August and Soro took the lead, stopping before the tower doors. The space beyond was dark and August spread his hands against the glass, listening for the tick of a bomb, the rattle and hiss of Corsai waiting to be unleashed—but all he heard were the racing hearts of the FTF at his back, and a soft, almost imperceptible breathing somewhere inside. He nodded at Soro, and together they threw open the tower doors.
Light grenades rolled across the lobby floor, the bounce of metal on stone followed a second later by waves of glaring white as the FTF poured in, their weapons raised. A dozen Malchai sprang up, hissing in surprise before lunging at the nearest soldiers, their teeth bared.
August turned and slashed a monster’s throat as Kate drove her spike through another’s chest, and Harris made a triumphant sound as he cut down a third. Soro dispatched two more, clearing a path, and they sprinted across the lobby to the bank of elevators on the other side. Emily got there first, calling the car as the rest reached the doors and spun back to face whatever was coming for them.
But nothing came.
The dozen Malchai were dead, and the other Night Squads were already peeling off, heading for the other floors.
Too easy, thought August as the doors slid open behind them.
“Too easy,” whispered Kate as they stepped inside. She punched the button for the penthouse with the familiarity of someone returning home. She seemed to realize it, too, her hand hovering in the air.
“Don’t jinx us,” warned Ani as the elevator rose.
“Yeah,” said Jackson. “We can fall to our death at any second.”
They all went quiet then, the only sounds in the steel box their heartbeats and the almost-inaudible murmur of Emily marking time.
August had never been afraid of dying, for all he thought about it. It bothered him, of course, the idea of being unmade, but his own death was a concept he couldn’t grasp, no matter how hard he tried.
But loss—that was a thing that scared him.
The loss of those he cared for.
The loss of himself.
The absence left by both.
Leo would have scorned such a thing, Soro wouldn’t understand the point, and Ilsa was never one to dwell on the inevitable. But to August, that fear was the shadow in his life, the monster he could fight but never kill, the reason he had wanted so badly not to feel.
And as he stood there, surrounded by his family, his team, his friends, the fear took hold, because Ilsa was alone and Henry was dying and so much of what he loved could fit within a metal box.
And it could all be lost.
Kate gave his hand a single squeeze before the elevator stopped and the doors slid open.
The penthouse stretched before them, quiet and dark, and the first thing August heard was the sound of stifled breath. He barreled forward without thinking, down the hall and into the living room, and there he was.
Henry.
Bound to the chair, dazed and pale, but alive.
The red numbers flashed on the collar at his throat.
24:52
24:51
24:50
“Ani,” ordered Emily, but the tech was already there at Henry’s side, and Jackson, too, checking his vitals as Harris and Soro moved through the apartment.
Em knelt before her husband. “I’m here,” she said. “We’re here. You’re an absolute fool, and I’m going to kill you after we save you, but we’re here.”
Henry tried to speak, but his mouth was taped shut, and when Em reached to pull the tape free, Ani stopped her. “Don’t touch anything,” she warned, “not until I defuse this.”
Henry’s head lolled forward as the comm crackled at August’s collar. “Second floor: we’ve got nothing.”
“There are two dead bodies over here,” said Kate. “Both human.”
Harris reappeared. “Rooms are clear.”
“There’s no one else here,” said Soro.
It didn’t make sense.
“Third floor: empty,” said another voice on the comm.
August looked around. Where were the Malchai? Where were the Fangs? Where were all the monsters? He saw the same questions written on Kate’s face as she drew a tablet out from beneath one of the corpses.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Ani, tugging at the device.
“Wait—” started Em, but Ani was already pulling the collar away from Henry’s throat, prying the pieces apart with a force that no one should use when handling a live bomb.
But then August realized, it wasn’t live.
It wasn’t a bomb at all. Just a collar, like the ones worn by the Fangs, with a few added pieces of colored wire, a timer.
“What the hell?” said Harris.
“Fourth floor: nothing here.”
With the collar free, Ani eased the tape from Henry’s mouth. He was hoarse, his breath rasping, but his words echoed through the penthouse. “It’s a—trap.”
Everyone stiffened as the reports continued on the comms.
“Fifth floor: we haven’t found a thing.”
“If it’s a trap,” said Em, “then why haven’t we been attacked?”
“Because,” said Kate, holding up the tablet, “we’re not the target.”
Through a streak of blood on the screen, August saw a map of the city, a too-familiar building drawn over a grid. The Compound.
Kate was already moving back toward the elevator. “We need to go. Now.”
Soro issued a string of orders on their comm as Jackson and Ani got Henry on his feet. His legs nearly buckled, the air wheezing in his chest. His skin was gray.
“Stay with me,” said Em.
Kate called the elevator, and August thought of Ilsa, standing at the Compound doors, of Colin in the lobby, of ten thousand innocent people crammed into a building meant for fifteen hundred.
The elevator chimed, but when doors opened, it wasn’t empty.
Alice stood in the pool of light.
“Going somewhere?”
The truck jerked and jarred over the uneven ground as it barreled through the tunnels beneath the city, its twin beams of light carving a path through the solid black. Beyond the vehicle the Corsai hissed, but Sloan would make it up to them. After all, there would be plenty of corpses soon.
At last the hole came into sight.
Alice had done her job well—a large crater had been opened between the new tunnel and the old, the debris cleared away to make a kind of road. The truck crawled through, and emerged into an abandoned subway station. A broad set of stairs had once dead-ended in a section of ceiling where the subway had been closed up, built over, but a blast had opened that, too.
The Malchai unloaded the cage from the truck as Sloan made his way up the stairs and stepped into the space above. He spread his arms in triumph.
He was standing inside the Compound.
It was a simple concrete hall, S3 stenciled on the walls, a set of open steel doors leading on to cell-like rooms. They would be perfect, he thought, for the Sunai, Soro in this one and August in that. It would be simple enough, starving them until they went dark.
The Malchai hoisted the shrouded cage into the hall and Sloan’s gloved hands came to rest above the golden sheet. His skin prickled with pain but also delicious anticipation. It was like the moment before a hunt, those precious seconds after his prey had been released, when he let the tension build inside him, let his senses heighten, until everything went sharp, went clear.