They shook, but Sebastian was trapped outside.
Cyrus aimed the Mace at me. “Give up, Jessica.”
I stepped back, pulled another book from the shelf, ready to throw. But no rain of poetry was going to take Peter’s father down. He could hold the door till reinforcements came.
But he couldn’t walk, and Orrin’s top speed was a slow jog.
I turned and ran toward the front entrance.
“Jessica!” he called after me. “Remember who you are!”
I sprinted though the darkness, past the basements steps, between the faded tapestries and card catalogs, the heavy book my only weapon. But no one was waiting for me.
The front hall stood empty, the shattered entry door unguarded. Even if Orrin was lurking outside, at top speed I’d fly right past him.
I ran for the turnstiles, bracing myself to crash through—
But the book in my hand was not checked out.
The sensors beeped; the turnstile locked, a solid metal arm across my stomach. I flipped over it, crashing flat on my back against the marble floor.
I stared up at the fresco on the ceiling: Prometheus descending from the clouds, torch in hand. I hadn’t looked at it since first semester, freshman year. I tried to suck in a breath—and failed.
The front door opened, and soft steps crunched through the shattered glass. A kindly face looked down at me.
“Grandmother,” I wheezed.
“Jessica,” she said. “You’ve done very well.”
“You’re here?”
“I suspected Faraday’s punishment might prove revealing.” She smiled. “But I wasn’t expecting such a show.”
I stared, blinking to make her go away.
“Don’t worry, Granddaughter. You’ve done nothing wrong. It was all in service of the family.”
Painfully, I managed my first real breath and reached for the corner of the checkout desk. If I could pull myself up and run, Elizabeth couldn’t catch me.
She grasped my wrist, and held it tight. “You’ve saved your generation once again, Jessica. We’re so proud of you.”
With her free hand, she stuck a needle into my bicep.
“Oh,” I said, watching the plunger sink into the barrel, something clear flowing into my arm.
Grandmother dropped my wrist, and my hand fell onto the marble floor. It hurt, but in a distant, irrelevant way.
“We’re going to fix you,” she said. “We love you.”
I closed my eyes against her smile, against those words she’d never said before. My own breathing sounded like someone in another room.
“Has your cousin left already?”
I nodded, or tried to. The ache in my ribs was fading with merciful speed.
And then reality—my pain, my fear, everything I’d lost—was carried swiftly into the distance.
Part 6
