Hero (Gone 9)

He blinked bloody eyes and half raised a bloody paw. Dekka realized she was crying only when his face was blurred by her tears.

“Armo! Armo, you . . . I . . . Armo, maybe you should consider de-morphing!”

“Urr.”

Slowly at first, then faster, Dekka saw the white fur receding and the bear man being replaced by the man.

And then she saw what lay beneath Armo.

“Oh, God! Shade! Shade!”

Shade Darby looked far too much like a huge grasshopper that had been stepped on. It was impossible even to make sense of the lower half of her body. Bones, strips of chitin cracked like lobster shell, pink flesh protruding, and ripped arteries that pumped blood far too fast.

Dekka shot a look forward. The shell lay in the aisle, rolling sluggishly back and forth. Red numbers read 00:24 . . . 00:23 . . .

Dekka had to climb over the last row of seats to get to Shade, and she knelt over her and yelled, as she had with Armo, “De-morph, Shade, de-morph!” Again and again.

She glanced back, looking for the shell and its timer. Red numbers swam in her tears. Fourteen seconds!

“Francis!” Dekka cried. She found the girl curled up under a seat, her broken leg bleeding freely, blood coming from her nose and trickling from one ear.

“Francis! Francis!”

00:09 . . . 00:08 . . .

“Unh?” Francis moaned.

“I need you. Right the hell now!” Dekka shouted. “Get Shade out of here!”

00:07 . . .

Seven seconds.

In the helicopter Sam turned his wind-whipped face to Malik, Simone, and Cruz. “Something’s wrong. They should be back by now.”

“Where’s Shade?” Simone demanded suddenly.

“Dammit,” Sam snapped. The plan was already falling apart. The train was still racing at speed, not its full one fifty, but very fast. The Anacostia River sparkled just ahead, their target area, the very last relatively unpopulated space before the city proper.

Looking ahead, Sam saw the dome of the Capitol building, and the white needle of the Washington Monument. He’d never been to Washington. This was a hell of a first visit.

“We have to stop that train!” Simone said.

Malik erupted. “Oh, God, Shade must have grabbed Francis as she was . . . No, no, no!”

“Why would she do that?” Simone cried.

“Momentum,” Malik said grimly.

“If the train hits the inside of the dome, everyone aboard, including our friends, will die!” Cruz cried.

“If my father isn’t stopped . . .”

And just like that, Sam was back in the business of making life-and-death decisions.

Francis’s brain was a swirl of images and shouts and pain.

Get her out of here!