lia

steel blad

ter from my cornea-so close that when I blinke

fr

ank into tiny black pinpricks. The color drained completely from his skin. The hand that had held the combat knif

enthouse wen

d came out. He swallowed hard, h

voice cracking like dry wood, sounding like

k blood onto the hardwood floor

e basement on Nostrand Avenue. You had a fever of a hundred and four, crying because your toes were turni

ear, and played that acoustic track from the Brookly

ife slipped fro

ter, the steel blade bouncing once be

sibly trembling. He clutched his own chest, gasping for air as if he were suffocating. His eyes franticall

he coroner gave me the dental records. There was a body in the third-floor rubble. T

g his dislocated jaw. He didn't understand what was happening. All

ten to her! She's a con artist! She went through my private arch

elf of the shattered coffee table. He scrambled to his feet

ared, raising the heavy glass bottle over hi

oorway, "Do it, Brandt! Sm

thick crystal decanter toward my tem

er rea

it was the violent, explosive strike of an apex predator. His left hand caught Brandt

im with the absolute, cold disgust a human reserves

r hand in my presen

s and ulna snapped clean through the flesh of his forearm. The decanter slipped from his limp fingers and shattered on the floor. Brandt let out

over her mouth in blind terror. The guards and the executive

are Brandt an

s knees right in front of me. He didn't care about the glass. He didn't care about the blood. His tailored trousers t

inches from my skin. He was shaking so violently he couldn't keep his pa

yelids and streaming down his pale, blood-spattered cheeks. "The fire

him, my eyes

neckline of the torn white shift. I pul

the entire length of my left collarbone, ending in a jagged starburst near my shoulder blade.

th stopped

asked. "I am the