But he was no trained fighter. All he had were tricks and illusions. And he was running out of time.
Connor lunged for the gun that Winter had kicked across the deck. Winter bolted after him. He managed to catch the man’s shoes. They both tumbled to the floor.
Connor looked back and twisted his wounded lips at Winter. When he spoke, the words came out in a gurgling rattle. “You’ll die with me,” he hissed. He kicked at Winter’s arms. Winter winced as the man’s shoe hit his knuckles. A second kick.
Winter couldn’t hang on any longer. He released Connor, and the man pulled free. He reached for the gun.
It was over. Winter looked on helplessly as the man neared the gun, braced himself for when Connor would grab the weapon and swing it around at him. Nearby, Penelope was getting off Sydney.
Again, he thought he heard helicopter blades, but everything seemed slow and far away. They weren’t going to make it out of here alive. Sydney moved a little against the floor, her head still turned toward him, but he saw her eyes flutter closed. Her body was contorting in pain as she fought for air.
No.No.
It was losing Artie all over again. It was waking up at sixA.M.to the sound of his mother’s anguished voice from downstairs, her asking in disbelief over and over if they had identified the right body. It was him sitting helplessly at the top of the stairs, knowing he had just let his brother go off to his death without ever saying his proper goodbyes. It was being unable to save a person he loved.
A person he loved.
He could feel himself deteriorating rapidly, the adrenaline that had carried him this entire time finally crashing as his blood loss began catching up to him. His chest felt numb, his limbs tingling. The run he’d done just minutes earlier up on the steel grid seemed impossible now.
Sydney seemed to turn weakly in his direction. For a moment, he thought they exchanged a final look.
Then something made her look up and away from him. He blinked slowly.
How did Artie feel, when he finally died? Was he afraid?
And for a moment, Winter thought he saw his brother crouching beside him, those thoughtful dark eyes turned down at him and a furrow in his brow. He gave Winter a sad smile.
Winter looked up at him, yearning to reach him, knowing even now that he couldn’t.
I really thought I had more time with you,he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.All I ever wanted was to be like you.
The last thing he saw was Artie reaching down for his hand.
No, it wasn’t Artie. It was—
—a soldier in black gear?
And then the beating of helicopter blades became overwhelming, seemed to engulf him. Was he imagining things?
The bullet from Connor’s gun never came. Instead, the black-clad soldier was shouting in his face, asking if he could hear him. Winter could only stare back in confusion. He must be hallucinating.
The world around him was fading into nothingness. All he wanted to focus on were the words that seemed to come from somewhere in his past, as if in a dream, words that echoed in his mind right before he slipped entirely into darkness. Words from Artie.
Be like you, Winter.
34
Breathe
The helicopter.
Then, two more.
And then there were agents everywhere. She heard a voice blaring from a megaphone overhead. The wind whipped up by the helicopters sent dust flying and her hair whipping against her face.
Panacea must have found them. They must have seen the flare.
But all Sydney could focus on was the overwhelming pain in her lungs, the feeling of drowning in the air, of being unable to draw her breath. As if in a dream, she saw a team of paramedics rushing to them, dropping from the sky one after another, could vaguely feel the shudder of their boots pounding against the deck. All she could do was struggle to keep Winter in her fading view as their bodies clustered around them, peeking between the jumble of legs to see his still figure even as they checked her pulse and her limbs for wounds.
