Twelve Years Earlier
Sera trudged up the stairs to the apartment she shared with Tor. Her book bag was drenched with rain, making it weigh about a thousand times more than it normally did, and it took far too much effort to keep her feet moving forward. The only thing that prevented her from waiting out the rain after her abnormal-psych lecture was the thought of Tor at home without her. That drove her out into the weather and kept her moving toward home through every miserable, rain-soaked step.
She hated this time of year, when the weather couldn’t decide between summer and winter. One day she was comfortable wearing shorts and a tank top, and the next she’d freeze without a turtleneck and a winter parka. For fun, the sky alternated between sunshine, angry, cold rain, and snow. Some people loved fall, but she thought the weather was a page straight out of Armageddon.
Finally, she made it to her apartment. The door was unlocked, which was unusual for Tor. She dropped her bag just inside the door with a heavy sigh.
“Tor? Are you here? You won’t believe the day I had.” She stripped off her jacket and draped it over a kitchen chair to dry. Next she pulled off her shirt, scrubbing her face dry with the fabric and continuing her journey into the house wearing only her sports bra. “First, Rincon gave us a pop quiz, the bastard. Then some douche swiped my lunch when I looked away for three seconds—”
Sera entered the living room to find Tor standing there with an older man that she’d never met before. Tor’s eyes were wide with panic and her body was tense. None of it, however, made Sera think Tor was in danger. Sera tilted her head to the side, watching Tor carefully and trying to understand why she was so upset. She tossed her shirt toward their bedroom but didn’t look to see if it made it.
“Tor?”
“Sera, you’re home early.” Tor’s voice was rigid and frayed.
Sera glanced at the clock. She was actually late. It wasn’t like Tor to lose track of time. She was too much of a control freak and usually had her days scheduled down to the last minute. If Tor wanted this man to think she was early, though, she could work with that, even if it confused the hell out of her. She nodded in lieu of verbally confirming and waited for an introduction. After several long moments, she realized it wasn’t coming. Tor wanted her to leave without meeting this man, and that was even more puzzling. Finally, because she couldn’t just walk away, she crossed the room and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Sera, Tor’s gir—”
“Roommate.” Tor literally yelled the word, then repeated it again after she swallowed heavily. “Sera is my roommate.”
The man had a nice solid handshake, balanced by the critical evaluation in his eyes. “Nice to meet you, Sera. I’m Thomas Jewel. Tor’s father.”
Sera’s smile froze in place. She shook his hand and said “Nice to meet you” reflexively. Why was Tor’s father here? And why hadn’t Tor told her he was coming? And what was the roommate thing about?
After a moment of awkward silence as she waited for Tor to take up the conversation, to make small talk like she always did to ease people through tense social settings, she realized no intervention was coming. She’d obviously interrupted their conversation, and Tor didn’t want her here any more than her father did.
She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Well, I’ll let you two get back to your visit. Sorry to interrupt.”
Thomas said the right things, telling her not to be silly and that he was glad to have met her. Tor remained silent as Sera backed out of the room to escape to the bedroom.
Sera took a quick shower. It warmed her up after her walk from class to their apartment in the rain. Also, she figured that would give Tor time to wrap things up. If Tor didn’t want her to join them, she wouldn’t make it worse by eavesdropping like a stalker. The noise of the shower made sure that was impossible.
When she finished, she heard Tor and her father still talking together in the living room. Occasionally, one of them would speak louder, bordering on shouting, but they spoke mostly in hushed voices. Sera dressed, complete with shoes because she didn’t know what else to do. On her way to the front door, she paused at the entrance to the living room.
“I’m headed to the library.”
Sera’d had several plans for the evening—some involving food, some her studies, some relaxing on the couch. All of them involved Tor, and none involved leaving their home again. There was no way, however, that she’d be able to study while Tor was sending her “go away” vibes. Tor didn’t even look her direction when she said, “Okay, see you later.”
“Torrence, why don’t you invite Sera to join us at dinner?”
