Then, behind Pierce and off to the side, Lauren moved. She pivoted where she sat, and stared up at the man’s back, her body language entirely different than it had been a moment before.

She no longer looked dazed and unaware. She looked lucid as hell.

Sam pictured her in the stairwell earlier—running, hitting every tread, keeping her balance. Then the sprint through the tunnel—again, keeping pace just fine. Sam remembered thinking she must be mostly back to her wits, at that point, right up until he’d seen her looking confused again, in the chamber outside this room.

Looking confused.

Sam willed himself to keep his focus on Pierce’s gun, and off of Lauren. To keep his eyes from giving her away. It took all the willpower he had. Off-center in his vision, Lauren rose up onto her knees, turned silently and studied the shelves beside her.

Pierce took another deep breath. His lower jaw was still shaking. He clenched his teeth together to get control of it.

“Please,” Dani said again.

Pierce’s eyes centered on her, narrowing a little. Hardening.

Behind him, Lauren reached out of sight between two large boxes, and when her hand came back out it was holding a fire extinguisher. A medium-sized one, like some people kept in their kitchens or near their furnaces.

Pierce was still focused on Dani. Sam could hear the man’s breathing speeding up. Could almost see the thought cycling behind his eyes: Do it, do it, do it.

Lauren pressed her free hand to the concrete floor, pushed herself up from where she knelt, and stood. She gripped the fire extinguisher with both hands at one end, as if the thing were a short, squat club.

She turned to Pierce and took a step toward him. Just like that, she was in striking distance. She drew the extinguisher into a backswing—

—and faltered, her balance betraying her just for an instant. She took a fast step backward to correct for it. As she did, the sole of her shoe scraped the concrete.

Pierce reacted as if slapped. He jerked, spun in place, swung the gun around as he turned.

And fired.

The sound was like a hammer blow to Sam’s eardrums.

The bullet hit Lauren just above the right eye, and blew the back of her head apart in a ragged cloud.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

SEPTEMBER 2018

—a bullet through a gun barrel.

The memory crashed into Dryden with almost physical force, making him flinch. He saw Danica do the same, the whole thing coming back to her in that single moment.

“Wait,” Danica said—it was more a sound than a word. A primal expression of confusion, reflexively shaped into letters.

Dryden could do no better. For a full second his mind tried to reconcile the two realities.