One of the Reeks lunged forward, Tynan sliced his sword through the air just in time to stop it from landing a blow to a Wulf with its back to us, still battling.

  “Hurry!”

  I slid down into the dark hole. It was a steeper drop than I thought, and shooting pain roared through me as soon as I landed. I managed to crawl out of the way, leaving room for the others, but a wave of nausea rolled over me at the pain. I felt water where I crawled, cool against my bare skin. The smell of a fresh stream and damp rock filled the space.

  Above me another deafening roar echoed before Petra joined me.

  “Where are Theo and Tynan?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, just felt the walls until she found another torch and lit it with the flint in her pocket. We both looked up to the hole above our heads. The firelight danced through the small space, shadows of men and Reeks and Wulfs danced across the roof.

  Another cry, another guttural scream.

  My heart stopped. Please be okay, please be okay, I begged.

  A shadow loomed over the tunnel hole and backed away. Petra notched an arrow and aimed at the opening, but it was Theo who dropped down beside us.

  Tynan pulled himself to the edge, sliding the stone hatch Petra and I had pried open back over the hole as he slid down, falling to his knees. His white hair, stained with black and red blood, fell over his face as he let out long gasped breaths.

  “What will happen to the Wulfs?” I asked, glancing up to the stone door back in place.

  “They can run faster than the Reeks,” Tynan said softly. “They’ll get out of there.”

  Above us the sound of Wulfs and Reeks tearing each other apart went on, but heavy footsteps began moving in the distance as the Wulfs retreated. Tynan pulled the torch from Petra’s hand, and the sight of both men had me gasping. I moved to Theo, scanning his body.

  “I’m fine,” Theo grunted, pushing himself to his feet and helping me up, but I screamed in pain.

  “I can’t stand,” I winced. Theo didn’t hesitate; he just lifted me into his arms.

  “We have to keep moving. There may be more ways into this tunnel, and the Reeks will smell blood,” Tynan said. “I don’t know how long the Wulfs can hold them off.”

  “Why did they protect us?” I asked, as we began following Petra down the narrow tunnel, Tynan close behind us. The Wulfs were terrifying creatures, and I knew they hated the Reeks just as much as us, but I had seen them attack just as many humans as they had Reeks. We were not their friends.

  “I don’t know,” Tynan said, shaking his head. “But we owe our lives to them. If they hadn’t been there, we all would be dead right now.”

  I nodded. Theo moved slowly, his own wounds I couldn’t see likely hurting with each step, but he didn’t complain or say one word about them. His heart was racing.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” He nodded.

  The tunnel was covered in the same black rock all around us, and the small stream weaved through the narrow channel it had carved out over what must have been decades. It wasn’t very big, shallow roofs and tight walls surrounded us.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  Neither Tynan nor Petra responded.

  “Where does it lead to? The forest?”

  “Save your energy, we can talk when we’re safe,” Petra snapped over her shoulder.

  We hit a cross in the straight tunnel, and Petra took a sharp right. She picked up the speed, and Theo struggled to keep up with me in his arms.

  I ignored Petra’s order and glanced over Theo’s shoulder to Tynan. “Where are we? Where are you taking us?”

  “This was a water supply tunnel,” he answered. “It leads under Venzier.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Is anywhere safe in this place?” Tynan responded. I swallowed back the fear rising back up. “It’s safe enough.”

  “Why didn’t we come here before?” Theo asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Up ahead, Petra had stopped before an opening at the end of the tunnel. As we neared the space, I realized why she hadn’t moved any farther. The smell hit me like a brick, and I had to cover my nose with the sleeve of my jacket.

  We slowed down to a walk, and my eyes adjusted to the large opening we had just entered. All around us were cages. Metal bars were placed into the rock and small doors sealed shut.

  “What is this place?” I could hardly breathe the smell was so strong. Rotted flesh, mold, and damp rock—the smell of death lingered everywhere.

  “A prison? Holding cell? Your guess is as good as ours as to why they’d keep these things down here,” Petra murmured, as she watched her brother, her eyes scanning him.

  “What… what did they keep down here?” I asked. Theo put me down, and I stood on one leg, leaning on him to avoid stepping on my broken one. We kept to the middle of the long room, cages covering the space as far as the light would travel.

  “See for yourself.” Petra nodded to one of the cages, handing me her torch with a little smirk on her face.

  I gripped it tight in my hand; it trembled and with it, the light danced with eerie shadows across the black rock. With Theo’s help, I took two steps towards one of the cages. I leaned forward, pushing the torch out in front of me to see farther inside.

  One more step and then something smashed against the metal bars, and I fell back into Theo, who caught me just in time. The torch flew from my hands, and the cage was inky black once again, but I knew what I’d seen. A Reek.

  Petra chuckled, and I glared back at her. Theo held a steady arm around my back.

  “You think that’s funny?” I demanded.

  “Hilarious,” Petra confirmed.

  I let out a long sigh, happy for the darkness hiding the shame and embarrassment on my face. I should have known what would be in those cages.

  Tynan stepped between Petra and me, handing his sister back the torch that had flown from my grasp when I fell back. “That’s enough, Petra.” She just rolled her eyes.