Tor objected, her voice weak. “I’m sure she has better things to do.”
“Don’t be silly. Sera, please, join us. Tor was just telling me about a new steakhouse that has been getting quite good reviews. I’m eager to try it.”
Tor looked at Sera, her eyes pleading for something. It was unlike any look Tor had ever given her before, and Sera didn’t know how to respond.
“Thank you for the invitation, sir, but Tor is right. I already have other obligations.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Another time then?”
“Sure.” Sera stared at Tor, but Tor had already looked away. She kept her eyes averted, focusing on the square of carpet at her feet.
Sera shrugged into her wet jacket and hefted her bag onto her shoulder. As she stepped through the door, she glanced back one last time. Tor still didn’t look in her direction.
*
“Do you think it’s safe?” Tor cursed herself for asking such an inane question. Of course it wasn’t safe. Nothing about the day had been. Somehow, Sera seemed to understand that she meant the question relative to bullets flying past their heads.
“I don’t know.” Sera shrugged. “For now. I guess.”
Sera searched the area and Tor tried to help. It wasn’t easy with the ridiculous low light, no flashlight, and having no idea what she was looking for. How did one distinguish a bomb from any other item in an industrial setting? It wasn’t like bad guys labeled them with tags as if they were Christmas gifts.
To: The Good Guys
Hope you die a painful, screaming death.
From: The Bad Guys
That would be far too simple, something that clearly wasn’t an option today.
“Sera, where are you hiding?” Marcus’s voice echoed through the service hall outside the door, and Tor’s skin prickled with fear. The man was truly insane.
“Did we lock the door?” Tor whispered the question. This time she wouldn’t be the reason Sera threw herself headfirst into a firefight.
“Yeah.” Sera’s expression was grim, her lips drawn in a tight line, her eyes flat. Tor had never figured out how she did that. When Tor was upset, her feelings showed in her eyes. Sera somehow managed to hold them all back. If she didn’t recognize the other small tells, like the way she pushed her hand through her hair or the way she scratched her fingers over her thigh, Tor would have thought everything was fine.
“Sera, why are you hiding? We have so much to talk about. You haven’t properly introduced me to Torrence yet.” A sound of metal scraping against concrete interrupted Marcus’s monologue.
Sera raised her finger to her lips in the universal “shh” sign. It wasn’t like Tor planned to throw open the door and invite that man in, so she rolled her eyes, but kept her mouth shut anyway.
“And, really, Sera, there are so many other things we haven’t talked about, like your friend Remmy. Do you think she cried when they killed her? Or maybe she died before she realized what was happening. Do you ever think about that? About how she must have felt? About what her last few minutes of life were like?”
“What ha—” Tor started to whisper her question about Remmy, but stopped when she registered the stricken expression on Sera’s face. Clearly, she had thought about all the things Marcus was suggesting. Whatever happened to Remmy, it wasn’t good.
“I thought a lot about how I want to kill you,” Marcus continued. “At first it was just a fantasy, but then when I saw those pictures, when I learned your real name, the fantasy began to take form. The more I learned, the more I realized I don’t just want to kill you.” Marcus’s voice grew louder as he moved through the corridor. “I want to kill that other bitch first. I want you to know you couldn’t save her, just like you couldn’t save your friend.” When he stopped speaking, he was just outside their door.
“Think it’ll keep him out?”
To answer her question, Marcus rattled the doorknob. When the door didn’t open for him, he moved to the next room.
“Not for long.” Sera took Tor’s hand and led her deeper into the shadows. The farther they were from the door—and the homicidal zealot on the other side—the happier she was.
“Wanting to hurt you by killing Tor has been on my mind for a long time, Sera. I debated killing her quickly without you knowing. I would like to watch you react to that news. Then I thought about killing her slowly while you watched, helpless to stop it.” Marcus’s voice faded as he moved away from the door. “I have to say, I haven’t decided which way to go. I think, when the time comes, I’ll just do what feels right.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Sera gritted the words out, her lips drawn together in a tight line.
