CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT


The crowd roared, but that was in the distance. Petrie was upon me and
closing fast. I jerked and turned around. Charlie, all the other Trusted, their
eyes were glued to Jace's fight. None of them could help, it was happening too
fast.


And I knew that there were Panthers who wouldn't help. They weren't
'friendly' as Jace had called them.


I didn't know who to ask for help, so I struck out on my own.


Petrie's eyes glittered with purpose as he rushed behind me.


I ducked. More and more Panthers seemed to block every exit, every alley to
run through.


The crowd went wild again. Jace's name was whispered on so many of their
lips, but I sped past them all.


I couldn't get through the alleys. They were blocked so I sped up the stairs
and into the stadium's bleachers


Everyone was on their feet.


Petrie was right behind me.


I caught a flash of Jace in the arena. He held a bloody knife, but Merit held
one too.


I sped up the stairs and finally found a door.


I crashed into one of the warehouses and sprinted anywhere, just away.


I couldn't think. Jace was too far behind, but Petrie had already gotten to
me there. He would've struck out before I could've explained the situation.


I just reacted.


I had my gun, but we weren't supposed to shoot our guns. Not in a Panther
Trial. Too many guns would be unsheathed and the nervous would start firing into
their own kind. They had told me the rules beforehand, but I had barely
listened. I hadn't thought that I would even need my gun, but now I wanted to
use it. I needed it so badly.


"Marcus is very angry, little girl." Petrie taunted behind me.


He raced.


I ran.


We were in a back hallway of the warehouse. Panthers stood, but they were all
attuned to the fight ahead of them.


Their backs were to us and each of them stood as a silent black statue. Their
feline eyes only watched their leader in action, once again.


I found a back door and pushed it open. It opened onto stairs and I sprinted
down them. Petrie and I were now alone. The door slammed behind him and the rest
of the Panthers were cut off from us.


It was just him and me.


The crowd roared again.


My heart pounded.


."Marcus wants it back. He wants to hurt you, Maya. Do you know how he plans
to hurt you? He's already got his plan in motion. He's going to strike where you
won't ever see it."


"Shut up." I snarled back.


I ran on. And it was in the back of my mind—it was telling me that I needed
to think. I needed to watch from a distance. I needed to plan my next move
because this was wrong. I was reacting and I couldn't react. I had to plan. I
had to prey, but I was the prey in that instant.


I needed to stop that and I needed to do it when he wasn't realizing.


I kept running, past doorways, down the stairs, on and on.


A part of me, the detached part of me, was surprised at how high I had run
before, but the world wasn't making sense. My surroundings—they just flashed
by.


I had to get grounded. I needed to center myself.


Petrie was the killer in that corner.


I knew it and he knew it.


I couldn't win, hand to hand, so I needed to out-think him. And I could do
that, I just had to stop and think.


Slowly, I faded Petrie's taunts and mockery to the background. I thought as I
continued to round each stairs.


I stopped and opened one door—it opened onto another dark hallway. The three
warehouses were connected to each other. They all blocked the stadium in the
back, but I remembered seeing skyways that connected the warehouses.


I should've come upon the last stairwell, but I hadn't. More and more
descended down.


There was a bottom part to the stadium. And that meant—or might mean—the
warehouses also had tunnels.


I could use that. I could use the myriad of mazes to my advantage.


"What does he want, Petrie?" I lashed back. I kept running.


"He wants you begging." He laughed. The sound was of a monster's. "He wants
you on your knees, begging for your life."


"Let me guess." I replied, dryly, "He wants to rape me and watch me cry."


Petrie laughed in response. "Now, you're getting it girly."


"How can you live with yourself, Petrie?" I remembered his tenderness as he
held Ben.


"I live quite well, Maya." His voice sounded as an echo. It bounced off the
walls and ended in my ears. "I have money. I have a family—"


"It's hard to imagine someone loving you unconditionally." I jeered back and
tried another door. It was locked. I kept going.


