Allie launched into a construction worker on the second floor, then to one on the fourth, the seventh, the tenth, up and up, relaying it in leaps and bounds as if the building was a skinjacker jungle gym. It was just as she had done at the Grand Ol’ Opry so many months ago when Milos taught her to body-surf this way, swinging from fleshie to fleshie as quick as lightning. They had tied that first race, but this time Allie had to win.

Twentieth floor, twenty-third, twenty-sixth. It was hard finding construction workers now to leap to and the most she could leap through was three floors at a time in the living world. Finally she found herself in the body of a welder on the top floor. Up here, the building was nothing more than a steel frame. It was windy and treacherous . . . and hanging in space before her, almost parallel with her line of vision, was the load of girders nearly in position above the playground. Far below, kids were desperately trying to climb the playground fence to escape. Had it been a chain-link fence, they might have done it, but it was wrought iron—vertical bars with spiked tips—and the kids couldn’t get a foothold. No one was getting out.

Allie looked up to where the spine and horizontal boom of the crane met. That’s where the control cab was, still far above her. There was no way to leap that far. She would have to climb the ladder in the body of the welder—but just then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

It was Milos. He was in a lean and sinewy worker. He looked like a man whose body knew how to fight. “I’m sorry, Allie, but I can’t let you ruin this. . . .” And he elbowed Allie in the jaw. She felt excruciating pain as the welder’s jaw shattered, and she fell to the naked beam, which was barely a foot wide. She tried to scramble away, but the pain from the broken jaw made her weak and unable to focus. Fortunately they were both tethered to a safety cable . . . but unfortunately Milos unhooked their safety wires.

“More interesting this way, yes?”

As he moved in for the fight, Allie thrust her legs out, kicking Milos, and knocking his feet out from under him. He landed on top of her, pinning her to the beam. His face was just inches away from hers. She could smell the remains of a rancid cigar on his fleshie’s breath.

“If you were in a different body,” Milos said, “I might kiss you again. But then, no. Mary is a much better kisser.”

And then Milos did the unthinkable.

Holding on to Allie, he rolled off the girder, taking Allie with him, and they began a thirty-story plunge.