go. She yanked the needle and syringe away from Lacey. Tossed them onto the roof.
As she sank to her knees, Lacey stared at the needle. Snowflakes landed on top of it.
“There wasn’t a lot in that dosage,” Elizabeth was explaining to Jonathan. Her voice sounded distant. Far away. “It was the back-up. Had to use the other dose on some agent with her. But this will knock her out for a few minutes. I couldn’t risk her shooting you!’
“You did a great job, Liz. Brilliant.”
Brilliant, my ass. You turned the woman into a killer!
Her body slumped onto the roof. She could hear something. A thumping sound. Lacey struggled to keep her eyes open. It was so freaking hard.
Elizabeth’s face appeared in front of her. “I’m really sorry things are ending like this for you. At least this way, it won’t hurt so much when we kill you.” Her hand curled around the gun Lacey had dropped.
Inside, Lacey was screaming. Over and over again, she was calling out Dex’s name. But on the outside…
She didn’t make a sound.
***
“I thought you were disarming the damn thing!” Roman roared as he swatted the flames on his shirt.
“I did. I bought us five seconds before the explosion so that we could get our asses away from the door. You’re the one who didn’t move fast enough when I ordered, ‘Haul ass!’ Antony didn’t get so much as a sputter of a flame on him because he moved.” The explosion had been designed to kill the person who opened the door to the roof. Controlled impact. Brutal death.
Dex had seen a device like it more than a time or two, and he’d known that waiting for bomb techs to arrive wasn’t an option. So he’d decided to trigger the blast.
Only now, there was shit in his way. Sputtering flames. Chunks of the wall and the door that were burning. He kicked those pieces out of the way even as he heard the distant beat of—
“A helicopter,” Dex breathed.
When he’d realized that Lacey must be on the roof, Dex had figured Jonathan would be trying to escape via a chopper.
The hell you are.
Dex glared at the flames, then he dove through the wreckage. He barely felt the bite of the fire on his skin as he leapt through the remains of the doorway. He surged forward. “Lacey!”
The chopper was closing in. The wind from its blades sent the snow hurtling toward Dex. He could see Elizabeth and Jonathan—they were standing near the right edge of the roof. And Jonathan…
He’s holding Lacey. A Lacey who wasn’t moving. Her head slumped back, and her body hung limply in his arms.
“Let her go!” Dex bellowed.
The chopper was growing closer and closer. Soon it would start to descend.
Jonathan laughed and then the twisted fuck jumped onto the edge of the roof. With Lacey still in his arms. “Got through the bomb, did you? Guess someone was feeling motivated.”
The chopper sent snowflakes swirling around them. The whir of the blades was so loud.
“Get your ass off the roof, Dex,” Jonathan commanded. “You, Roman, and whoever that other prick is—get off now or I will drop Lacey to the ground right in front of you.”
Roman and Antony had closed in on either side of Dex.
“I will give you whatever you want!” Roman shouted. “Just let her go. Let her go!”
Elizabeth was holding a gun. A gun she kept swinging between Roman and Dex. She was shaking, and Dex figured that gun would go off at any moment. “Antony,” he said curtly.
“On it,” Antony murmured back. He slipped away.
“You’re still here, Dex!” Jonathan twisted his body and shoved his arms out—so that Lacey was now beyond the edge. He was holding her over the side of the building. “I don’t know how good my grip is.” He had to shout over the noise from the approaching helicopter. “You know, what with the helicopter blowing so much wind and snow at me, I might just drop her accidentally. So you’d better get the hell out of here.”
“The helicopter is a problem,” Dex agreed. He lifted his left hand. Tapped his comm link. “Get the chopper out of here.”
The chopper immediately started to rise. To angle back to the left. Away from the lodge.
Jonathan yanked Lacey closer. “What?” His shoes slid over the icy ledge on the roof. “What the fuck?”
The chopper was higher now. Definitely going left.
Elizabeth watched it even as she edged back a few, careful steps.
“Sorry,” Dex said, and he wasn’t, not