Rachel raced downstairs--past the body--and pushed through a door onto the first floor of the art studio building, chasing after PJ.

That's when she noticed a dark smear on the doorknob from her hand. She stopped. She had a cut on her forehead, and an ache in her left arm was sending a trickle of blood to her wrist. She looked closer and saw a bullet hole in her sleeve. She winced, exhaled, then probed with her fingertips--and realized that it wasn't a hole in her arm, just a graze. So she accepted the pain and kept moving.

The whole thing took a second.

She cracked the side door and glanced outside at the street. Quiet intersection. A stop sign with graffiti, dusty cars in an empty lot--and sirens. No sign of PJ.

She adjusted the shoulder strap of her bag and stepped onto the pavement. That red dot on Maddie's forehead had come through a window on the southern face of the warehouse. Which meant the sniper had hidden where?

Rachel eyed the skyline.

Ah. An elevated concrete structure that looked like a dockyard freight crane. No movement, though. No signs of life. Still, with the sirens coming closer, that was her best chance to find PJ. Maybe he was rendezvousing with his sniper, meeting them between the two locations. Could be. Plus, she didn't have any better ideas.

She jogged around the corner and something clattered behind her. A cellphone shattered on the street, two pens and a box of TicTacs.

She recognized them--the contents of her bag--and in the same instant she dropped and rolled.

Concrete shattered beside her heel and she lunged behind a parked Chevy, putting the engine block between her and the sniper.

A bullet hole gaped off-center in her bag. Her body had realized that someone was shooting at her before her mind had a clue. The round had hit her phone and tore the pocket away.

With the sirens sounding louder, the sniper should make tracks, but this guy worked for PJ, there was no telling if his sense of self-preservation still operated. That’s why she hadn't tried talking to the two wounded guys in the hallway upstairs. Chances were, they wouldn’t tell her anything. Chances were, they couldn’t.

She was safe enough, for the moment. Once the cops found her, she’d see how much leeway a Homeland Security ID gave her. Get her arm bandaged and drag Lark and his insane ex-girlfriend out of this warzone, stash them somewhere safe until the senator told her what to do with them.

Then she’d find PJ.

She knew the address of one of her father's front companies in Manattan, a place called Dynamic Resources Group. Maybe she'd knock on the door. Then what?

She didn't know. She was running out of time.

Maybe she shouldn't wait around for the cops. Maybe they'd just slow her down. She shifted position, then took off like a sprinter, stopped ten feet from the corner--to prevent the sniper from leading her, like her father taught her--then scrambled around to safety.

No shots. All that, and the sniper was probably long gone.

She jogged around the building and into the rental car, using the spare key she'd made them give her. She threw the transmission in reverse and squealed backwards. She swerved crazily and almost clipped a telephone pole. Yikes. She barely remembered how to drive forward, this was impossible.

She pounded the breaks and fishtailed. She wrestled the car under control and shot backward down the street. Halfway to the concrete structure where the sniper might be hiding, she caught a flash of movement in the next intersection: a nondescript gray van rolling past.

Rachel slammed the brake again, shoved the gearshift into drive, and took off. Racing down the street parallel to the van with the familiar silhouette in the passenger seat: PJ.

She sped through two intersections, caught a glimpse of the van pulling away from a stop sign. She screeched around the next corner, going too fast on the short busy blocks. She’d ram PJ at the next intersection, put the hood through the van’s door and trust her rental’s airbags. If she could aim thing this right. She exhaled slowly, focused on the street, on the timing. The intersection closer, closer …

No van. Not in any direction.

She swore. She’d lost them. Where had they been heading? Toward the highway. She needed Umlaut to arrange a helicopter, but of course, they’d killed her cellphone.

She pulled a five-point-turn, headed back to find the cops, and saw the gray van.

Parked beside a loading dock between two warehouses. It looked empty, so she stopped and scanned the road. A couple entered a diner three blocks down, holding hands. A Harley grumbled toward the river.

She needed backup. She needed training and experience and help. Hell, she needed her mommy.

Well, she needed plenty of things she'd never get.

In her mind, she heard the clock ticking. We’re talking massacres in the streets. Nobody else can stop this. Maybe she was too young, maybe she wasn't trained or prepared. Maybe she was in over her head, but Rachel knew one thing deep in her bones. She knew how to keep going.

She flexed her left hand. Pain flared in her arm, but the fingers worked so she pulled under a corrugated tin overhang and stalked toward the van.

Looked empty. She smelled the tang of the river and the greasy smolder of engine oil. She checked the front of the van. Nobody there. Nothing in back, either, though the raised rubberized floor looked custom-made.

Behind the van, she saw tire tracks on the pavement, wet from a puddle of oil. They must’ve switched vehicles. She’d have Umlaut trace this one to PJ, and--

The van’s back doors burst open and a wave of paste erupted at her.