The stairs weren't black. I was able to see that now. They were steel. I
wondered, faintly, how no one could hear our footsteps? How could they not want
to check?


The crowd roared again and I knew why they didn't.


They were captivated by the fight before them. They were oblivious to the one
behind them.


I found an opened door and ran through it. We were in complete darkness, but
I ran ahead.


My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I knew that Petrie's wouldn't.


He cursed in the background, but I kept going.


A light flicked on behind me, but it wouldn't aid Petrie. It would just
eliminate any nightvision that he might've gotten.


I kept my eyes ahead. I didn't look into his light.


The hallway circled and I almost slammed into the adjourning door. It was
locked.


My heart pounded furiously.


I heard Petrie closing in.


"I have a family, Maya. Ben is my family. You think he was Marcus' to begin
with?" Petrie called out. Blind. "He was mine!"


I took a gulping breath, reached for my gun, and waited.


I turned my back to Petrie, pointed it at the door, and the crowd was
deafening.


I shot and the crowd quieted—but I knew they hadn't heard.


They had started a chant, somewhere above us, and it was muffled through the
tunnels and closed doors before it reached my ears.


Petrie sprinted faster when my gun had gone off, but the door was open and I
was sprinting again.


This time, I circled upward and kept going.


I'd run for two hours with Jace. I was winded, exhausted, and I kept going. I
had to.


"I found him!" Petrie called out again. "I found Ben and I brought him to
Marcus. He wasn't supposed to adopt him. Ben was supposed to be mine. I loved
that boy. I found him wandering the streets. He was supposed to be my family,
but Marcus took him from me."


I spared a glance behind me. I saw Petrie's light before I saw him. He was
two floors below me.


"Marcus wanted him to be your child." Petrie's feet pounded on the stairs.
"He thought that you'd love him even more for Ben. He wanted you to be his
mother."


I put my gun away and withdrew my blade.


I kept running.


The crowd's sound was growing closer. We were almost there, almost behind
them again.


"Are you listening to me, Maya!?" Petrie screamed.


I came upon a window, but it was blocked. Panthers stood in front of it. They
were all on their feet.


A part of me knew that Jace was drawing out his fight. He could've killed
Merit in two seconds. It was lasting much longer, but it was for a reason.


Jace had told me that I wouldn't like how he killed Merit. I didn't. It was
prolonging my fight for life.


I needed to stall Petrie, until…something. I had to think.


I needed a plan.


Petrie was wiry and in killing shape. This was what he did for a living. He
was Marcus' first assassin, but I knew this.


I needed all my information against him. I couldn't—I had to think more.


"You must hate Marcus. He took your child, Petrie." I yelled out, just as the
crowd sounded again.


Petrie stopped suddenly.


He didn't know where that had come from.


I stopped too and gasped, panting.


Petrie heard me as the crowd quieted and laughed wickedly. He surged ahead up
the stairs.


So did I.


"You said that Ben was the only one who shouldn't have been brought into
this." I yelled back. "He used Ben—he took him away from his treatment. He took
his favorite book away."


Petrie snarled below me.


He went faster.


So did I.


It was working.


I kept going, I needed to go to the top.


"He was a child!" Petrie yelled back. "Ben was innocent. He's the only
innocent in this whole thing. Marcus shouldn't have done what he did."


"You've loved him the whole time, haven't you?" I said, cruelly. "He calls
you uncle when you really think of yourself as his father. He calls Marcus
'father' instead of you."


"I know what you're doing, Maya." Petrie jeered.


His footsteps were growing closer.


I was losing steam. I glanced up, glimpsed the top—or what I hoped was the
top. It was so dark. I couldn't tell.


I pushed ahead.


"You're trying to make me angry. You want me to so enraged that I can't think
straight." Petrie laughed. "It's not going to work, Maya. I'm better than
that."


Resolve settled on me and I shot ahead with a burst of speed.


