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Steeling herself, she checked that the chip was still tucked in her dress before she picked up the gun The antennae had fallen off again and she left them in the bottom of the cabinet

Her stoed to backtrack to the corridor Thorne had mentioned She paused at the corner, peeked her head around, and drew back, her heart puuard was there

She should have expected it Would all of the elevators be under guard now? The stairwells too?

Hopelessness seeped into her already-delirious thoughts They were looking for her, and she was vulnerable without Thorne, and she had no plan

This wouldn’t work She couldn’t do it alone She was going to be caught and imprisoned and killed, and Thorne would be killed, and Cinder would fail, and they would all--

She balled her fists into her eyes, pressing them there until she felt the panic subside

Be heroic, Thorne had said

She had to be heroic

Hardly daring to breathe for fear of drawing attention, she strained to think of another way to get to the fourth floor

Footsteps approached She scra arm and curled into a ball

Be heroic

She had to focus She had to think

The coronation would begin soon She had to be in the control center before it was over

When the guard had gone, and she was relatively sure she wasn’t going to hyperventilate, Cress lifted her head and peeked around the statue The hall wasn’t wide but it was cras to rolled area rugs and cleaning buckets

An idea for, she used the wall for support as she stood and took a few steps away from the statue She braced herself, then ran at the statue and shoved her shoulder into it as hard as she could

Her foot slipped fro her teeth against a grunt The statue tilted on its base Back Forth Back--

Cress covered her head as the statue toppled toward her, hitting her on the hip before shattering on the floor She pressed a silent scream into her knuckles, but forced herself to hobble back toward the elevator bank, crawling behind a stack of rolled-up area rugs

It wasn’t long before the guard ca space

She shoved down the pain in her bruised knee and hip and scurried out fros She ran as hard as she could toward the abandoned elevators A yell of surprise echoed behind her She collided into the wall and jabbed her finger into the call button The doors slid open

She stuun fired Cress screamed as one bullet buried itself in the wall behind her Another pinged off the closing doors before they cla her hand against her injured hip She could already tell it was going to leave one enormous bruise

The elevator started to rise and she realized after a uard beloould beit to see which floor she arrived at, anyway

She had to be strategic She had to think like a criminal mastermind