Xander limped toward him, dragging his grievously injured body up the slope toward the shallow end. He raised the gun to fire again and Luke moved, drawing on the limited stunt work he’d done in his career. He leapt to his right, intending to hit the ground and roll. Colton Stone would have performed the move while pulling a revolver from the waistband of his jeans. Logan Knight would have pounced immediately to his feet, then followed with a devasting roundhouse kick. Luke Kingsley grunted and staggered, then tripped over his own feet and face-planted like an asshole.

He rolled onto his back, and there were the stars again, but jagged, seen through the tears in his eyes. It was as if the sky had been clawed by some huge, intergalactic cat.

Xander blotted them out. He loomed over Luke, almost unrecognizable in his pain. His gun wasn’t unrecognizable, though. It looked ten times bigger. Luke could fall into the barrel like a Bond girl.

“Fuck you,” he said. Maybe the snake venom would kick in and Xander would collapse before pulling the trigger.

“Fuck you,” Xander returned. Neither man was particularly inspired.

Luke slumped against the tiles and waited for it to be over.

Kitty had the belt looped around her right wrist, and it had proved effective, but she’d ducked into the room because she spotted a better weapon: a rattlesnake, half-coiled, its head and tail raised. It was cast in bronze and set atop a solid wooden plinth.

She supposed it had graced the front desk in a previous life, but had been demoted to this back room, with its assortment of storage crates and desks stacked one on top of the other. Kitty grabbed it in two hands, lifting it by the tail and the head. It was heavy, but not too heavy. Maybe fifteen pounds—the weight of a good-sized sledgehammer.

She waited just inside the door, chewed into her lower lip. Her vision throbbed in time with the thudding of her heart. It felt like giant hands were kneading the room from the outside, pressing everything subtly out of shape.

Johan approached. She heard his staggering footsteps, his labored breaths.

“Oh, Kitty,” he said, savoring her name, as if it were delicious in his mouth: Kitteeeeeeee. He stepped closer to the room, scratching his ax across the floor. “It’s so dark, and you’re all alone.”

She tightened her grip on the bronze rattlesnake. Her rib cage shook with every hard thump of her heart.

“I know you’re close.”

The emergency lights blinked, went out for three seconds, then came back on. When they did, Johan’s shadow appeared on the floor in front of her. He was standing in the doorway, close enough that Kitty could reach around and touch him. With some effort, she hoisted the heavy ornament over her head. Her tired arms trembled.

“So close,” Johan said.