Chapter 8 — Everyone Turned on Everyone

The guard beside Damian turned toward the shot.

Damian drove both hands into the man’s rifle and slammed him against the crate.

He fired before he had full control of the weapon. The first burst went into the ceiling. The second sent another guard falling backward across the aisle.

Thomas ducked behind the cabinet.

I pushed Lily toward the concrete support.

“Sophia. Take her.”

Sophia reached around the column and caught Lily’s wrist.

I turned as a guard ran toward us, his eyes on Damian. He had the pistol taken from Sophia tucked at his belt.

I struck his arm against the cabinet’s edge and pulled him off balance.

He drove an elbow into my burned shoulder.

Pain blinded me for a second. I held on, forced him between myself and the open aisle, and dragged the pistol from his belt.

He tried to turn his rifle.

I fired at close range.

The weapon was the one I had given Sophia outside the warehouse. I passed it to her behind the column, then took the fallen guard’s sidearm for myself.

“Can you get to the exit?” I asked.

She looked past me.

Two men were taking cover near the loading door. Bullets struck the steel frame above the fire-release handle.

“Not across that floor.”

“Stay here.”

“Come back,” she said.

I looked at her, surprised by the urgency beneath the words.

She pushed my arm toward the aisle.

“Go.”

Damian was firing from behind a forklift. His guard lay beside him, motionless. Another man crouched at the far stairs, returning fire whenever Damian stopped.

I moved along the crates, keeping the cabinet between myself and Thomas.

Camila had vanished.

Then I saw her at the office side door.

She reached inside, crouched, and came up holding my pistol.

“Camila!”

She turned toward my voice.

For a second, I saw the woman who had once sat barefoot on my kitchen counter, stealing strawberries from a bowl while I tried to work.

Then she raised the gun.

Lily came out from behind the column.

The guard who had taken my knife lay near the cabinet. She had pulled it from his belt while Sophia covered the aisle.

“Don’t,” I shouted.

Lily reached Camila before the muzzle steadied. She caught her gun arm with one hand and struck across the wrist with the blade in the other.

Camila screamed.

The shot went into the office ceiling. The pistol hit the floor.

I reached them as Camila lunged for Lily’s hair.

I pulled my sister away and drove Camila back against the door frame.

“Leave it,” I told her, watching her eyes follow the fallen gun.

Lily still held the knife. Blood ran over her fingers.

“Back to Sophia,” I said.

She hesitated.

“Now.”

She went.

I picked up my pistol, checked it, and tucked the guard’s sidearm into my waistband.

Behind me, Sophia cried out.

Thomas had reached the concrete support from its far side.

He seized her by the uniform and dragged her into the service aisle beneath the walkway. Her gun struck the column and fell.

I moved toward them.

A guard at the stairs fired across my path. I ducked behind a crate and answered, forcing him to take cover.

Through the gap, I saw Thomas push Sophia against the railing of a short maintenance platform.

“I tried to give you a way out,” he said.

She caught his gun wrist with both hands.

“You brought me here.”

“You could have left with me.”

He struck her across the face with his free hand.

She stumbled but did not release his wrist.

Lily came behind him, still carrying the knife.

She caught his other arm and pulled it away from Sophia. He spun toward her, dragging both women off balance.

Lily’s fingers slipped down over his hand as he pulled free. She stumbled backward with that hand closed against her chest, the knife still in her other one. I had no time to check whether he had hurt her.

For an instant, his pistol cleared Sophia’s shoulder.

I fired.

The bullet struck him high in the shoulder. He hit the railing, and his gun slid beneath the platform.

Lily fell to one knee. Sophia pushed her back toward the column.

Thomas stared at the blood spreading across his shirt.

“You shot me.”

I kept the pistol aimed at him.

“Step away from them.”

Sophia retrieved her gun from beside the support. She came toward him, careful to remain outside my line of fire.

Thomas looked up at her.

“Soph.”

Her lower lip was bleeding.

She stopped close enough to see his face clearly.

“You always do that,” she said. “You say my name like it means I have to help you.”

“I’m your brother.”

“Then you should have cared what happened to me.”

Her gun was steady. Mine was not. The injured shoulder had begun to shake despite everything I did to control it.

Thomas saw that.

So did Damian.

He emerged from behind the forklift, rifle raised toward the platform.

“Move away from him,” Damian called.

Sophia stepped back. I caught her arm and pulled her toward cover.

Thomas pressed against the rail.

“You want to talk about the money?” he asked Damian.

“You’re done talking.”

“You’ll need me if you want to recover any of it.”

Damian moved closer, searching his face for a reason to believe him.

Camila came out of the office doorway behind him.

She had taken a handgun from the guard who had fallen beside the forklift. Her injured wrist hung against her dress. She held the weapon in her other hand.

“Damian,” I shouted.

He started to turn.

Camila fired into his back.

His knees buckled. His finger clenched on the rifle trigger, sending rounds upward through the suspended walkway.

One support connection broke loose with a metallic snap.

The far end dropped.

I threw myself against Sophia, carrying us behind the concrete column as the walkway tore away from the wall.

Steel struck the floor. Crates split beneath it. The forklift vanished behind dust and sparks.

For a moment, I could hear only the ringing in my ears.

Then Lily called my name.

I found her crouched behind the cabinet, the knife lying beside her. She lifted her empty hands to show me she was unhurt.

Sophia pushed herself upright.

“Thomas.”

I looked toward the maintenance platform.

It was empty.

Blood marked the steps leading to a wall ladder. Above it, a roof hatch swung in the wind.

Near the collapsed walkway, Camila dragged herself toward the loading bay. A steel brace had pinned the hem of her dress. She tried to pull free, crying out whenever her wounded wrist touched the floor.

Damian lay beneath a bent section of railing.

I could see his face.

His eyes were open, fixed on nothing.

Sophia caught my sleeve.

“He’s going to the north crane,” she said. “There’ll be a boat.”

Beyond the roof hatch, I heard an engine turn over.