  “They likely weren’t Reeks when they were caged down here. Probably Carbons who had started to transition before eventually all of Venzier was overrun,” Petra said.

  So many caged, farther than I could see with the torchlight.

  “We should keep moving,” Tynan said softly.

  I nodded, and Theo pressed a hand gently against my back when my feet didn’t immediately begin moving. I took two more unstable steps before Theo dipped down and scooped me back up into his arms.

  The sound of us had awoken the Reeks. More slammed against the bars of their cages, reaching hands through them toward us. I could hear their guttural cries and the scraping of hands against metal and rock. Every cage was filled with one. The room continued for some time, hundreds of cages, hundreds of Reeks.

  Petra led us to a small, narrow hallway between two cages leading to a steep set of stairs, built into the mountain itself. It wound sharply around, twisting upwards at a vertical incline. When we reached what I assumed was the top, we stopped before a metal door. Petra twisted the handle, pulling it open only an inch to peek out. Through the crack was darkness, and then the bright light of a full moon and thousands of stars streamed in through the door. Fresh air and the scent of pine hit my lungs instantly. Petra opened the door a little wider. The forest was far below us. We had reached the peak of the mountain.

  In front of us was a sharp cliff at the edge of where the door had led us. I glanced over the side and noted it was a straight drop down and impossible to climb. To our right and left was sheer mountain top and snow-tipped peaks.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  Tynan stepped out of the stairway, the echoes of Reeks and Dred Wulfs sounded below us. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “We wait for the sun to rise and a way out to reveal itself.”

  JAYLA

  The sound of the alarm only grew louder as we neared the edge of the rooftop. Guards swarmed below, but thankfully none had spotted us yet.

  Em threw her fist up and we stopped, dropping down to our stomachs and crawling the rest of the way to glance over the edge. Four guards circled the side entrance of the building. More were to the far left where the transport shuttle and its occupants were frantically removing the rest of the crates from inside.

  “Stay here,” Em ordered, and she slipped over the edge, landing only a few feet from the closest guard, but she was silent against the blaring alarm, and no one even sensed her presence. One gloved hand wrapped around his mouth, silencing him in a heartbeat. With a sharp crack, she had his head twisted, and his body fell limp. She pulled him out of view, unseen by the others.

  Em slid into the alcove of the door and began working on opening it.

  My gun was trained on the second guard, Simon’s on the third. They had their backs to us and were shouting over the loud noise of the alarm. Neither had noticed they’d already lost one man.

  “Anything?” one yelled.

  “Nah, nothing here,” another yelled. “Let’s circle around, see if they have that shuttle unloaded.”

  They turned to the left, heading away from the door and Em and the dead guard hidden around the corner. When they were out of view, Simon and I hopped down beside Em.

  “Got it,” she said. “Just patching into their security system.” Em had her tablet connected to the panel on the wall, and it was uploading data from the building, giving her full control of the cameras inside and outside.

  After a few moments, she detached the tablet and replaced the panel on the wall.

  “We’re in,” she said. “I can’t completely disable their security system, but I’ve looped them for now. They’ll catch on soon enough, but we’ve got access to every door and entrance inside.”

  Em passed me the tablet, and I swiped through the blueprint layout of the building. It was a maze of hallways and doors and small rooms, but one area was a cluster of larger rooms that looked like it could house a lot of people—or a lot of kids.

  “We’ll head here,” I told Simon, who was glancing over my shoulder. “Thirty minutes to get them out. If you haven’t found her by then…” I didn’t have to finish my sentence.

  “I’ll meet you guys up top,” he said and wrenched open the door, taking off without a goodbye.

  Em and I headed the opposite way, down the wide white hallways echoing with the siren and flashing with red light every few feet. Em had her tablet in one hand, blade in the other, directing us towards where I hoped the kids from the DEZ were.

  I couldn’t hear Em over the alarm, so she lifted a fist to stop me then two fingers to let me know how many guards were ahead.

  I slid the suppressor out of my pocket and twisted it onto the end of Azrael. Then, I stepped around the corner and two silent bullets flew through the air and hit their mark before the guards spotted me.

  Em and I pulled them into a nearby room and kept going. There was no way to hide the blood streaked across the white floor, but at least the flashing red lights would hide us for now.

  The sirens stopped wailing, and Em skidded to a stop. Silence.

  A second later, the red flashing lights turned off.

  “Shit,” I mumbled. “What are they doing?”

  “They couldn’t hear or see us before. Now they can.” Em grimaced, stuffing the tablet into her inside jacket and pulling out the second blade at her hip.

  I never thought I’d be disappointed an alarm we set off stopped, but even our silent movements felt too loud.

  Em checked around the corner, empty. At least now, we could also hear them coming. The next corner had four guards, spread out down the hallways enough it’d be hard to get them all without someone noticing. I leaned against the wall, calming my heavy breathing then checking my watch. Twenty minutes.

  Em slid a small, marble-sized bomb from her pocket, squeezed it, and then rolled it down the hallway towards the guards.

