get gone, the next a terrific blast and the air was full of projectiles, many of which were on fire. Sue screamed as Magnus lurched toward her, only to get knocked off his feet as Sam threw his ridiculously small body at him.
He rolled to his feet and saw Sam had shoved him out of the way for a reason; the wall where he’d been standing was riddled with holes and smoldering. He’d been so focused on Sue, he’d ignored his own peril. Sue had dropped to her knees, clutching her arm above the wrist; her hand dangled by tendons and bones and not much else.
“Christ, lass!”
“Go!” Sam urged. “There’s more, and—” They all stiffened as the sound of sirens permeated. A lot of them. “It’s not just Shakopee Fire and Rescue. It’s the feds, it’s my bosses, you can’t be here.”
“You come, too,” Sue said tearfully.
“Aye, lad. All three of us need t’go. If the SAS finds out who you’re with, they’ll kill ye.”
“Who, me? Teeny tiny Sam Smalls, whose last name is an accurate joke? I’d never have the brass balls for anything like that. Ask anyone.” He grinned and there was another blast; across the street, another blaze had begun. “By the time they figure it all out, the mess will be swept up, the story will be quashed, and I’ll be safe. So you be safe, too.” He pushed his glasses back up; Magnus had decided it was a tic, since the man’s glasses never seemed to need adjusting. “I know your intentions were good. Both of you. I know you weren’t on board with SAS’s real plan. This doesn’t have to follow you for the rest of your lives.”
“Ridiculous bullshit,” he snarled, because he had a feeling it would follow them. Worse, now he was indebted to the bespectacled bastard.
That brought a smile to Sam’s face, the first one Magnus had seen that day. “You need a better catch phrase.”
“I hate you.”
“Better.” The grin widened. “Get her out of here.”
“I fucking adore it when men talk like I’m not in the room.” This while Sam ripped up part of his shirt and fastened a crude bandage for her wrist. “Cut it out—fuck that hurts!—before I pull my hand the rest of the way off and shove it down your throat.”
Magnus picked her up, thought about all the times he’d wanted to hold her like this, and had new respect for the “be careful what you wish for” cliché.
“Maggie.” He could have smiled at the pure exasperation in her tone. “My legs work fine.”
The sirens were getting ever closer, and people were suddenly everywhere, pouring out all the entrances to the dance academy, darting here and there in the confusion. To say ‘chaos reigned’ was to say hurricanes were windy.
How could they have thought this would work? This isn’t a plan, this is anarchy. And I endorsed it, if only by being here.
“Keep y’self safe,” he told Sam. “I mean to repay this debt.”
“Deal.” He leaned down, kissed Sue on her grimy forehead. They were all grimy, smoke-smudged and worse to come, no doubt. “Get better.”
“That’s the plan, Sam,” she replied, and then they were gone.
Chapter 53
Now.
“Scuttled off to save yourselves, I knew it,” Gulo snapped. “My father died that night. My big brother. And you ran off and left them.”
So that’s why they’re letting Berne narrate. They want to know what happened, too, not just the stuff that made the papers, or the theories the survivors spun to explain what happened. Sam and his mysterious bosses managed to keep the AP and national press out of it by spinning it as a simple protest that turned violent. So for ten years, SAS has been wondering about the rest of the story.
“We knew there were traitors, we just didn’t know how many,” Gulo continued. “And it wasn’t safe to go after the ones we could identify. Not then. So we waited. We had to, most of the leaders were dead. We had to build ourselves back up in a way that wouldn’t attract attention until it was too late. All because you turned on your own kind.”
“How?” Berne challenged.
Gulo blinked. “What?”
“How did they die? Your family? Your leaders? In glorious battle against the oppressors? A hand-to-hand brawl they heroically fought despite being outnumbered?”
Gulo glowered but stayed quiet.
“No. They died in the explosion,” Berne continued. “The one they set. They blew themselves up out of pure piss ignorance, because your family had a shit plan they didn’t