Page 62 of Raze
A myriad of red lasers cover me from head to toe in an instant.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her for the both of us. She won’t be able to kill anyone anymore. I’ll be doing theworlda favor.”
“Vera…” I start, but I trail off when I realize there’s probably nothing I can say to stop her. I close my eyes and look inside to where my gift lives in my gut, calling it to me. The burn sears through my limbs, but I drive it on and concentrate it into my hands. I can hear Dane, too close to me, trying to talk her down.
“Stop! Don’t do it, Vera. This has nothing to do with her. I just wanted you to read this.” I hear something slapping on the ground close to Vera and assume he’s tossed her his notebook. “Read it. Right now. Turn that off, and show me that my sister is still in theresomewhere.”
I open my eyes to see Vera kicking the notebook away. “What could I possibly read that would make me change my mind about killing the person who killed me first?”
I know then that she’s going to do it. There is no getting through to her when it comes to me. Maybe not even when it comes to Dane. How much does she even want him back because he’s her brother and not just as the lab rat GE needs?
Dane’s standing too close to me for whatever’s going to shoot at me and for what I’m planning to do, so my foot strikes out with all the strength I’ve gained from training with Kellan. He falls back on the ground, his expression wide with shock, but it’s enough to ensure he won’t follow me. I take two large steps away from him and then drop my hands to the rooftop.
My gift pulses and then strikes. It tries to rush out of me in a torrent of heat and disaster, but I clench my teeth and pull it back. It feels like scrambling at hundreds of threads and trying to keep them all together and reel them in, but I still miss a few that lash out and send cracks further out than I planned.
The roof drops out beneath me just as the sound of gunfire reaches my ears.
“Noooo!” Dane yells, but he sounds distant and soft.
I crash onto something metal and start sliding off of it, but I grab it and hold on tight, my gift thankfully back asleep. Vera screams, and I look up to see the roof beneath her feet caving in.
I pull myself up on what looks like a metal catwalk and run toward her just as she drops. My hand grabs hers, and then her body yanksdown until I face plant into the metal walk. I groan, seeing fucking stars from the impact. It felt like someone wailed a heavy metal tray into my face.
Vera shrieks and jerks in my grip, and I have to squeeze tighter to make sure I don’t drop her. I had a brief look down when I first fell, and the top floor is apparently two stories tall. A fall from here could kill or permanently damage us.
“Get off of me! Don’ttouchme!”
Her movements grow more frantic, and the stress on my arm sharpens. “Stop moving! I’m trying to save you, but I’m going todropyou if you don’t quit it!”
“Fire! Fire!” she yells out, and I realize that the stupid phone is still in her other hand. I check my body over for any red lasers, but the nearest ones can only get an angle into the hole where neither of us are.
Bullets fly into the brick and cement, but it’s the sharp ping each time it hits metal that sends my heart into my throat. They better not ricochet and hit us. Then small chunks of concrete and debris fall, and I realize a whole other way that she could kill us with this. “Stop it! If you actually care about being alive, thenturn it off! You could hit Dane up there for all you know!”
Vera doesn’t acknowledge me, but the shooting stops, and I drop my face back on the catwalk with a sigh of relief. Then something sharp burns across the back of my arm, and I scream in pain. I look back over the edge. Vera’s changed out the phone for a knife. Forfuck’s sake, does she want to die that badly?
I should drop her. Fuck the crazy psycho bitch. She’s gone.Completely lost to GE or Gordon. I don’t know who this person is anymore, but she’s not the Vera I once knew. I can’t see any sign, any inkling, that we’ll ever get her back.
“Vera! Raegan!” Dane shouts down at us from the edge of the hole I made now that the firing has stopped. “Fuck!” he adds when he sees the predicament we’re in.
His voice brings back the promise that I wouldn’t harm her. And I’d do whatever it took to save her.
Guess this counts as that.
I groan my frustration at what I have to do, even as my shoulder aches and the cut on my arm throbs. Blood trails from the cut to my hand on hers, and I know it'll slip before long. I reposition myself and reach down to grab her elbow with my other hand, making sounds of struggle and pain as I have to try lifting her with my one hand to make it to her elbow.
Vera’s still screaming about me touching her, and I’m afraid she might stab me with the blade, but I’m able to grip her elbow, plant my feet, and then fall back. I use my body weight to heave her up until she’s on top of me. She raises the knife up, and I shove her off of me and roll away.
She tries to swipe at me again, and I crawl backward far enough until I can get my feet under me. One foot slips on the blood I’ve been spreading across the walk from my arm. I cling to the bar before I slide right off, then right myself and grip at my arm to slow the bleeding.
“Vera, stop!” Dane yells on deaf ears. Her murderous glare stays locked on me.
The sound of helicopter blades snaps my gaze back up at Dane.
No. I must have misheard it.
The sound intensifies, and the wind behind Dane picks up.
“Dane! Run! Get out of here!”
