Page 91 of Girl, Unseen

‘Amelia, there’s nowhere to go. Don't be stupid.’

‘Stupid? Are you serious? I’m a NYU major, top of the class, and all I wanted was to not look like a freak.’ Amelia stabbed her face with her finger.

‘Think about Felix. Your brother. Your dad.’

‘Felix never understood. None of you did.’ Amelia balanced on the thin brass rail like a gymnast on her final routine. ‘The texts were right. Sometimes you have to break something to remake it.’

‘Those texts are ancient. They mean nothing. None of it’s real.’

‘No. The transformation must be completed. As above, so below.’

‘This isn’t your transformation. You’ll die.’

‘Body for soul. Matter to energy. The final sacrifice.’

Ella's brain spun like tires on an icy road. Amelia had the look, that zero-in-the-eyes stare of someone who'd clocked out of reality and punched into the express lane to absolute desperation. Reason was wasted breath. So was negotiation. This bitch was going to jump, and there wasn't a damn thing Ella could do to stop her without getting dragged over the side herself.

So she did the only thing left. The desperate Hail Mary they never taught in hostage training.

She lowered her gun. Held out her free hand, palm up. The supplicant's pose.

‘Amelia, listen to me. It's not-,’

Too slow. Amelia spread her arms like the Dark Angel herself and pitched forward into the abyss.

‘No!’ The word tore from her throat. Ella lunged forward for the railing but Amelia was gone, swallowed by gravity's greedy maw. The Alchemist's last transmutation.

Pandemonium erupted. From security guards, cops, spectators. Shouts and shrieks bled together in a cacophony of horror. Some wit in the audience finally realized they'd gotten more philosophy than they paid for tonight.

But Ella barely heard the din. Her pulse pounded in her skull as she braced for impact. For the wet smack of flesh and bone on unforgiving concrete and a whole load of blood and internal organs to clear up. Ella thought of Marcus Thornton – the victim who’d brought her here in the first place – and how death from a height would be the perfectexclamation point on this sorry case. Five deaths, bookended by sheer drops.

It would have been poetic if not for the fact that the smack of flesh on bone never came.

Impossible.

Ella risked a peek over the ledge.

But the ground below was pristine. No splatter, no messy abstract art. Just a circle of spectators and one pissed-off perp, alive and thrashing in a familiar set of arms.

Luca Hawkins, rookie extraordinaire, had somehow snagged Amelia in midair. Now he grappled with a hundred pounds of spitting, clawing rage as he wrestled her to the ground. A classic Bureau takedown – face to the floor, arm cranked up to the shoulder blades. Crack the joint or crush the will.

Ella gripped onto the handrails as she watched in awe. He must have seen her going for the rail. Must have calculated the trajectory and gotten there in time.

A breathless Luca stood up, planted his foot on Amelia's spine. The rookie had done it again. God knows how he did it, but he always comes through at the right time. Ella wished she had half of his perfect timing.

A circle of spectators had crowded around the show. Luca waved them back, then caught Ella’s eye up in the dress circle.

‘Killer caught, psychic alive,’ Luca puffed loud enough for Ella to hear. ‘That’s what I call a happy medium.’

Ella collapsed into a chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

Game over.

CHAPTER FIFTY

The dress circle of the Gramercy Theatre felt like the cheapest seats in purgatory. Ella slumped in her chair while chaos unfolded below, which consisted of a crew of uniforms hauling a cursing and spitting Amelia Blackwood out of the doors.

The Alchemist's magnum opus, cut short by the swift hand of justice. Or, in this case, Luca's linebacker reflexes.

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