Zoey sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth. Those rough hands on her once more, a feeling that was too familiar.
Zoey twisted away from the henchman who had hold of her and said to the other two, “You broadcasting this on Blink? Then let what I’m about to say act as a binding verbal contract—fifty million dollars to whichever one of you kills this man behind me. If you cooperate, you split the money.”
There was just the briefest moment when the other two men glanced at each other, as if they were considering it. This set Zoey’s captor into a blind rage. He twisted his fist in her hair, then smashed her head into the shark aquarium. The glass shattered and she tumbled to the floor under a cascade of freezing water, little sharks flopping onto the black tile all around her, blood streaming into her eyes.
It didn’t matter. At some point, some out-of-control chemical reaction had converted all of her pain and fear into mindless, all-consuming white-hot rage.
She swept wet hair out of her eyes and yelled to the other two men, “This is your one chance to be alphas! Every guy thinks he’s an alpha male until he actually meets one. Well, here’s your chance.”
The man looming over her said, “We’re all alphas in Molech’s crew, porkcushion.”
“No! You take orders from Molech. He doesn’t take orders from you. That means he’s the alpha, and you’re his bitch.”
The guy ripped off his helmet, leaned over Zoey, and spat in her face. He then grabbed her by the jacket and dragged her toward the window. He threw her to the floor, then reared back and punched the glass wall, shattering it. A frozen wind howled into the room, the faint noises of the city wafting up from seven hundred feet below. A curious pigeon came and landed on the jagged glass.
The henchman grabbed Zoey by the hair and dragged her toward the opening—clearly intending to just chuck her out of the window. She frantically tried to claw away from him, to drop to the floor, to do anything to halt his progress. She punched and kicked and scratched, as the wind and noise of the city drew closer. He barely seemed to notice. She desperately looked around for a weapon—anything. She found nothing within grabbing distance but a toppled chair, and three little midget sharks slapping the floor with their tails, their rows of razor-sharp teeth biting helplessly at the air.
With no plan in mind whatsoever beyond “I’ll shark him,” Zoey reached down, feeling her hair come out by the roots in the guy’s fist. She was able to barely grab one of the baby sharks by the tail. It thrashed around in her hands as she twisted and stabbed at her captor with it, hoping to scare or distract him even if for just a fraction of a second.
The man let out a howl. Zoey was suddenly free, and dove to the floor. The henchman, now with a shark ferociously biting his crotch, flailed and stumbled and crashed through the shattered window.
There was a brief moment of peace, with only the sound of the wind and muffled traffic below. Then behind her one of the remaining henchman said, “Did … did that just happen?”
Both of the men started advancing on her, one on each side of the long conference table.
Zoey threw up her hands, as if to ward them off. “WAIT! Listen! I can pay—”
WHUMPP!
There was a deep, booming concussion from below. And then, the floor shook. Both of the approaching henchmen had to steady themselves on the conference table.
Molech popped up on their facemasks. He looked pale and sickly but also happier than Zoey had ever seen another human. He was outdoors now—in fact, he was right outside the main entrance of Livingston Tower, standing there with his gleaming chrome arms, near where his goons had parked their ludicrous tigercycles. Molech was tinkering with his new right hand, as if making an adjustment. He then held it up and the chrome hand transformed—two fingers rotated and merged and lengthened, the hand and forearm transforming itself into some kind of weapon.
Molech aimed his gun-hand at the building, and fired.
There was no crack of gunpowder, just a teeth-grating shriek like a fork dragged across a china plate. A projectile streaked forth, leaving a bright yellow trail behind it, as if it was igniting the air itself as it went. The projectile hit the building and the floor shook once again—an impact so impossibly powerful that they were feeling it reverberate through the structure, seventy stories up.
On the screen, Molech laughed, said, “Much better, Doc,” then aimed and fired once more.
Again came that SSHHHEEK followed by a WHUMPP of impact. He took several steps along the foundation, aimed, fired again. This time there happened to be a car in the way, parked along the street. The projectile sliced through the metal as if the car was an inflatable decoy, smashed through a concrete column behind it, and impacted the building somewhere inside. It seemed like random, petty vandalism, but Zoey soon realized Molech wasn’t just breaking glass to hear the sound it made. He was targeting specific points along the foundation.
The whole building swayed and one of the henchmen said, “That crazy son of a bitch! He’s just railgunning the support beams one by one! He’s going to chop the tower down like a tree! Ha!”
SSHHHEEK!
WHUMP!
Zoey screamed, “WE ARE CURRENTLY IN THAT BUILDING, MEATHEAD! We have to get out of here!”
“You don’t, jerksock. Molech’s orders.”
WHUMP!
“You need me! I know how to get us out! There’s an emergency escape!” This was a lie, but one Zoey thought would be just fantastic if it turned out to be true. “Either we all die or we all live, those are the only two choices!”
“Then we all die,” said the henchman on the left, with no inflection. “It’s kind of weird that you’re just now understanding how this works.”
“What is wrong with you people?”
Both men edged toward her once more.
Zoey watched the facemask videos, timing it carefully. She watched Molech march to the next spot, finding the next support column.
He raised his arm to take aim—
She jumped up on the conference table and started running toward the door. Both men reached for her, and—
SSHHHEEK!
WHUMP!
The building jolted so hard now that all three of them fell. Zoey scrambled to her feet and ran along the table, then jumped off and flew toward the door. One of the men threw a chair at her and it exploded against the doorframe a split second after she passed through it.
She skidded to a stop, pulled the big doors shut and said, “LOCK!”
She ran down the hall, toward the elevator.
From behind her, a woman’s voice said, “HEY! ZOEY!”
She spun and found Echo Ling stumbling out of the stairwell, still in her red dress but having ditched the stupid wig.
“THIS WAY!”
Zoey ran toward her and said, “We’re seventy flights up! I can’t go down stairs that fast!”
“We’re going up!”
Echo plunged back into the stairwell and started stomping up the stairs. The building shook and creaked and this time there was the sound of several hundred windows exploding, shattered as their frames twisted and buckled. The lights went out.
The two of them emerged onto a rooftop and Zoey had the crazy thought that they would either jump off the side of the building or ride the collapse down from the top. Instead, she found the windy roof was made windier by the rotors of a black helicopter, bearing that stupid Livingston Enterprises mustache logo.
The building now had a noticeable lean. They ran toward the helicopter. When they reached it, Will Blackwater opened the cockpit door and screamed over the engines, “DO YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW HOW TO FLY A HELICOPTER?”
She did not.
He motioned for them to get in anyway—Echo in the passenger seat, Zoey in back. Will poked ineffectually at buttons, and Echo leaned over and yelled suggestions as to which lever on the dash would actually cause the machine to fly.
The building shook and this time it didn’t stop.
There was a cacophonous noise, like the end of the world.
They were going down.