Stephen laughs.
"This is the problem with brute force," Stephen calls down. "It only works when you can reach me."
He twirls my knife again. My grandfather's knife. It spins between his fingers easily because he's beenpracticingwith it. He's been carrying my knife around and playing with it, like it's a toy.
My skin crawls.
"I've called for extraction," Stephen continues. "Rooftop access from the catwalk. Five minutes. You can stand down there and bleed, or you can let the songbird come home. Backup is on the way, as I'm sure you've heard."
Raf aims the submachine gun upward. His finger hovers outside the trigger guard.
"Take the shot," Rex growls from across the auditorium.
"I can't." Raf's jaw is tight. "He's behind the rigging."
Stephen smiles.
"Your brother begged me for those pills, you know. The connections, the studio time, thesupplies—I gave Nash everything. He stuck the needle in his own arm. I just made sure he always had access." He examines the knife. "A troubled genius halfway to the grave already. All I had to do was leave the door open."
Rex doesn't move.
Doesn't breathe.
His hand on the ladder rung goes white.
The bastardsmiles.
And something in my brain goes very, very quiet. The quiet that comes right before a terrible idea crystallizes into theonlyidea.
My eyes sweep the stage.
The massive burgundy curtains hang in heavy folds on either side of the stage. The dusty velvet is so old and dry, it's practically tinder. Above them, a web of rigging ropes stretches from the fly system to the catwalks. Hemp ropes, not modern synthetics, because this opera house is a preserved landmark that hasn't been fully modernized.
And there, stage left, knocked on its side during the earlier fight, a wooden crate with its lid splintered open. Flash pots. Theatrical pyrotechnic charges. A handful of them scattered across the stage floor, silver cylinders with fuses curling from their tops.
I look up at the catwalks.
At the ropes.
At the curtains.
At the crate of flash pots sitting directly beneath the stage left curtain.
You don't chase a rat out of the rafters.
You smoke him out.
I'm moving before the thought fully forms.
"Bells?" Phoenix calls. "What are you—BELLS!"
I vault onto the stage. My boots hit the wooden boards and I cross to the spilled crate in four strides, grabbing the nearest flash pot and wedging it into the base of the stage left curtain where the velvet pools on the floor.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Rex roars from the auditorium floor.
I don't answer.
I step back five feet, raise the gun, and aim at the crate.