Villain (Gone 8)
Page 74
She was out of the casino doors, down the driveway and turning onto the Strip before the “w” was done resonating.
She had run fast before. But this was Cruz.
She felt her clothing flap and shred. She felt the way her Plasticine body reshaped itself to use the wind to push her down, to keep her from flying off wildly into the air like some out-of-control race car.
Her legs were a blur. Her hands moved so fast she felt the heat of friction.
The Strip blew past. Bodies were blurs.
She skidded int
o a turn and there were the tanks. She ran past them, a whirlwind, a sudden gust of wind like a tractor trailer passing at a thousand miles an hour.
In a split second she saw it: the gas truck. The immobilized mob. The sparking toy twirling slowly down and down.
At any second the gas fumes would . . .
No time!
She kicked off, leaped into the air going the speed of sound, bounced off a man’s shoulders, stretched out her hand . . .
With her accelerated vision she saw the very moment a spark caught the vapor. Saw the spark become a flame, a slow-motion fire rose unfolding in midair.
Shade snatched the toy in midflight, closing her fist around it to stop it sparking.
The wind of her passing sucked the oxygen away, and the flame . . . died.
Shade landed at the far edge of the mob, but it was an uncontrolled landing, and she plowed into three people, a hundred pounds of armored girl moving at eight hundred miles an hour, killing two instantly, spinning the other like a top.
Shade rolled away her momentum, stood, and threw the toy as far as she could. It landed on the roof of the mall.
Atop the overhang, a bloody, roaring Dillon was being half carried by his cheerleaders, trying to get back through the broken window to relative safety.
Shade shut her eyes to the destruction her landing had caused—no time for that now. She ran, leaped, and landed on the overhang. Dillon was being dragged down the hallway, yelling, cursing. Shade would have him in seconds. But now she heard the slow, slow sound of Cruz’s voice in the phone.
“S-h-a-d-e!”
At the same moment she felt a vibration. That, too, was slowed down, which just made it all the more puzzling. She glanced back. And froze.
Dragon had arrived.
CHAPTER 27
Dragon and Gasoline
DILLON WAS CRYING. The pain was incredible. It came in waves, wave upon wave, faster and faster. His shirt was soaked with blood, soaked as if he’d been caught in a sudden rain shower of blood.
“Get me to my room!” he bellowed.
His Cheerios hauled him to a room, and as he entered he saw himself in the full-length mirror. He almost fainted. The front of his shoulder was red around a single round hole. But the back of his shoulder was a crater. The bullet had done what it was designed to do—to tumble and twist its way through flesh at incredible speed. The result was an exit wound six inches across, tattered flesh and bits of shattered bone, the pulsing worms of arteries and veins.
“Oh, God, I’m going to die! I’m going to die!”
The aspiring comic in him saw nothing funny in this.
The Cheerios laid him on the bed, groaning and weeping.
“Get me a doctor! Get me a doctor!”