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Peter
He lurched backward A daes, faces, days, names--they poured forth in a torrent, almost painful The scene around hian to disperse It ashing away Behind it lay a wholly different reality, of objects and people and events and ordered tiht, and then he said it:
"I am Peter Jaxon"
--
Peter stumbled backward; the sword fell fro barked "I said, kill her"
Peter’s head swiveled; his eyes narrowed on Fanning’s face It was happening, thought As co Surprise was on his side: Fanning went sailing He crashed back down and rolled end over end, coainst a concrete pylon He rose onto all fours but his ave his head a horsey shake and spat on the ground
"Well, this is unexpected"
Then Aether they raced down Forty-third Street on soaring strides Where was he taking her? Then she understood: the partially constructed office tower She tipped her face skyward, but the dust was too thick to see if the building’s upper floors rose above the cloud deck Peter halted at the base of the elevator shaft He swung her onto his back, scrauided Ah the bars to the elevator’s roof, and followed her down His purpose in all this was unknown to her He hoisted her onto his back again, using his elbows to cos around his waist to tell her to hold on to hihtly as possible All of this had transpired in just a matter of seconds The elevator’s cables, three of them, were set into a steel plate affixed to a crossbar on the elevator’s roof Peter gathered the cables into his fists and set his feet wide As squeezing his waist like a vise, felt a gathering pressure in his body Peter began to groan through his teeth Only then did she grasp his intentions She closed her eyes
The plate tore free; A the cables, A his back like the shell of a turtle Five stories, ten, fifteen The elevator’s counterweight plunged past What would happen when they reached the top? Would they shoot through the roof into space?
Suddenly the whole cage shuddered; the counterweight had reached the bottoone Hurled upward, A down at the base of the shaft She was alone in the air, unattached to anything Her body slowed as she approached the apogee of her ascent and for a second seeht How far away the ground was She would hit it going a hundred
A jolt: Peter, still gripping the cable, had seized her by the wrist He pu A in the wall of the shaft not far below the her away
She landed on the floor and rolled to a halt They were still inside the dust cloud The adrenaline of their ascent had sharpened her thoughts Everything was coranular focus She scraup the side of the building
The air concussed with a titanic roar The building on the opposite side of Forty-third Street began to ht down into itself like a an to shake The vibration deepened; sounds of buckling h the structure as the floor tipped abruptly toward the street Loose materials--rusted tools, sawhorses, moisture-swollen pieces of drywall, a bucket of nails--slid past her and sailed into the abyss She was on her sto She was slipping, her hands and feet could gain no traction, gravity was taking hold…
"Peter, help!"
The sweet pressure of his hand on her ar on his stoave another doard lurch, yet he held on, his toes digging into the concrete With gathering force, he drew her back fro His face had appeared above the lip of the floor "There you are"
--
Michael heard a faint ers jostling on racks A short silence ensued; the trail of his blood, crisscrossing the various hallways and doubling back, hadIf only he would just pass out If anything, he felt more alert than ever