Miranda sticks to her plan. She has to make sure that their little crew plus Parker and Moxie get out of here safely. She ignores the smell of smoke, the sound of thundering water, and the sights of a murdered hostage and the pieces of the killer who died when his suicide vest exploded.

They go farther into the hall, Miranda marching Cole and his brothers ahead of her. But then the one code-named Zulu, the smaller of the two, runs toward a bench and snatches something from underneath it. When he straightens up and turns back, he’s holding a rifle in his arms.

Miranda freezes. Where did it come from? It must have belonged to the dead killer. Everything slows down. With laser-like focus, Miranda watches Zulu’s finger find the trigger. It feels as if she has all the time in the world to step to one side, to get out of the line of fire. She pictures it in great detail, how the bullet will sail harmlessly past her. Her thoughts feel sluggish, dreamlike.

But then with slowly dawning horror Miranda realizes that her body is actually doing nothing. It’s not moving out of the way. She’s not even pulling the trigger on her own rifle. She’s like a spectator, watching as her own life comes to an end. Frozen.

With a smirk on his lips, the killer looks straight into Miranda’s eyes through the holes in his mask. His own are icy blue, and there’s a mole just underneath his left eyebrow.

Zulu’s knuckle flexes as his finger tightens on the trigger.

All Miranda manages to do is suck in a breath. This is it.

But instead of the stutter of bullets, there’s only a click. Miranda blinks. Zulu squeezes the trigger again and again, which produces only more clicks. The rifle must have been damaged when its owner’s vest exploded.

With an irritated grunt, Zulu grabs the rifle by the barrel, first with one fist, then the other. He hefts it over his shoulder like a bat, then steps forward as he swings it in a wide arc. His eyes are pinned on Miranda, but Grace is the person closest to him. With a horrible hollow sound, the stock strikes her temple. She stumbles sideways and goes down on one knee. Zulu hefts the rifle again.

“No!” Cole yells. “Don’t hurt Grace!” Suddenly the scissors from Culpeppers’s storeroom are in his hand. And then they’re sticking out of his brother’s neck, right where it meets his shoulder. Zulu drops the rifle, then stumbles backward. He sits heavily, his back against the Coach store’s window, his eyes wide.

Grace grabs up the broken rifle and points it at him.

The killer pulls off his mask. Then his hands go to the handle of the scissors.