Chapter 14: The Rescue

Carl shoved me up the metal stairs to the loft, his hand tight on my good arm.

Near the top, the lights went out.

Every bulb in the warehouse died at once, and somebody shouted.

Carl's grip jerked.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I stamped on his instep as hard as I could and wrenched my arm free.

He yelped and let go, and his gun came out of his waistband and clattered on the stairs.

I dropped to my knees and found it by feel, cold and heavy, in the dark.

The back door banged open.

Engines, a lot of them, roared in through the back door.

Then headlights flooded the floor, and the whole warehouse turned white.

Men in black vests poured through the loading door in a line.

I knew them.

The tall one, the man with the prosthetic hand, the young guard with his paperback jammed into his back pocket.

Hank came through last with a shotgun.

And in front of all of them, with his cut open and his grey eyes fixed on one point in the building, came Boone.

He found me on the stairs.

I saw him see the gun in my hand.

Then he saw Carl on the steps below me, holding his foot, and his face went flat and still.

"Drop it!" one of Carl's friends yelled from the back.

Nobody did.

"Son," Hank said, mild and carrying, "I have a shotgun and nine friends. Put the pistol on the floor."

The friend put the pistol on the floor.

I stood up.