The smell is too strong. It’s clogging my brain, thicker than the fog, slowing my response times. Someone is shouting at me to get up. Elliott’s fingers dig into my wrist as he hauls me around Ginger’s body. “Move,” he orders. I open my eyes. His voice is cold and steady but the hatred is brighter than ever in his eyes. He’s holding something in his other hand. His gun. He must’ve retrieved it just now. It’s red, sticky with Ginger’s blood.

I look around wildly. Escape. That’s what I should be focusing on. The fog will start to thin any minute, and when it’s gone, the surviving cops will be able to find us easily. We can’t go out the main entry—that’s where I heard more cops shouting earlier.

We can go down to the beach. The Being will be gone when the fog dissipates, but it’s probably already killed any cops who were down there, making that our best escape route. Decision made, I start to sprint back toward the edge of the boardwalk.

Something bites hard into my left wrist, jerking me to a standstill. The handcuff. Elliott has grown roots.

“What the hell? Come on! They’re going to exile you too!” I shout wildly, pulling at him, but I might as well try to move a brick wall.

He’s transfixed by something behind me. I spin around. Human-shaped figures—cops—are moving toward us through the gray. There are five, six, a dozen, fanning out across the boardwalk, ducking behind booths, finding cover from us or the Being or both.

A woman’s voice cuts through the fog, clear and calm. “Put the gun down.”

As if he’s been nailed with an electric shock, Elliott’s hand opens. Thunk. The gun hits the ground.

The woman steps out of the fog. Violet-blue eyes, crisp white blouse, blond hair tightly pulled back. It’s frizzed a little from the humidity since I saw her at Sam’s exile.

Mayor Ackermann.

She came to personally oversee this operation. She put herself in danger, in the middle of a mirror deal, to make sure I was captured.

There’s no escape. I’m surrounded.

My brain won’t stop circling, my thoughts like panicked birds trapped in a too-small cage.

Then above us, something screeches, grating and inhuman. Everyone dives for cover. Three cops jump to protect the mayor, pushing her behind a T-shirt booth, covering her with their bodies. A winged shadow curves overhead, dives down through the fog. When it comes up again, something writhing and human is in its talons. Gunfire echoes, as if bullets will do any good.

I’m frozen in place, staring upward, and suddenly realize I should be ducking for cover too. I jerk my gaze to the boardwalk to search for somewhere to hide—and spot Elliott’s dropped gun.