Instead of sucking in a mouthful of wet cement, I inhaled dank, reeking air.

I gasped and wheezed--through my mouth--as the sludge shifted above me. Then it oozed away like a giant slug.

For a moment I didn’t understand. Why had she left the moment she’d beaten me? She's pulled away from my face an instant before she filled my lungs with corrisive goo.

Then I heard PJ, through the ringing in my ears. "--over here, Spandle, and swallow this little bitch whole."

Oh, that’s why. She’d stopped killing me to start killing Rachel Kravitz.

Busy schedule.

I’d like to report that I sprang to Rachel's defense, but what I actually did was this: writhed on the ground for a while, gasping for air, my face and ribs battered, my skin burning, and a hard throb of agony in my arm.

I was too scared and shaky to track how much time passed. Enough for another exchange of gunfire. Then I pulled myself gingerly to my feet and limped toward the nearest scaffolding.

I started climbing. I didn’t have much of a plan: get away and regroup, I guess. Mostly just 'get away.'

I staggered onto the walkway of the middle level and noticed the silence. No gunfire, no crashing. No curses, no screams. I stopped and leaned my forehead against a wooden strut. The only thing in here that killed silently was Spandle. Which meant that this Rachel Kravitz woman should’ve left when I’d told her.

The wood felt cool on my skin. My breath came slow and steady. The orbs clustered close to my chest and I swore quietly. I couldn't run away and leave her. I'm not particularly brave, but that woman saved my life by drawing Spandle away.

Plus, I guess I was still trying to repay my sister Simone, or at least to make her proud. Another young woman had saving me; I couldn't let it happen again.

So I headed back into the madness. I wasn't sure where anyone was but I thought I'd check the big underground room first. I trotted around the corner ... and the walkway abruptly ended, like a plank off a pirate ship. Because I’d demolished that section of scaffolding earlier.

I stopped there, my mind still slipping gears as I breathed through my mouth--and the two-by-four over my left shoulder spat splinters at me. I didn't know what had just happened, but my nerves were so frayed that I immediately dropped to the floor anyway, and two thunks sounded.

Then Rachel Kravitz’s voice rang out. "Stay down!"

Because that had been gunfire, silenced gunfire.

Lying on my stomach on the walkway, I sent an orb hovering overhead to peer into the gloom ahead. Rachel was crouching at the top of a freestanding section of scaffolding in the middle of the big room, like a cat trapped in a tree. Below her, Spandle seethed around the structure’s base, like a ... I don't know. A ton of evil sludge. Then the sludge started to climb the scaffolding, which shuddered and groaned under her weight.

Rachel was trapped with a hungry ooze below her and PJ waiting somewhere with a silenced gun.

"Hold on," I called. "I’ll push a plank to you from this side, you can--"

"PJ’s got a shot at the space between us. If I try crawling over, he'll shoot me."

Dammit. I looked into the gloom. "What about the scaffolding on your other side? Can you get there?"

"No. It's a ten foot jump."

"Okay, uh, I'll grab some pipes and--"

"There's no time."

"It'll take two minutes."

Rachel looked down at the gray mass oozing toward her. "I only have one."

"Okay." I took a shuddering breath through my mouth. "Okay."

"You know what sucks?" she said.

"What?"

"I lost cell reception. Tell my sister …" She shook her head. "Tell her I wanted to say something meaningful, but couldn’t think of anything good."

"Tell her yourself," I said.

I let the orbs fly. Two of them flicked to a halt a foot from Rachel while the third slammed to the dirt floor for leverage.

She blew a puff of air. "Well, I didn't see that coming."

"Grab hold," I told her. "I’ll get you out of there."

She stared toward me, a little dubiously. Then one of the Spandle’s pseudopods swiped at her legs and the scaffolding shuddered, bolts snapping and wood cracking.

Rachel holstered her gun and grabbed the orbs, one in each hand.

"I should've stayed in prison," she muttered, and I flung the orbs toward the distant section of scaffolding, almost thirty feet from me.

Gunfire spat and Rachel swung, building her own momentum, which was a good thing--the orbs hit the limit of my strength about eight feet short.

"Jump!" I yelled, and the orbs stopped.

Rachel let go of the orbs and kept moving, swinging forward through the air. Not exactly graceful, but she was going for distance, not for style. She slammed into the side of the scaffolding and clung there like a cat on a screen door. For a second I thought she’d fall backward. Through the gloom, I saw the strain in her body. Then she gathered herself and climbed onto the walkway--cocked her head at a noise and flashed me what looked like a grin.

A moment later, I heard the sirens.

"Took long enough," I muttered.

"That’s a tac team," Rachel called. "With gas masks and flamethrowers. I called them before I lost signal."

"That's crap," PJ yelled, squeezing off a few shots. "We’re monitoring 911 and law enforcement frequencies--"

Rachel laughed, a little wildly and returned fire. "I’m not a civilian anymore, PJ. I'm Homeland Security. I used the private number."

Sirens echoed from both ends of the block, and a faint tracery of red flickered on a creased tarpaulin. The lights of a police car. PJ emptied his gun at Rachel, the bullets chunking wood from the planks and Rachel curled against the wall for cover.

She never stopped yelling, though. "You’re trapped like a rat in a hole, Peej. No way out. I told them to shove activated charcoal down your throat and see if--"

As she yelled, the ooze suddenly started sloshing to the far wall, the alcove where the soldiers had left earlier, and I caught a glimpse of PJ jogging alongside, using Spandle as cover. Running for the exit.

No way. I wasn’t going to lose him and Spandle, not after all this. Not with the cavalry finally galloping to the rescue. Not when they were my only chance to find Dewitt.

So I staggered down a walkway, spinning the orbs into a tornado in front of me. Half-blind with rage, half-blind with desperation. Clouds of dust and debris rose around me as the orbs threw everything at the tarp in front of the exit door: metal pipes and concrete chunks and splintered wood, trying to barricade the exit before PJ reached it.

PJ fired at me and Spandle started shrinking, condensing back into something half-human--the breeze returning, harder than before, kicking a windstorm into the air--and I knocked a stack of plywood at them and barely missed. I'd drop this entire block before I let them get away. If I lost them, I lost Dewey.

I lurched forward, following the whiplash destruciton, not seeing with my eyes so much as feeling with the orbs. Which was probably why I missed her, at first--a shadowy form on an abutting walkway.

Then I realized what I’d seen, and stopped short. "Maddie?"

She stalked toward me with a wrench in her hand, like an avenging angel, and I felt a thrill of pride. Don’t mess with Maddie’s brother. Or her ex.

"You didn’t scream," she said, then her eyes flicked past me. "Watch out!"

I spun and saw no danger. Alarm pulsed through the orbs, but I refused to understand. So I stood there, facing the wrong direction, when Maddie brought the wrench down on my head.

I crumpled. The scaffolding blurred, the orbs wobbled toward me through a field of vertigo, a bitter taste rising in my throat.

Maddie leaned close. "You’re ruining everything, Lark. Try not to ruin everything."

Then darkness fell.