Tristan returned to Lila and Dixon, kneeling down at his brother’s side. He dug into Dixon’s pockets, opened the notepad to a random blank page, and placed the pen in Dixon’s fingers. “I know you feel like shit, but you have to tell us what’s going on. If we can’t get the antidote from Reaper, I need to tell Doc what—”
The pen slipped from Dixon’s hand. He pitched forward suddenly, gagging, and a river of coffee spewed over the floor.
Tristan and Lila dragged him back from the mess and rolled him onto his side.
“It’s okay,” Tristan told him, patting him on the head. “We’ll figure it out. Just hang tight. We’ll get you to Doc soon.”
Chants started up outside the factory.
A burning piece of lumber flew through one of the open windows and struck the floor. It flamed in the center of the factory.
“I think things just got bad,” Lila said over the catcalls and whistles of the crowd.
“We have to get out of here before the building goes up in flames. If we lose Reaper, can you tap into the security system? Can you find his guy with the antidote in the security footage if we fetch your laptop?”
“If the cameras still worked, sure.”
Another burning piece of wood sailed into the building, bounced off one of the conveyer belts, and rolled into the center of the room.
“Sooner or later, they’re going to get bored with that and torch the sides,” Frank called out. “We have to get out of here.”
“Dice,” Tristan shouted into the dark.
Tristan’s last man slipped out from behind one of the conveyer belts like a shadow. “We packing it in yet?”
“Damn straight. Frank, Dice, drag the tranqed men outside. Hood and Fry, take the weasel. Make sure he doesn’t get away. I’ll get Dixon. They—”
Lila ignored his directions. She sprinted to the window, ran up the side, and grabbed on to the frame, crying out when shards of glass stabbed her palms.
But she refused to let go.
Members of the Wilson family and contracted workborn, both old and young, sprinted around the building, makeshift clubs lifted, guns firing into chaos. Some of them fired real bullets.
She couldn’t tell what the crowd was firing at, though, not at first. There were too many heads in the way, too many clubs raised in anger, too many shadows cast by the burning buildings.
Then all at once, the crowd parted. Blackcoats had taken up positions around several of the structures, golden roses stitched onto their coats, guns aimed, pumping darts into the crowd.
People fell around the buildings, grabbing their necks.
Blackcoats fell, grabbing bloody shoulders and legs.
“Oracle’s light. It’s a war. Bullstow’s here. There are dozens and dozens…” Lila caught sight of a blackcoat nearby. He darted a man in the shadows, a man who wore the same clothes as Reaper’s bodyguards, a man who fell forward into a fire.
The flames caught quickly.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t get up and move away. He had been sedated. He couldn’t even run or roll out the flames.
No one noticed him burn.
No one moved to help, at least not at first. A Bullstow officer finally noticed him. He tugged at the man’s boots and dragged him out of the fire, but it was too late to do much but pat the fire out.
Lila dropped back down to the factory floor, yanking a shard from her palm as soon as she hit the ground. There was too much glass lost among the blood to find them all by sight. She’d have to rely on pain.
“Was your man outside wearing the same thing as your bodyguards?” she asked Reaper, wincing as she tugged another shard free.
“Yes, of course.”
“He’s dead, then. I just saw one of Bullstow’s finest dart him before he fell into a fire. I don’t think they pulled him out in time.”