When her body goes limp, her head slumping against the floor, I go nearly solid with rage. A cold heat fuses my panic into something like steel, anger and adrenaline burning through my veins, quieting my thoughts.
I feel suddenly unhinged.
Rivulets of blood snake down my face and I realize only then that I must’ve cut my head at some point. I can’t feel the pain. I don’t feel the wound in my torso as it slowly heals. I don’t feel anything but fury.
Betrayal.
I charge into the central, open space in the building and turn in a slow circle, trying to decipher what I’m looking at; I’m surrounded by amorphous shadows that could behiding mercenaries or stacks of fleece sweaters.
“James!”
My heart nearly comes back to life at the sound of her scream, the desperation in her voice. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin and I kill the panic all over again, forcing my heart into higher gear.
Rosabelle is still alive.
She’s fighting back.
Maybe they’re not trying to kill her—maybe, I tell myself, they’re just trying to kidnap her—
No, this alternative scenario offers me no relief.
I bolt toward the sound of her voice, half out of my mind, and dive down another aisle at random, eyes sweeping the shelves—
“James?”
I go deathly still. I look around, but I see nothing. No one. “Kenji?”
“Bro,” he croaks. “Is that you? I thought I heard someone scream your name.”
I’m trying not to read into the rasp of his voice. I’m trying not to think about how faint he sounds; how far away. He sounds like he’s been put through a shredder.
“Kenji,” I say, searching the aisles. “Where are you?
“Here,” he says.
“Pull back your invisibility,” I call out, sweeping the area, not caring that my voice carries. “I can’t see you—”
“I’m not invisible,” he says.
“Where are you?”
“Look up.”
The seconds it takes me to look up seem to take years. Details come into focus in a disjointed procession of images, the frame rate dragging to a crawl as the scene clarifies and clarifies.
I don’t believe it at first.
At first, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.
My eyesight sharpens by degrees, my mind translating impossible images into information—and suddenly, everything comes into focus.
At least a dozen people are hanging from the rafters like pendants, each person neatly clamped in metal, bodies wrapped in gleaming silver binds. They’re tethered to the industrial ceiling by individual fists of black steel, each anchor flashing a pinprick of blue light.
“Holy shit,” I say. “What the hell—”
“You have to get out of here,” Kenji rasps. “This whole thing was a setup. There’s some weird shit going down. You shouldn’t be here—”
A disorienting, focused calm continues to sedate my fears. I assess the situation and form a plan in seconds, understanding that if I miss my shot, I could kill him.
