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LEAVING MY BEST FRIEND who’d been hit hard like that went against every instinct I had. But Bree shouted, “The medical kit, Alex! It’s his only chance!”

I twisted the throttle. We lurched forward, gained traction, and began to accelerate. Bree opened fire on Bean, forcing him to take cover once more.

I could not lower the visor because I could barely see through the cracks and bullet holes. I had to leave it pushed up while I got low behind the windshield.

We hit thirty miles an hour in seconds. I blinked back tears at the wind getting around the shield as Toomey’s voice crackled on the radio: “Maintaining contact off their eastern flank, M.”

I glanced right and saw the janitor there about one hundred yards out, paralleling us in deeper snow, which forced him to keep both hands on his handlebars. Bree swung on him and fired a quick burst that slowed Toomey down again.

Malcomb said, “Bean? I’m having trouble with your camera. Update.”

“I just put lead in Sampson, M. On my sled now, closing ground on their western flank. We’ve got—”

“Come back?”

“I just realized they took helmets off my men. I think they can hear what you’re saying. Or Cross can.”

For a moment, Malcomb said nothing.

“Is that true, Dr. Cross?”

He sounded amused. I don’t know exactly why that made me want to attack him, throw him off balance, but it did.

“Dr. Cross? Can you hear me?”

I reached up, turned on the mic. “So loud and clear, I can hear the Sean Malcomb Wallace in your voice,” I said.

For several moments as we sped toward that snag on the rise in the far trees, all I could hear over the radio was M’s tortured breathing. I’d hit a nerve.

“I have told you—I am not my brother.”

I purposely laughed and decided to bait him as we got within a quarter mile of the trees and the low ridge at the north end of the meadow.

“Whatever your supposed noble purpose or thinking, you are no different than Sean,” I said. “How could you be different? You’re twins. And I don’t believe your story about your parents’ murder. You were twins. I think you both went in naked through the basement window. You’re deluding yourself, Malcomb. The two of you evil bastards were born of the same bad seed. Face it. You’re as defective in mind as your evil—”

Malcomb thundered over the radio, cutting me off. “You want to see the Sean in me, do you? Fine. Bean? Toomey?”

“M?”

“Here, M.”

“I don’t care if the good Dr. Cross can hear us. Hunt them down, kill them, then take their bodies to the rookery below my big window. I want to see them fed to the ravens and the wolves.”