They made it up to the top and started across. Sadie willed Ford not to look down, but she was having trouble controlling her breathing, and her hands were shaking.
Linc dropped over the side abruptly to begin his descent. Ford hadn’t realized the edge was coming, and it took him a second to catch up.
Too long. His relay chirped. Three pairs of eyes all swiveled toward him. Bullets started to fly.
Down, Sadie urged, but instead of descending the side of the scaffold near them, he ran back the way he’d come. She heard him assessing the outer wall of the building and thought, No, oh, no. The gap between it and the scaffolding was easily five feet across, and the wall was two feet higher than they were. It’s the only chance, she heard him think at the same moment she thought, There’s no way—
He made a mad flying leap for the wall. Sadie screamed and closed her eyes and didn’t stop until his fingers had caught—just barely—the top of the stone. He hauled himself up, a bullet nicking his shoe, and slid down the wall on the other side.
He’d forgotten that the theater was elevated so he dropped five stories, more than the two he’d been expecting, and landed with a thud that made his recovering knee feel like it had been kicked all over again. He had to blink twice to clear his head, then blinked again in disbelief.
Wait, was that—?
He was standing across the street from the Candy Factory, Plum’s club.
He turned to look behind him and started to laugh. The building he’d left, the one housing the theater, was the Surprise Party Outlet Store. Surprise Outlet. Sadie heard him repeat to himself. As in surprise exit. Bucky had written it right on the sign.
He started limping toward the Candy Factory, his mind plotting a map of the connection between the two buildings—a mile and a half on the streets but only about a quarter mile if you put tunnels that looked like hallways through the empty lots behind the buildings. Distracted, he walked in front of a limo pulling up in front of the club. It blasted its horn, which prodded Ford’s memory.
The Range Rover. Jogging up the front steps of the club, he pulled out his phone and dialed the Highway Patrol.
“My car has just been stolen,” he told the operator. Sound more hysterical, Sadie urged. “It’s a black Range Rover. Recent. No, I don’t remember what year. The license?” Sadie felt Ford’s mind contract.
It’s 145T90, Sadie said.
“It’s my wife’s car,” he explained. “I’m not sure if she has it written down anywhere.”
It’s 145T90, Sadie repeated.
“Is there any way you can locate the car without the exact—
145T90! 145T90! 145T90! Sadie shouted.
“It’s 145T90,” Ford said.
There was absolute silence.
“Hello? Sir?” the operator on the other end of Ford’s phone asked. “Sir, are you there?”
“Yes,” Ford said. “I have to go.”
He ended the call but didn’t move. “Who are you?” he said aloud.
Sadie was petrified.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled, causing a group of women to turn and stare at him.
Anger rushed to fill his mind. He walked into the club, grabbed the first person in a Candy Factory apron he saw, and asked for the nearest bathroom. When he got there he announced it was closed for cleaning, kicked everyone out, and locked the door.
A seven-foot-tall gilt-framed mirror leaned against one wall. He went and stood in front of it, staring at his eyes.
“Are you in there?” he asked.
Sadie ducked, lowering her eyes. This wasn’t a good idea. Nothing about this was—
“Goddamn it, I know you’re there, look at me.”
Fine, Sadie thought. She raised her eyes and met his.
A thrill reverberated through her but was almost immediately skewed and made jagged and painful by the force of his hate.
“I feel you in there,” he said, grabbing his head between his hands. “I can feel you, and I want you out.” He banged his head against the glass mirror, hard, making a long, V-shaped crack.
“Ford, no!” Sadie shouted.
He was staring wildly in the mirror again, and she realized he’d heard her. “I’ll keep doing it. I’ll keep doing this until you’re gone.” He banged his head twice.
Stop, please, she sobbed. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. Ford, I—
“Shut up!” he screamed. Stepping back he ran at the mirror and smashed the crown of his head into it. The entire surface of the glass shattered, sliding like a silver avalanche over him, onto the floor.
He turned to the row of five small mirrors over the sinks. “I’m not done,” he said, shattering the first one with the side of his head.
No! Sadie shrieked. She felt like she was trapped, being flung side to side with his rage. Please stop.
“What did you say? More?” His eyes were wild, glowing, pouring his hate into her. “This is for you, since you like watching people get hurt,” he said and drove his head crown first into the second mirror. A crack appeared but it didn’t completely shatter so he shook his head. “Not good enough, no, not good enough” and banged his forehead against it over and over, four, five, six times, until it shattered into powder and glass. “Look what you’ve done. Look at all the pain you’ve caused,” he said in an eerie echo of his memories of his father.
Ford, please don’t do this, she begged, crying.
“Are you happy now? Is this what you like? Driving someone out of their mind?”
No, she sobbed. I love you. I want you to be happy. I never meant any harm. I never… There was no room for the hugeness of her grief. Sadie felt like she’d swallowed all the glass he’d broken, all the fire, all the poison, and it was burning her from the inside.
I never wanted to cause you pain, she wept. I’m so sorry.
“SORRY? YOU’RE SORRY? GET THE HELL OUT OF MY MIND,” he roared, bashing his head into the third, fourth, and fifth mirrors, backward and forward, over and over until they were nothing more than frames with the occasional piece of glass still clinging in the corner.
He picked up one of those now and held it in front of his eyes. “I will keep doing this until you leave. I will destroy myself every way possible unless you get out.”
The door to the bathroom crashed to the ground, and two muscular women with guns, one a brunette with a crew cut, one bald, burst in. They stared at Ford, and Sadie pictured what they were seeing, wild eyes, blood, broken glass everywhere, a shard of mirror gripped in his hand. They both took aim.
“Drop the mirror and put your hands behind your head,” the bald woman said.
Sadie couldn’t cry anymore, couldn’t do anything. She was numb beyond numb, sore beyond sore, hurt and angry and rejected. And now two amazons were pointing automatic weapons at the man she loved, and it was all her fault.
She watched Ford’s mind hiccup into awareness of how everything must look, saw his fury that he was in this situation directed at her, at Syncopy, at the world.