Allie didn’t waste a moment. She let loose an angry wail and hurled herself at the nurse, knocking her over and taking her down to the ground. The pillow went flying. They struggled on the ground, but Allie had an advantage, having caught her by surprise. She hit the woman over and over until the murderous nurse’s eyes went from steely anger to confusion and panic. Allie instantly knew the skinjacker had left her.

Then, before Allie could reassess, she was lifted off the ground by a very big, very bald male orderly who had the same look of determination the nurse had a moment ago.

“Mary wants you dead,” the skinjacked orderly said, and pushed her up against the wall. “And I always complete my mission.”

Allie didn’t answer him. Instead she leaned forward and bit his nose so hard that he screamed. The pain was enough to knock him out of the orderly. Allie peeled out as well, to get a good look at the true face of Mary’s assassin.

He was a tall kid in some sort of military uniform. Right now he was ankle-deep in the thin floor, trying to keep from sinking through. They made eye contact, but only for a moment.

Then they both heard the footsteps of hospital staff running toward the room, drawn by the commotion. In the room around them, the two nurses and the orderly still wailed and whimpered in their own personal shock and awe.

The assassin skinjacker staggered, slogging through the ground, struggling to keep from sinking, and reached toward an approaching guard, hoping to skinjack his way back into the living world.

Well, if this tool of Mary’s thought he could out-skinjack Allie, he had something else coming! Allie focused on the fleshie he was reaching for and leaped, zooming right past him, and skinjacked the fleshie before he could. She felt him try to get in, but couldn’t because Allie was already there. He just bounced off like a pinball. Now Allie leaped to the next closest fleshie, and again she got there before the murderous skinjacker. And then she did it again, out-racing, out-jacking, outsmarting him every single time.

Finally, as she neared the elevator, she peeled back into Everlost to see where he was. Each one of Allie’s preemptive skinjackings had left the assassin mired deeper in the floor. Now he was in the green linoleum tiles to his knees, and was near panic as he tried to keep himself from falling right through.

Just then, an elevator door opened before them—and there was a single fleshie inside. Allie hesitated, pretending she didn’t see the man in the elevator, and the assassin threw himself forward toward the unsuspecting man. This was exactly what Allie was hoping the assassin would do! The moment he crossed the elevator threshold, Allie launched over him and skinjacked the man in the elevator first!