“What are you doing?” I ask Rosabelle, at the same time Nazeera asks me, “Are you sure we can trust that she didn’t take the vial?”
“If I were in possession of the vial,” Rosabelle says sharply, “I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Wait, what?” This clears the lingering heat from my head. “Why not?”
“I tried to explain this to you back at the house,” she says. “I can’t go back to the Ark without it.”
“She did say that,” says Nazeera. “I remember her saying that.”
“Okay, but why not?” I ask. “What are you planning on doing with it?”
“Whoa, wait a second,” says Nazeera. “If she really didn’t take the vial, then who are we hunting across the city? Everyone assumes she’s the suspect.”
Rosabelle rocks back on her heels. She looks around blindly, panicking, as if she’s collapsing inward. “So it’s true,” she says. “The vial is gone. Someone stole it.”
“Yeah, okay,” Nazeera says to me. “I see why you think she didn’t take it.”
“Do you have any leads?” Rosabelle asks, regrouping. “Do you know when the vial was first reported missing?”
“That information is above your pay grade,” I say to her. “You’re not going out there, Rosabelle. If you go out there, they’ll kill you. No one trusts you. You’re living on borrowed time. Everyone already thinks you stole it—”
“None of that matters to me,” she says. “If I don’t get that vial, I may as well be dead—”
“Why?”I demand. “What’s in it? Why is it so important?”
“Where are we right now?” Rosabelle asks, looking around. “Why were there so many soldiers in this restaurant?”
“Rosabelle, stop,” I say angrily. “This is not your mission. You are not authorized to participate. Stand down.”
“I don’t answer to your people,” she says darkly. “And if you want to stop me, you’re going to have to fight me.”
“All right. Fine.” Nazeera sounds irritated but resigned as she turns to me. “You’re right. Liability or not, I did sign up for this, and you’re clearly too far gone in the head to manageher. I’ll take her back to the house and keep her there.”
“I’m not going back to the house.”
“Rosabelle—”
I hear Nazeera’s shocked cry before I even register the clatter; Rosabelle flung a plate like a Frisbee, striking Nazeera in the sternum so hard she gasps, staggering backward before hitting the window.
The heavy plate hits the ground and shatters.
I watch, horrified, as Nazeera slides, stunned, halfway down the wall.
I explode. “Rosabelle,what the hell—”
Rosabelle flings two more plates, one hitting Nazeera in the stomach, interrupting her air supply, and the other in the knee, collapsing her. Half-eaten waffles and breakfast potatoes fly across the room like shrapnel, hitting walls and chairs with soggy thuds. She throws a fourth plate, but Nazeera doubles over in pain, struggling for breath, and manages to shift just out of the way. The plate crashes into the window behind her, sending a rain of shattered glass into the room. Nazeera spits out a shard, her lip bleeding. A fried egg splats against the door, yolk smearing as gravity drags it downward.
Nazeera groans.
Rosabelle is already across the room, tugging weaponry out of Nazeera’s limp arms. She pulls a strap over her head, then aims a gun at Nazeera, who’s fighting to recover, grasping at her chest with one hand, searching herself for a weapon with the other.
I’m literally speechless.
I stare at Rosabelle in disbelief.
“Oh my God,” Nazeera wheezes, her head rocking back against the wall, glass clinking as it releases from her clothing, hitting the ground. She’s still trying to breathe, her face seizing with pain. “You’re such an asshole.”
“What’s your big plan, Rosabelle?” I say angrily, finding my voice. “What are you going to do now? You don’t know where you are and you don’t know how to get out of here. It’s not as easy as you think it is to just leave this place—”