“He’s not going to win, Sera. I believe in you.” She wouldn’t have believed such trite words could be said with so much sincerity if she wasn’t the one uttering them. She did believe in Sera. They were going to survive because Sera would make sure of it.
Sera took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly as she looked into Tor’s eyes. Tor blocked out Marcus’s droning voice. Nothing he said compared with what she knew Sera was capable of.
“He’s just messing with your head. Don’t let him in.” Tor touched her fingers fleetingly to Sera’s cheek.
Sera leaned in to the touch momentarily, then spoke in a soft, clear voice. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
She’d clearly repaired whatever mental damage she needed to—however temporarily—in order to get through the rest of this ordeal. Tor agreed that whatever questions she had about Remmy could wait until later.
“So, what does a bomb look like?”
Sera shrugged. “I’m not su—” Sera dropped her hand and ran to a large box sitting next to a support column. She lifted a stack of square, flat filters from the top and peered inside. “This.”
Tor tiptoed toward the box. Logically, stepping lightly wouldn’t stop it from exploding, but it felt like the right thing for the situation. When she looked inside the box and saw a small battery and wires attached to a massive block of something, she started shaking. The more she told herself to stop, the more she shook.
Sera stood from where she’d been kneeling on the floor. She placed herself between Tor and the box, blocking it completely from her view as if she could keep Tor safe by sheltering her from any potential damage the bomb could cause. Just like she had done earlier when Marcus had pointed a gun at her. It was absurd that Sera likened herself to a blast door in this situation, but the gesture did calm Tor.
“Hey, look at me.” Sera lowered her head until she caught Tor’s attention. “We’re going to be fine.”
Tor shook her head. Not because she didn’t believe Sera, because she really wanted to, but because it was all just too much. Until she’d actually seen the bomb, she’d been able to pretend it didn’t exist. The gunmen in her bank were only there to rob it, and her biggest concern was mixing the dye-pack lots in with the other money. That she could understand. That she could survive. This…she just couldn’t force it to all make sense. She had no way to take all the separate pieces and line them up in neat, understandable rows. It was all so messy, destined to get even messier if Sera wasn’t able to deactivate the bomb before Marcus hit the button.
“No, don’t do that.” Sera shook her shoulders lightly. “We are going to be okay. I promise. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Sera’s words closely mimicked Tor’s earlier statement and comforted her. Not because she’d forgotten how capable Sera was, but because Sera once again believed in herself. Sera was unstoppable. Tor had always known that.
Tor nodded and said “Okay” too many times, but she drew a little more strength each time.
“Hey, why don’t you call Beth for me? Tell her we found the first bomb and only two guys are left out there. I need to find something to cut this wire with.” She pressed the phone into Tor’s hands, then kissed her on the cheek. “Yeah?”
“I can do that.” Tor couldn’t deactivate bombs or fight gunmen with her bare hands and a pair of scissors like Sera, but she could make a phone call.
The scissors. Sera had left them sticking out of that man’s neck. At the time, Tor had thought that was a top-notch idea since she had no desire to remove them herself. Now that they needed something to cut with, she wished she’d been a little less squeamish. Apparently scissors could save a life as well as take one. Who knew they were such versatile tools.
Sera backtracked toward the entrance, looking closer at the items they’d passed, especially the work carts and cabinets. She searched through drawers as Tor found Beth’s phone number in her phone.
“Oh, don’t forget to mention that woman, the one who let them into this area of the bank.”
“Astrid.” Tor had forgotten about her. Funny that such a serious betrayal from someone she worked with every day, someone she trusted and considered a friend, had faded in the face of everything else. She wasn’t letting herself think about Chris. Or Edmund. Or the man who’d bled all over her and Minnie as she tried to stanch the flow of blood. At least Minnie had made it out safely. The only thing she’d allowed herself any time to think about was Sera, about how she meant it when she said she’d keep Tor safe. That was an absolute truth. Sera would die to protect her. For her part, Tor was determined not to let that happen.
