Something was...wrong. Drew’s eyes looked dead. His face was a mask of fury and rage—but his eyes were dead.
“Drew?”
Another detonation shook the building. Cracks ran across the remaining walls and chunks of the ceiling fell, narrowly missing them.
“They were timed to start right after Lancaster went out the door,” the agent shouted. “Come on, we have to move.”
Wait, Drew had gone out and then come back through that hell? He’d walked back into the flames?
Her breath heaved out as she fought to break the mysterious agent’s hold and get back to Drew.
But the agent wasn’t letting her go.
“Drew!” He seemed frozen. He needed to move.
Because Carl was moving again. Carl had just grabbed the knife from the floor. He wasn’t unconscious; he’d just been waiting for his moment to attack. He lunged up and went straight for Drew’s back.
“Behind you!” Tina screamed. The fire was crackling so loudly she wasn’t sure he even heard her. “Drew!”
At the last moment he spu
n around. He grabbed Carl’s hand, stopping that knife before it could shove into his body.
Drew twisted Carl’s hand. Carl howled—she could hear the stark cry of pain rising over the flames—then Drew plunged the knife into Carl’s chest.
This time, when he hit the ground, Carl wasn’t pretending to be unconscious. He was dead.
“Have to do this...” the agent muttered as Tina kept struggling against him. She needed to get to Drew. “Orders...”
Forget orders.
Drew looked up then, staring at her with the eyes that weren’t his.
He shook his head, as if waking up, then he ran toward her. Tina stopped fighting the other agent. She ran with him—and Drew.
The smoke was choking her, her lungs were burning, but she wasn’t about to let the attack stop her. Not now, not when they were home free.
The fresh air was just steps away.
Steps—
“Bomb!” Drew yelled. “Above the back door. The timer’s counting down—”
She could see it. The seconds were showing in a digital red flash. They only had four seconds. Four.
They raced outside. She couldn’t pull in any breath. Her legs just kept going. Escape. That had been their code word. She just needed to—
When the last bomb detonated, the force tossed Tina as if she were a rag doll.
Chapter Eleven
Anton Devast inclined his head. “And then there was nothing left.” He’d been watching the clock on the stark, white interrogation room wall. If Carl had followed his orders, if he’d stayed on the schedule Devast had made for the detonations, then the float graveyard had just blown up in New Orleans.
The whole block would be a wreck.
His chaos. His havoc.
Mercer had his phone out. He was pulling the pretty blonde from the room. Demanding to know the status—