Peter gazed at the hammer again, turning so he could gaze between both Luna and Tony. When he moved, Luna was fully exposed. She looked up, but her stare went past Peter and past Tony, directly across the hall and into the shadows of the bathroom.

I felt my face light up when our eyes connected. Ice filled my entire body. Gray and black ice.

“Who in the world would want to sabotage the Celeste?” Peter asked, still dismayed.

Luna’s reptile eyes glowed as they stayed locked on mine. Her chin was tucked into her chest, her shoulders taut.

“Nikki Kill,” she answered. Then to me, “Boo.”

32

THE FIRST THOUGHT in my mind was that I was trapped. The second thought that Chris would have said he told me so. Both thoughts were blasted away by the third thought, though, and that was, Run.

We all seemed to take off at the same time, Peter knocking Tony to the ground in his haste to get to me. I had to jump over Tony’s chest, my toe nicking his shoulder and pitching me forward. I caught myself just as my fingertips brushed the floor and I churned my feet harder, plunging back into the confused crowd on the dance floor.

Now there were real screams, blossoming from annoyed shouts, as first I shoved through, and then Peter, and then Luna. I bumped into another man in a uniform who was carrying a long Maglite. I grabbed it out of his hands and chucked it backward, watching only long enough to see it glance off Peter’s face. He stumbled, paused, touched his bleeding forehead, and raced forward, the hammer tight in his grip now, his teeth bared in a snarl.

The crowd closed Luna in as we took off even faster.

No plan, Nikki. You have no goddamned plan, I admonished myself as I headed for the grand stairwell. I tipped a vase off a table at the bottom of the steps. It shattered, sending water and flowers and shards of glass across the floor. Anything to slow Peter down. Anything to give me time.

My lungs felt like they were on fire, and I wished I hadn’t had that cigarette earlier that day. Mostly, I wished Chris was here to help me out. It was one thing to think you could beat Peter Fairchild at his own game; it was another to be faced with him, especially when he was brandishing a hammer at you.