Inside the car, Sydney caught a glimpse of Niall’s clean-shaven face, dazed and dripping with blood, his body hanging upside down in his seat, held in place only by his seat belt. His head turned slightly in their direction, and his eyes found Sydney.
Sydney’s horrified gaze met his grim one. Somehow, in this split second of a moment, she suddenly felt herself turn back into the person she was at fifteen, arriving at Panacea for the first time with Niall at her side, him vouching for her during the orientation, then her graduating from her program, Sauda saying her name, Niall handing her a folder and shaking her hand.
You’re going to cause some good trouble, kid,he’d told her with a smile.
“Stop!Stop!”
It was Tems. He had caught up to Winter and yanked him backward, forcing him off balance so that he stumbled to the ground. Tems flung his other arm out sideways at Sydney. “Get down!”he screamed. His eyes locked in helpless desperation on his former mentor—
—and then on the second car, devoid of a driver.
Sydney halted, right as the car exploded.
20Nowhere to Run
Whenever things devolved into chaos, Sydney’s brain went on autopilot, and she saw time happen in snatches. In stills.
She experienced it now, this jolty, surreal, stilted moment. Chunks of metal and glass burning on the grass. Her view from the ground as she looked up at the flaming remains of the wreckage that contained Niall’s body. Winter staring, stunned into silence, at the scene. Tems rushing toward the two cars, only to throw his hands up in defense as another explosion sent more fire and smoke in every direction.
Get up! Move!
She could hear Niall’s voice in her thoughts, as if he were shouting at her, saving her even now. Sydney forced herself to her feet. Her ears rang. She reached out to Winter and seized his hand, yelled at him to come with her. She heard herself calling to Tems, who had already turned around and was running back toward them. Had he not shouted at them to stop, they would have all been caught in the firestorm.
Sydney’s mind struggled to process it.
That was no accidental crash. She recognized the ferocity of the eruption as surely as if she were back in training, watching controlledexperiments of various explosives in Panacea’s underground facility. Niall had been killed by a professional device planted on the second car that had engulfed him in the blast.
Someone had murdered him.
All this time, she had been thinking of her own safety—Niall had been worried for her—when she should have been afraid for him.
Through hazy vision blurred with tears, she heard Tems’s voice.
“We have to get out of here!” he shouted.
Their escape. Sydney’s body kicked into high gear. The three of them sprinted across the lawn away from the explosion.
There. She saw another parked car along the street, with an official license plate. Winter must have seen the car at the same time, because they moved in sync toward it.
As soon as Sydney reached it, she snatched the long pin out of her hair and began working on the door handle.
“Two o’clock,” Tems said as he caught up to them, and Sydney looked up. A guard had noticed them and pointed in their direction in the midst of the chaos. “Hurry up, Syd.”
“Hurrying,” she snapped, her voice hoarse.
As she went, her mind whirled. It was obvious someone else at the event was working with Seah—but Niall? Why did they want him dead?
The same mysterious reason they’d wanted Sydney dead. Why Tems had gone into hiding. Someone was targeting Panacea in order to silence them.
At last, Sydney heard the car door open with a gratifying pop. She immediately hopped into the driver’s seat. Winter slid into the passenger side at the same time, while Tems went to the back.
“Who’s the best driver in here?” Winter muttered.
“Me,” Sydney and Tems said in unison. She glared at him through the rearview mirror.
“I’ve been in this city for three months. I know it like the back of my hand,” Tems said. “Switch with me after it starts.”
“Fine.” Sydney pried open the car’s ignition panel and stared at the tangle of wires.
