What happened?

Who did this?

Is anyone hurt?

I don’t have any answers for them, but since Logan looks like he’s about to pass out, and Quinn would rather eat dirt than speak up when a crowd is watching him, it’s up to me to respond.

Quinn dabs his finger in the blood of an X marking the door closest to the end of the hall and then rubs his finger and thumb together.

“Is it human blood?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I can’t tell.” He gazes down the long corridor. “But this took a lot of blood. Unless whoever did this bled someone dry, my guess is he caught a few rabbits in the Wasteland and drained them.”

The people around us keep calling out questions and dire predictions. I have to put a stop to it so we can check on the guards and then get out of the city before the army arrives. Raising my voice to be heard above the commotion around me, I say, “We aren’t sure what happened, yet, but—”

Is this some kind of sick joke?

Is it the Commander?

A woman with her graying dark hair pulled back in a bun bumps into Quinn as she hoists her travel pack over her shoulders, and he almost loses his grip on Logan. Two young boys race down the hall and nearly knock me over as they try to slide past me to get to the stairs. Their faces are full of fear—wide eyes and pale skin.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” I ask, but they aren’t listening. No one is listening. They’re too busy shouting, moving around, and panicking. Irritation surges through me, and I grit my teeth as yet another person yells a question in our direction but won’t stop talking long enough to hear the answer. Lifting my thumb and pointer finger to my lips, I give a piercing whistle, just the way Dad taught me.

A sudden silence falls over the hallway, and I raise my voice to fill it as Drake hurries to my side. “We don’t have time to panic over this. Get your bags and go line up downstairs the way you were told to last night.”

“But who did—”

“Quiet.” I glare at a thin man with knobby shoulders who stops midquestion when he sees my expression. “We will figure out who did this and what it all means, but right now we have to light our fire and get out of here before the Commander and his army kill us where we stand. So get your things, get downstairs, and don’t lag behind, because the fire goes up in ten minutes, no matter what.”

Turning on my heel, I shove the stairwell door open and help Logan through it. Behind us, people scurry to obey me. Drake follows Quinn, Logan, and me downstairs. None of us say a word. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but I’m busy swallowing past the oily sickness that rises up the back of my throat when I imagine what we’ll find at the building’s entrance.

The stairs are slick where patches of moss cling to the steps, and I keep a tight grip on Logan’s tunic as we descend. The door leading to the first floor is covered with coppery rust that flakes off on my cloak when I slam my shoulder into the door to get it open. The room beyond is a large square with an impossibly high ceiling, more panes of glass in one wall than in my entire house in Baalboden, and thick curtains of bright green kudzu clinging to everything in sight.

The wagons and livestock take up the middle of the room. I can’t see beyond them to the front door to check on our guards, and the dread that tightens around my throat won’t let me yell out their names.

I can’t bear to find them dead. Cassie. Sam. Derreck. Pauline. I can’t bear to move around the wagons and see them lying cold and silent. I can’t, but in the last two months, I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t think I could bear. I can make myself do one more.

“I’m going to check on the guards,” I say, and my voice sounds too thin. “You two help Logan.”

Drake takes over supporting Logan’s left side, and I hurry forward, crushing kudzu and thorny weeds into the moldy remains of the rug that once covered the floor. The goats are tied to the back of the wagon closest to the stairwell. They flock to me as I make my way around the edge of the wagon. I nudge their heads away from me with trembling fingers, and clear the wagon.

The faint light of dawn seeps through the wall of windows in shades of green and gray. There’s a hush inside the building, as if the outside world couldn’t possibly penetrate its thick walls.

I know better. Someone got in. Marked our doors. Left us a message. And probably murdered our guards.

My eyes sweep the entrance slowly, expecting to see bodies lying on the floor. Instead, I see Cassie and Pauline standing side by side inside the doorway while Derreck and Sam pace the length of the windowed wall, their eyes trained outside to catch sight of any approaching threats.

They’re alive.

The relief that makes my limbs feel like they’re filled with water quickly gives way to anxiety as the implications hit me. If they’re alive, and this is the only entrance to the building, then whoever marked our doors last night was already inside. The only people inside the building are the Baalboden survivors.

Which means we might have a traitor in our midst.

My heart slams against my rib cage, and my hand closes over my knife hilt before I’ve even finished the thought. Skidding on mold and rubbery vines, I close the distance between the wagons and the door.

“Did you leave your post any time after I took Logan upstairs last night?” I ask. All four turn to stare at me. My voices rises. “Did you leave your post? Fall asleep? Hear a noise and leave the door unattended for a few seconds while you investigated?”