For a moment, there was just—noise. I couldn’t see the explosion, but I heard it, this great, thunderous roar, like a dragon belching fire, which rocked the whole museum. All around me, the stones screamed as the bomb blasted through the gate and into them, scorching the marble with heat and smoke and force and fire. I winced and shut the anguished wails out of my mind. I didn’t like destroying stone, especially something as beautiful as the museum’s gray marble, but it was a necessary evil—just like all the other horrible things I planned to do before the night was through.

More like before the next three minutes were through.

As soon as the last rumble from the blast faded away, I started counting off the seconds in my head once again.

Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . .

The door that led toward the vault area flew open, banging into the wall so hard that it cracked the stone there. Clementine raced out, a gun in one hand and her walkie-talkie in the other. Dixon rushed along behind her, his gun also drawn. Given what I’d seen on the security camera earlier, that meant that there were at least three men still in the vault with Owen, maybe more.

“What the hell was that?!” Clementine screamed into her walkie-talkie as she ran.

Crackles and hisses burped back to her, but I couldn’t make out the sounds or what the other giants were saying. It was all just background noise anyway. The only thing that mattered right now was reaching Owen and getting him to safety.

I waited until the two giants had disappeared down the hallway, then grabbed a second knife and sprinted for the open door. It led into a short hallway that opened up into an enormous chamber, with the vault sitting at the very back of that room. I raced forward, not even bothering to be quiet or cautious. The time for that was long over, along with hiding in the shadows.

Too bad the giants were waiting for me.

There were three of them in the chamber, just as I’d seen earlier through the security-camera feed. All three had their guns drawn and were facing the door, forming a solid line of mass, muscle, and malice. For a moment, my gaze flicked past the giants to Owen, but I couldn’t see him clearly, so all I got was the sense that he was standing behind them, nothing more. One of the giants stood at more of an angle to the door than the others, his weapon trained on Owen instead of me. Still, the sight lifted my heart, because if Owen was still standing, then he was still breathing, still alive—which meant that I still had a chance to save him.