“Sera, did you hear my little explosion earlier?” Marcus still trolled the halls, but now his voice was farther away. “That was the charge we set in the elevator. I wonder if your friends survived.”
Tor closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t know what had happened to the others, and there had been a long enough delay between the elevator doors closing behind her and the explosion for her to believe they’d made it out. Marcus was just trying to rile them, cause them to react emotionally and reveal their position. She wouldn’t give him that.
Sera returned and gave Tor’s arm a little squeeze and said, “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She was so far from okay, but what else could she say? In a day of wrong, she was okay enough to not lose her shit.
Sera nodded and went back to her search for a cutting tool. Every few seconds, her gaze slid back to Tor.
Marcus continued his taunts. “Of course, that explosion was earlier than I’d planned, but that’s okay. What’s a little time here or there? In the end, it won’t matter. You can’t stop what’s going to happen. You must know that. I’ll find you. When I do, I’ll kill Tor first, because I want to see the moment when you realize you can’t save her. Then I’m going to kill you.”
Tor blocked out Marcus’s angry rant and hit send. She stayed in the same place so Sera would be able to easily find her in the dim light.
“Sera?” Beth sounded stressed and concerned.
“No, this is her…friend, Tor. Torrence Jewel, the bank manager.” Tor couldn’t remember if she’d introduced herself to Beth the last time they spoke or if she only knew Beth’s name because Sera had told her.
“Is Sera there?” Beth spoke so carefully Tor didn’t know what to make of it. It took her a moment to realize she was afraid Tor was calling because Sera wasn’t able to.
“Yes, she’s fine. We found one of the bombs. She’s looking for something to cut the wire with.”
“Oh, where are you?”
“The HVAC room, in the back corner. The bomb is in a cardboard box.”
“Is anyone else with you?”
“That Marcus guy is searching for us. He tried to get in a moment ago, but the door’s locked.”
“That won’t work forever.”
“No.” If Beth was trying to make her feel better, it really wasn’t working. “But at least there’s only two of them left.”
“What’s that? Did you say only two gunmen are left? What does that mean?”
“The others are dead, I think. I mean, I didn’t check for a pulse, but they looked dead to me.” Not that she’d seen a lot of dead people. Prior to today, it had been a list of one, consisting of her father at his funeral. And he’d been covered in a thick layer of makeup and given a fake smile. The smile, she realized now, had bothered her more than anything. Her father had been a serious man, and they’d sent him off to wear a fake smile for the rest of eternity. It just wasn’t right.
“Okay, break it down. What happened?”
“Sera stabbed one guy in the neck with a pair of scissors, and then there was a bunch of gunfire when we went to the elevator…yeah, Sera said there are two left.” Mentioning the elevator reminded her of the explosion they’d heard. “What happened earlier? Marcus said he blew up the elevator.”
“He did, but don’t worry. Everyone was out by the time it happened. A couple of people were hit by debris, but no major injuries.”
“Thank God.”
Sera walked past her carrying a pair of pliers. She held them out for Tor to see and smiled triumphantly.
“Is there anything else we should know?” Beth asked.
“Oh, there’s a woman, Astrid, handcuffed in a storage room toward the back of the service area, just past all the workstations. She’s the one that let them into the back hall to place the bombs.”
“Astrid?”
“Right.”
Tor watched as Sera gently moved wires out of the way on the top of the bomb. Then, without hesitating, she grasped the green wire and snipped it with the inside cutting edge of the pliers. When she turned toward Tor, her hand shook slightly as she reached for the phone.
“Hey, Beth. The first bomb is defused.”
Sera smiled at Tor and pulled her into a hug.
“Yep…okay…yes.”
It was odd listening to a one-sided conversation when the person she could hear was as reticent to speak as Sera was right now. She wanted to know what other secret information Beth was sharing. More than that, Tor realized, she wanted to know who Beth was to Sera. Clearly they had a relationship of some sort. What was it, exactly?