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clearly sounded cooler in my head. Even Clyde’s blank mask looks shocked.
    I rather hope the T-Rex does get me now.
    To cover the moment, I grab the silver grenade and run towards imminent death.

FIVE

    R unning is harder than I’d hoped. My left side still feels numb and weak. My feet skid on discarded rubble. I fear I look like I’m creating my own Olympic event—half hopping, half limping.
    I hug the left-hand wall, desperate to avoid the T-Rex’s gaze. It thrashes back and forth, dominating the central aisle. Kayla thumps it desultorily on its head. It roars, spraying her with prehistoric phlegm. The grenade is a solid weight in my hand.
    “Its mouth! Open its mouth!” I scream at Kayla. I don’t know how else to phrase the absurd request.
    Kayla turns slowly, arches an eyebrow. The T-Rex lunges, jaws snapping. She sidesteps casually.
    “Its mouth,” I yell. “Open!”
    Kayla gives a heavy shrug.
    “Please!” I’m close enough that I don’t want to get any closer. I can smell its breath, foul as a charnel house.
    The T-Rex lunges again. Kayla sidesteps again. The gaping mouth of the T-Rex whistles by her. Towards me. Knife blade teeth lancing at my head.
    I try not to close my eyes. I hurl the grenade at the beast’s tonsils. It bounces off one tooth, drops into the wide red maw.
    Without much seeming care, Kayla slams an elbow into the T-Rex’s jaw. The mouth shuts very suddenly and very fast. Instead of the T-Rex’s teeth scouring my flesh from my bone, its nose thuds into my chest, sitting me down on my arse. The roar turns to a choking cough.
    For a moment I think the grenade is going to come out the other way, coughed back at me in a fiery ball of death. And then, as the T-Rex rears backwards, I see a tiny flash of silver disappear down its throat.
    It worked.
    It actually bloody worked.
    I’m so stunned I actually sit there and stare before remembering to scramble for cover.
    The explosion rips through the room. Through the guts of the dinosaur. The rib cage distends, bursts through the rotten skin. Vertebrae, claws, bone shards embed themselves in the walls, a mess of reptilian shrapnel. The creature’s head barrels over the pile of splinters I’m pretending is cover. Its teeth slash the air one final time.
    I stay there, waiting to be certain. Waiting to make sure the Grim Reaper has left the building. Eventually I uncurl, my ears ringing. The back of my jacket has been flayed, but I’m remarkably whole, just a few grazes along my back. Smoke billows through the room.
    “Oh! My! God!” It’s the young girl with two pistols and enormous headphones. She paws them down around her neck, still holding the guns. Two platinum-blonde pigtails bounce as she skips forward, almost prancing through the massive pool of blood that’s spreading across the room.
    “You guys!” She stares at me, at Shaw, at Clyde, at Kayla. “You are so freaking awesome!”
    To be honest, I am not entirely upset with that response. Modesty be damned. That looked pretty cool.
    The job’s not done though. Shaw walks past the girl, heading towards the stairs. Clyde and I head after her, drawn warily into her wake, pistol out. Kayla stands watching us walk.
    The blond girl dances after us. “I mean, did you guys see that?” she says. “With the grenade! And its head! I mean holy Jesus, I have never seen anything close to being half that cool. Not even on TV.” She pauses, thinks. “You guys should totally be on TV.” She nods to herself. “You would be massive.”
    I wonder if I can get this girl to be a character witness at my next performance review.
    We’re at the foot of the stairs. Shaw signals with her gun for me to go wide. I start edging along the wall and Shaw starts edging up the stairs. Clyde stands and watches us.
    “Batteries?” Shaw says to him.
    He gives an embarrassed shrug—proving that such a thing is possible—and slips two double As under the lip of his mask.
    She pauses at the top of the