And Dorothy heard the click of his thumb against his gun’s hammer. The air around her seemed to shiver.

This is it, her blades whispered.

It would be the only moment she ever got.

She flicked her wrists and her daggers leaped into her hands, blades glinting in the steady beam of the time machine’s headlights.

Mac kept his gun aimed at Roman. He clearly didn’t consider her a threat. “You really think you’re going to kill me, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart. Dorothy smiled at him, grateful that he was making this easy.

“Yes,” she said.

And she would’ve, too. She would’ve pierced Mac’s neck with her dagger and laughed as she watched the life drain from his eyes.

But, at that moment, a bullet whizzed past her cheek, close enough that she felt the burn of gunpowder flare across her skin. She stumbled backward, gasping, and she had just enough time to lift one hand to her face, her dagger falling to the ground in a cloud of ash.

46

Ash

Mac stood between Roman and Dorothy, backlit by the Black Crow’s headlights. Ash had a clear shot. He pulled his gun free and dropped to one knee, eye squinting shut to take aim.

He exhaled, releasing the tension in his shoulders at the same time that he eased his finger over the trigger.

Here goes nothing.

And then Dorothy shifted to the side, moving half in front of Mac as she whipped something loose of her cloak. The two moments happened back-to-back, practically overlapping. Ash pulled the trigger, and then Dorothy moved. He didn’t have time to stop the shot, but he pulled his arm up at the last second, and his bullet missed her by a breath.

It missed Mac, too, and bounced off the time machine, harmless.

Ash whipped back around the wall, his heartbeat cannon fire. Damn.

He could picture the three of them on the other side of the wall, their weapons out, scanning the darkness for the intruder. He closed his eyes and exhaled, silently, through his mouth.

Then, from the other side of the wall: the soft shuffle of a boot.

Roman’s voice. “Ash?”

Ash’s breath frosted the air in front of him. He didn’t want to fight Roman, but things were different now, weren’t they? They both wanted to take down Mac. And, anyway, he wouldn’t be found hiding here like a child, either.

He had just stepped out from behind the wall when Roman tackled him.

47

Dorothy

Mac was gone.

Dorothy turned in place, her mind racing. She didn’t know when it had happened. A fraction of a second had passed since Ash had fired at them but, sometime between the moment he’d stepped out from behind the wall and the moment Roman had gone to find him, Mac had just . . .

Vanished.

She tightened her grip on her daggers.

Where did that bastard go?

There weren’t many places on the docks where he could’ve hidden. The time machine was still here, its doors yawning open, and Dorothy could see that the cockpit was empty. Its headlight illuminated a wide swath of floor, but left the rest of the docks dark as pitch.