Two more flights of steps and we'd be there. I just didn't know if I had the
last bit of strength to play it all out.


"I'm the professional here, Maya. Not you. This is what I do."


"Ben will never love you like a father. He'll always be Marcus'. That has to
eat at you." I shouted back and pushed ahead.


There was absolute silence for a moment, and then—my heart pounded—Petrie
roared his own rage.


Almost.


Almost there.


I met the door head-on and burst out.


We were on the roof and Petrie was just behind me.


I swiftly shut and locked the door. I slammed a barricade over it.


The crowd was going again.


Petrie slammed into the door, but it held. The barricade held firm and Petrie
was forced for another run at it.


He did. The barricade held, but it wouldn't hold long.


I ran to the edge and saw Jace. He was standing above Merit, who was bleeding
on the ground.


The fires boiled high. The light cast a hungry shadow over Jace. I saw the
sweat, dirt, and blood on him.


He looked every bit of a Panther in that moment.


Jace was looking around, for me, but Merit crawled forward and Jace turned
his attention back.


A window shattered somewhere close, but I didn't know where. I couldn't see
anything in our darkness.


And then the barricade cracked and Petrie burst through.


I heard footsteps pounding, but I could only focus on Petrie.


I stood at the edge.


Petrie found me and stopped short, a few feet away.


The wind slapped against us.


"He wants you alive, Maya." Petrie called out.


I raised my head and stared at him, strong.


"You're not going alive, are you." Petrie murmured, panting. I saw his hands
were in fists. I saw the blood on their knuckles.


"You're right, Rueban."


"Don't call me that!" He growled and took a menacing step towards me.


"It's your name." I took a deep breath. "Why don't you want to be called by
your God-given name?"


Petrie just glowered. I saw him reach for his knife.


"You're not going to shoot me?" I asked and moved closer to the edge.


If anyone were looking, if they could look past the blinding fire's edge,
they would've seen us.


I moved down to the right and Petrie circled around. He stepped closer to the
edge.


I held my blade close, grasped tight in my hand, with the blade resting just
on the inside of my palm.


I felt the steel edge against my skin.


Petrie stopped suddenly and shook his head. He surprised me when he said,
"Ben was supposed to be my 'out.' I told Marcus about him because I thought that
he'd want me to take him and kill him, but he didn't. Nothing went down how it
was supposed to."


I waited. Tense.


I caught movement from the corner of my eye, but I didn't dare look away.


Petrie shook his head again, "Ben was a gift. He was supposed to…he was my
light. He was the only thing that made sense. I hated it at first. I was going,
working for one of the best in the business, and I had my life right. I had it
sealed tight. I was going to be a rich man and I was going to live a long time,
but Ben came and…my world turned upside down. I don't know…I don't know what it
was about him."


Petrie met my eyes, darkly.


I moved back.


He moved forward. "You can't beat him, Maya. You can't run from him. I know
that, believe me. I've wanted to take Ben away and live a different life. He
shouldn't…but he won't ever really know."


"Yes, he will." I said strongly. "He read me that story. He was the lion,
Petrie. And he was taken from his family. He knows it. It's wrong!"


Petrie shook his head and barked, "Shut up!"


"The story is about a lion. Right? Henry. He was taken and that's him. Ben
knows that's him. How can a nine year old interpret a book like that? Henry
never got back to his family. Ben's Henry. He knows that he's not supposed to be
where he is and he sees it, all around him."


"That's his Autism." Petrie shook his head.


"No, it's not! It's him. It's a nine year old who knows what's happened to
him. It's wrong, Rueban!"


"I told you to stop calling me that!" Petrie cried out and rushed me.


I was ready.


I ducked underneath his arm and brought up my blade to stab him in the
back.


It worked, but I wasn't able to sweep the blade all the way through.


Petrie turned, grasped me by the neck, and threw me to the ground.


