Page 225 of The Wicked

“What?”

I grabbed my jacket and cap from the hanger. “Who led the operation for Street. Who led the fucking operation, Mancini!”

I heard him sigh and hesitate. “It was Zahra.”

“Thatfucking—I’m on my way.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Zahra

I do not work well under pressure.

I avoid situations I can’t control, and this situation—fuck, I didn’t know that bastard was going to pull a stunt like this. I didn’t think he was capable of pulling this off or devising a plan like this. I underestimated him, and that one mistake might cost us our lives today. I was sweating; my clothes felt tight, and the cuffs around my wrists dug into my skin, leaving a red bruise that became visible whenever I moved my hand.

My heart had stopped functioning at its normal pace the moment I caught sight of those children.

To think, I was the one preaching about staying calm.

All the sounds around me were delivered in distant echoes; the sound of a helicopter above the bus, which heightened my anxiety when I first heard it, the little whimpers and cries from the children on the bus, the noise in my ear from the comm: Milk’s and Upper’s staticky voices trying to communicate with me, and the people around them.

“Zahra.”

The sounds… God, they were all mixed together in shadowy echoes, seeing as my breathing was the loudest thing I heard, theonlything I heard.

“Zahra.”

My chest was tight, it felt like I had a fever, and the ominous beeping of the bomb tickled my head.

“Zahra.”

I needed to breathe, to relax, to stay calm, be in control, but with this fucking noise around me, the honks from passing cars,shouts, helicopter blades, static, the hum of the bus, Dog’s cursing, children crying. I needed the world to shut up for one goddamn second so I could think.

“Zahra.”

If I could just think… then maybe…

“Zahra.”

My chest was heaving, my mind supplying the image of my body being blown to bits after the countdown reached complete zeroes… but not just my body; Dog’s body, Devil’s body, the children, and the drivers of nearby cars—

“Zahra!”

I could stop it. I could save us all if I just had enough space to breathe and thi—

“Zahra!”

“What!” I yelled back at Dog, nervously bouncing on his toes a few feet away, looking quite pale.

“I’ve been calling you for fucking ages; what are they saying? The blue fucking wire or the red one? Your comm is the only one connected, remember?” he said between hurried breaths; his panic was adding to mine.

“They don’t have any visual on the bomb. My explanation is the only thing they can work with. I was asked to cut off the red wire. They weren’t sure, but we have to be sure—”

“The red wire?” Dog’s eyes widened. “That’s a fucking no. Red is a no, okay? It’s in every fucking movie ever, never press the red button, never pull the red lever, never walk through the red fucking door—”

Devil groaned loudly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Dog, but this shit show isn’t a movie,” he said from the driver’s seat, doing his best to navigate the vehicle, not so skillfully.

“Just go talk to the kids, okay? I got this,” I said.