Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

He glanced around. If he could lure her away from that door before the werewolf found them...

"Do you want to talk downstairs? Or maybe at that McDonald's?" She took a step and he tensed, but she was moving sideways, away from the door. She squinted over her shoulder. "I think the cops are gone. They didn't stay very long."

She craned to see over the edge, but it was too far, so she took another step. Then another. Moving away from the door... He sent up a silent thank-you to the gods.

"I need to be sure," he said.

She started, as if surprised to hear him speak.

He cleared his throat, lowering his pitch a notch, hoping it made him sound older, more confident. "I'll go downstairs, but I need to be sure the cops are gone. Do you see any?"

"Hold on."

She headed for the edge. He counted her steps. At five, he'd run. Two, three...

He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself to bolt for the door. An image flashed. The werewolf. Leaning against that exit door, hand on the knob, face tense with strain as he listened.

Colm backpedaled. The girl wheeled, hands flying up again.

"It's okay," she said. "I was just checking..."

He saw her lips keep moving, but the sound didn't penetrate. He was trapped. Well and truly trapped, and a fool for thinking otherwise. A coward, desperately trying to avoid the unavoidable.

He glanced toward the edge of the roof and he knew what he had to do. What the kumpania would want him to do. What Adele would expect him to do.

Take action. Be a man.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl's face paling, her eyes going wide, mouth opening in a shout. He wheeled and ran.

He heard her then, a wordless shout, her shoes crackling in the gravel. He saw the edge of the roof, saw it, and threw himself forward.

Then... nothing. There was nothing under his feet.

His heart seized, shock ramming into his throat as he realized what he'd done. He twisted, arms flying out, praying he could stop this, that she'd save him. He didn't care if that made him a coward. This wasn't what he really wanted.

He saw a figure flying over the edge after him. Not the girl, but the werewolf. Colm reached out, flailing for the man's outstretched hands. His fingers made contact, skin brushing skin. And then...

And then nothing.

* * *

HOPE

She knew the boy was going to jump.

Hope saw him look at the edge. She felt his terror. She heard his thoughts. She knew.

Everything they'd done so far had only scared him more, and now, hearing that awful, unthinkable thought, what went through her head was don't move! So she didn't. And in that hesitation, she'd lost him.

He'd bolted. She'd sprung after him. And Karl, on the other side of the door, heard it happen, heard whatever she screamed, and the door flew open and he barreled through and she'd seen his arm swing up, palm going out, thought he was warning her off. Then she felt the blow, his hand slamming into her solar plexus and the wind flying out of her lungs, her feet sailed out from under her and she hit the roof. Then Robyn was there, pulling her up and Hope scrambled to her feet, gaze shooting to the roof edge, seeing not the boy jumping but Karl.

Karl had lunged to catch the boy, grabbing for him, then realized that he'd gone over the edge. Anything the boy felt at that moment was drowned out by Karl's stunned mental oh shit, his fear slamming Hope in the gut, knocking the wind out of her again, an iron spike of chaos power-driving into her skull. And if there was any pleasure to be found in that chaos, she didn't feel it.

The boy fell.

Hope saw Karl's hand brush his, but it was only a brush. He twisted, catching the edge, and then the boy fell, and there was, for a horrible moment she would never purge from her memory, a surge of incredible relief. The boy fell. But Karl did not. That was all that mattered.

Hope dropped to her knees at the edge. She threw up. Heaved and spewed, vomit splattering over the metal ledge, dappling Karl's fingers, gripping the edge.