I bounced off the wall as Petrie stood and pulled out my blade.


He was the monster. He was the monster that every child dreams about, that
every adult lies to themselves and tell themselves that don't exist.


Petrie was that monster.


"Tsk, tsk, Maya. What are you going to do? Kill the killer?" He laughed and
shook his head. "But you did good." He bent down and grabbed my arm.


I tried to wrestle out of his hold, but Petrie merely jerked my arms back and
paralyzed me.


Slowly, he lifted me until I was dangling over the warehouse's edge.


"No…" I kicked at the edge. "Don't…"


"Please?" Petrie laughed. "And here you are, begging to me. Marcus would be
so jealous." He dangled me higher. I saw the muscles in his arms stretch.


He was evil incarnate.


"Don't…"


"You're a disgrace to who you are, Maya. Don't beg for your life. You're
supposed to go out with honor."


I turned in his grasp.


Jace was in the middle of the stadium. He stood at attention, trying to see
beyond the fire's light.


He couldn't see me.


I knew that, but he felt me.


Merit had already been taken from the arena. Everyone quieted, waiting for
words from their leader.


I whimpered. I wish that Jace could see me, hold my gaze once more…just
once.


"This whole thing is about family, Maya." Petrie murmured. "You don't get
that. Lanser doesn't get it, but it's all about family. My end. Marcus. The
families who get the children. Even you and Lanser—it's about family."


"It's about what's wrong. He thinks he's God!" I whipped back.


"And he is." Petrie smiled sadly. "Don't you get that? But you're wrong about
something—the whole Job scenario. You guys never got it in the end."


"What's there to get? It's a stupid riddle that Marcus thought up because he
thinks he's God."


"No." Petrie shook his head. "I thought it up. Marcus just loved it, but you
guys missed the meaning of it."


I looked up and held his eyes.


They shone of a madman's, but one with purpose. He swallowed tightly and
confessed, "Ben is the saving light. You guys didn't get that. The children are
the saving light. And you know what's funny about this whole thing? You're his
Holy Spirit. Can you believe his madness?"


And then a soft pop was heard.


I gasped and saw blood trickle out of a hole in Petrie's forehead just as he
slumped and I was let go.


I was airborne, for the second time in the same day.


I didn't scream. I didn't want Jace to be haunted with my scream. I was going
to fall silently.


That realization flashed through me at the speed of light, but before I could
fall an inch, my hand was caught and dragged back onto the building.


Frozen and pale, I looked up, and saw myself staring into the murderous eyes
of Stirley.


He was dressed as a Panther, but his eyes were his.


"Oh god…" I rolled over and threw up.


Stirley waited until I had calmed slightly, but I heard him on the phone. He
called Jace. I heard him tell him what had happened and I heard Jace's voice
over the phone.


I emptied my stomach again. Stirley bent and padded me on the back.


"Oh god…" I moaned again and weakly sat up. I cradled my head between my
knees.


"Marcus sent a few of us. It was all that Merit could get in, but Petrie
found you first. I followed, but you damn took a fucked-up way to end here. I'm
sorry. He already had you over the edge when I got here, but I heard what he
said."


Jace burst through the door and stopped in front of us.


Charlie and Kip stood behind him.


They watched silently.


Stirley stood up and said briefly, "He took her nephew."


My head whipped up and I shot to my feet. "What?"


"I'm out." Stirley said and held out his hands, as if surrendering. "I found
Cassie. She's in Mexico and I'm headed down there to get her out, but you gotta
know that Marcus already has your nephew. He shipped him to the encampment. The
only way that you can save him is to find the Master book."


I stared at him. At an agent that had once vowed his life underneath Jace's
command. He had been burned, his loved one taken, and now he was leaving for his
own destination.


Stirley gave us his last words in Jace's employment and we all knew that.


It was weird.


That bit ran through my head before I really comprehended what he said.


Marcus had Gray.


Jace watched me as Stirley walked away.