  Its sound was a subtle hiss of gas being released. We paused, waiting. Five. Four. Three. Two… thud. The first guard fell, then the second and the third and the fourth. The gas lingered for a few more seconds before it fell to the ground.

  I held my breath as we sprinted past the unconscious men.

  We reached the last hallway and paused when we heard voices.

  “They’ll be coming for the kids, so stay alert. Allard is gathering the others.” Her voice was sweet like honey, with the sharpness of a bee sting. “Do not take your eyes off this hallway, and do not let anyone through. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the guards said in unison.

  I picked up at least a dozen voices, too many to get through without making our presence known to everyone. And we couldn’t use a gas bomb here, not with the kids so close.

  Em nodded to the door behind me and we slipped in.

  “Can you see inside?” I asked, referring to the rooms the guards stood before.

  Em nodded, pulling up the tablet and placing it on the wall facing the hallway. On the tablet, twelve dots lined the hallways in a systematic pattern facing outwards. Beyond that, there were six doors. Inside, huddled to the back wall of each room, were multiple dots. The Marked kids.

  Em scrunched her brow and I kept quiet, allowing her to think through what to do next. She glanced overhead to the vents, too small. Then back to the door leading to the adjacent hallway. It was still empty, for now, but someone was sure to see the four guards we’d left behind, and they’d be heading here next.

  “Fifteen minutes,” I said.

  Em swore under her breath. “We need to get to this room.” She pointed on the tablet to an empty room next to one of the six rooms with the kids inside. It was across from the hallway the guards stood in and would be nearly impossible to reach without being seen.

  I trusted Em. “Should we make some noise while we’re at it?” I smiled. She nodded. “Then let’s go.”

  We stepped back into the empty hallway and peeked around the corner. The guards had guns out, aimed towards where we were and the opposite way.

  Em pulled out another marble-sized bomb, this time without gas inside. She squeezed it to activate the bomb and tossed it down the hallway.

  “Hey!” one of the guards yelled, but the bomb flashed and banged loudly, causing even my ears to ring and eyes to sting against the light, despite having closed them in preparation.

  Em moved to the door, unlocking it while I shot down the smoke covered hallway where I knew the guards were, even though I couldn’t see them through the smoke from the bomb. Within seconds they returned my gunfire, but Em had already unlocked and opened the room, pulling me inside.

  It was a small bunker, triple stacked beds lined the wall, and a small table with a few stools was in the middle. The room itself was empty and had no windows or doors besides the one we just went through.

  Em rushed to the closest bunk bed and dragged the heavy steel frame towards the door. I helped. We pushed it over, and it crashed into the door, barricading us inside.

  Gunshots rang out against the door, and we ducked and pressed ourselves against the wall. Someone tried the knob, but Em had already relocked the door. The bang of someone trying to smash through it sounded, and the bunk securing the door shook just a little, but it didn’t budge.

  I kept my gun aimed at the door while Em moved to the wall. She pulled her tablet up, checking that the occupants of the next room were still against the back wall, and began tracking a thin line on the wall with a soft, putty-like substance.

  The door quivered again, and I heard shouts from beyond it.

  “Ten minutes,” I reminded Em, and she just hissed back, focusing on the wall.

  Once she had the putty secure, she backed away, bringing a string with her and lit the end. It sizzled and snaked up the line until it reached the putty where it melted the substance and everything around it. A black jagged circle was left as the fuse reached the end.

  Em walked over to it and smashed her foot through the center. The entire wall inside the circle shattered and landed on the bottom bunk bed of the next room.

  Gasps and stifled screams sounded on the other side.

  Em crawled through quickly and put her finger to her lips. The kids huddled together in the back. A few of the older ones looked poised to attack. “We’re here to get you out, stay quiet,” Em ordered, and the kids listened.

  I followed Em, helping her move another bunk in front of the door to the room we had crawled into and she began on the next wall.

  Once the guards broke through the first room, they would know we headed through the walls to the kids, and we couldn’t get the doors locked from inside where we were, so we had to be fast.

  “How many of you are there?” I asked.

  An older boy with golden blond hair and bushy eyebrows said, “Ten here, same in most rooms. But they took a few of us earlier today.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  The boy shrugged. “We don’t even know where we are now. This is the only room we’ve been in for over a week.” The room could easily hold probably a hundred kids, yet there were only ten left. Where were the rest?

  I nodded, noting the scared expressions on each of them. The dirty faces and oily hair. Even with the scarf over my face, the odor from unwashed bodies seeped through.

  “Can you all run?”

  Nods and quiet yeses.

  “Good,” I said.

  Em got through the next wall, and we moved everyone together into the adjacent room.

  Each room had ten kids. All had mentioned a few kids being taken earlier in the day and not returning. There were sixty here, at least another twenty somewhere else.

  “Where are the rest?” I asked, doing the math in my head, and realizing that even with the twenty missing here, another forty had come from the DEZ when we’d tried to rescue them back in Cytos.

  The blond-haired boy spoke again. “The older kids were separated from us right away, as soon as we got here. We haven’t seen any of them, but one of the doctors mentioned that they’d been transported already.”