, what the plan was, but A) he was being sewn up, and B) he was not in charge.
Serves me right. I didn’t always explain myself to the troops, either.
He was feeling very much like a fifth wheel, lacking a useful power for combat, not really knowing most of the gang. He was painfully aware of his reputation as some kind of ten-foot-tall hero-demigod, but that had only been true, insofar as it was ever true, a long time ago. He was a passenger now, a hanger-on, an extra. He had one useful thing to offer, and it was looking increasingly unlikely to be helpful.
“How you doing, Simone?” he asked.
“The wrist hurts, but I’ll live.”
For how much longer? Sam did not say.
Suddenly the ambulance was fishtailing down the center lane of the turnpike as Shade stood on the brakes. Sam peered ahead through the windshield and saw a sleek, dangerous-looking helicopter landing right in the middle of the highway as traffic swerved past it or slammed on the brakes.
The ambulance doors flew open, and all of them—including the paramedic and her medical kit—ran or were carried to the helicopter, which took off immediately, leaving an abandoned ambulance parked across two lanes.
It was immediately clear that this helicopter was to the first one what a Formula One racer was to a Prius. It tilted sharply, nose down, and roared away, rotors and turbines deafening, and soon there was railroad track two hundred feet below them.
Dekka unbuckled her seat belt and stood up, steadying herself with a hand pressed to the low ceiling. “Listen up. Eliopoulos is trying to slow the train. We are chasing it. It’s going to be a very close call, even if the train is delayed a little. We may not have time to get any of the hostages off.”
“If we’re giving up on the hostages, why doesn’t Eliopoulos just blow it up? He’s got fighter jets and drones,” Simone demanded.
“You don’t kill bees by blowing up a hive,” Malik said.
“Then how . . .” Simone let the question hang.
