I tried to get to my feet, to make my way to the man I adored more than caramel apples, but my legs wouldn’t work right.

“It’s okay,” he said, gazing at me through lids swollen almost completely shut. I had a feeling his lopsided grin could be attributed more to facial paralysis than that mischievous charm he carried around like a weapon of mass destruction. “We need to make sure there’s no standoff. We have to stop them from barricading themselves inside. This whole place is one big compound.”

I sniffed and wiped my nose on Angel’s dirty tank. “I’m all ears. Wait!” I said as a plan formed. A good one. “Okay, I’ve got it.”

“Does it involve either of us getting our tongues cut out?”

“How’d you know? Just follow my lead.”

Angel snickered. “I’ve had to do that a few times. It’s scary.”

“Why are people always dissing my plans?”

“They’re almost here,” Angel said.

“Is Uncle Bob with them?”

“Boss, Uncle Bob is leading the cavalry. And he is not happy.”

19

I never make the same mistake twice. I make it like five or six times, you know, just to be sure.

— T-SHIRT

I was beginning to get the feeling back in my legs. The drugs had worked their way through my system and were starting to wear off.

With Angel’s help, I navigated the Diviners and checked on Shawn. He was alive. Then I returned to my earlier position and nodded. “I’m ready.”

Reyes nodded and prepared to release time. “In three…”

“You know they’re wrong about you.”

“Later,” he said, letting his head fall to the ground again. “Two…”

“You aren’t evil.”

“Dutch. Do you want to get hit again?”

“Are you threatening to spank me?” I teased.

He glared. “Them. If you talk… one…”

I whispered to Angel as fast as I could, “Tell me when the cops are close.” Then I looked at Reyes again. At my beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking husband. “And they’re wrong.”

“No, Dutch,” he said sadly. “They’re not.”

Time slingshot back into place just as, yep, a hand whipped across my face. At least they were back to hitting me with an open hand.

They picked up exactly where they left off. I waited for Angel to let me know when to move. If Reyes could walk, he could get to the gates and open them while I led them in the opposite direction, not that I had any idea where the gates were. But the car had left tracks in the dirt. That was enough to figure out which way not to go.

One of the men holding Reyes spoke up. “Did you hear that?”

They stopped. Everyone stood still and listened.

“What?” Mr. Foster said.

The man shrugged. “I thought I heard…”

“They’re about two miles away,” Angel said.

While their attention was elsewhere, I shot to my feet and ran. Or, well, stumbled to my feet and did an interpretive dance of autumn leaves dying and falling off a tree.

I’d expected to let them chase me. To lead them away from the front gates so the local law enforcement could get in. What I hadn’t expected was the loud crack that split the air and echoed against the walls. A searing pain that burst in my back. What seemed like a hundred white-hot pokers stabbed me from behind, and I tripped, skidded onto my knees, and pitched forward, ending up barely twenty feet from where I’d started.

Reyes jerked in his constraints, but I shook my head. He had to see this through. To finish it.

But I hadn’t expected them to finish it first. I lay on the ground, bleeding out, and watched as they put the shotgun to Reyes’s chest.

I cried out in horror. Had he been wrong after all? Could he die? It was simply not worth the risk.

Fear consumed me to the marrow of my bones.

Blood pumped into my stomach and lungs and throat.

A pain like an inferno spread through me, but all I could think about was Reyes.

A microsecond before they pulled the trigger, Mr. Foster shushed them again. Sirens could be heard in the distance, prompting the Diviners into action.

“Close the gate!” he yelled.

Reyes and Angel had been right. My plan had sucked. The Diviners scrambled to get to the gate before Reyes could get there.

Mr. Foster turned and nodded toward his man. The shotgun exploded. Buckshot plowed into Reyes’s chest at point-blank range. He shuddered and coughed before going still.

I covered my mouth with both hands. This was not happening. Blood pumped out of him in a slow and steady stream.

“You have to know,” he said. Just like he had before. “Dematerialize.”

“I… I can’t.” My chest ached, but not from the buckshot. “I have holes.”

The grin that slid across his face was a most wicked thing. “I know. I like your holes.” He really was evil. The Fosters were right! “Do it, Dutch.”

“But the holes. The ones in my back.”

“Dutch…”

“All right. Holy crackerjacks.”

But before I could act, his lids drifted shut. And for a split second, I studied his face. Beaten and bloody but serene. No, accepting. Just like in that picture. He’d resigned himself to his fate as though… as though he deserved it. The Fosters did that to him. Earl Walker did that to him. Made him feel less than he was.

The anger that truth evoked was the catalyst I needed. I dove inside myself, struggled past the drugs, dug my heels in and forced my molecules apart.