Page 120 of Shades of Grey & Gold

Across the narrow alley, he presses my spine to a cold car hood.

He starts checking me. He presses into my head, bobs his head side to side and presses into my arms, my legs, my shoulders. He looks relieved when his hands turn up free of blood each time.

“Cal,” I think I retch as I say it and my voice is gravel. “Cal’s coming. He’s coming,” I say it again, and again, until the words are everything and nothing.

Then there are two shots from inside. A few more all at once. Then another.

A long pause.

Then one more.

We wait. They all train their guns on the back door.

A breath.

Another.

The sirens begin as a whisper in the distance.

“We have to go,” Nico says, hand on my shoulder. “Rudi—get her in the car. Gio, with them.”

Nico drops something out of the butt of the gun, reloads smoothly, looks both ways like he’s crossing any ordinary street, and takes one step toward the door I came from.

“I’ll get him,” he promises with a glance back at me, to where Gio reaches for my elbow.

Nico faces forward and takes another step.

The building breathes.

The lights flicker like a failing heart.

Somewhere inside, something implodes.

I feel a blast of air and then nothing.

Nico flies backwards towards us.

The world goes white.

I scream Cal’s name as hands close around my torso and haul me into the car, metal shrieking, glass raining, fryer hoods howling like animals finally awake.

Chapter Forty-Two

Max

Thecarsmellslikeleather, cordite, and something scorched. My ears are still singing a high, electric pitch like they made when Gio went down.

And the sirens chase us, or just sound like they do, until even they get swallowed by theeeee.

Nico’s hands are at ten and two. His knuckles are chalk white. Gio is beside him, in front of me, alive, breathing too fast. Rudi, next to me, keeps looking out the back window like he can controlthe cars behind us.

“There’s no surviving that.” Nico’s voice echoes and bobs, sounding like he’s underwater. He says it to no one. Or, I guess he says it to me as my name filters through the ringing. “Max.”

The name lands and doesn’t.

I hear the words.

I take inventory of them like I’m studying: subject, verb, object, verdict.