“Carson! Behind you!”

My guy—Carson—turned just in time to get a bullet in the chest. When his knees buckled beneath him, I yanked him toward me, using him as a shield as a round of bullets was sent my way. Several thudded into the wood siding of the barn. Two hit Carson. I dropped him and ran, ducking behind a rusted-out trailer as another wave of bullets whizzed overhead.

I crawled to a better vantage point, where I could make out the agents’ legs from the underbelly of the trailer. They were at least thirty feet out, with nothing but open field between us. There was a handful of trees at their back, giving them coverage if they needed it. All I had was this damn trailer.

Fighting broke out in front of the barn. I took the opening, hoping the guys to the north would be distracted, but as soon as I popped up over the edge of the trailer, several gunshots rang out and I had to drop to my stomach again.

This battle was over before I’d even entered the barn.

I’d have to wait until they came for me.

From my spot, I could see only their legs as they raced toward me. And then, suddenly, there was another set of legs—shorter, skinnier legs. Something cracked. A gun went off. A body hit the dirt with a wet, sloppy lurch. A man shouted, then choked. Then nothing.

I chanced a look. Anna was the only one left standing.

She jogged over to me, a smile stretched wide across her face. “You’re welcome.”

“I had them,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she countered.

“Come on. Let’s see if the men in front are down.”

When we rounded the front corner of the barn, Cas was stuffing an agent in the trunk of a car. Trev and Sam were there, pulling guns from the dead agents at their feet.

“Let’s go find that vent,” Sam said. “Before someone realizes these guys are missing.”

With the area secure, finding the vent was easy. It was a circular port in the middle of the field, recently cleaned of the topsoil and vegetation that had most likely hidden it from view. I wondered if Chloe had cleaned it off days ago, knowing we might need it.

Once inside, I nearly choked on the cold, sterile air. It reminded me of the lab back at the farmhouse, and the cell I’d spent five years locked inside. The walls of the vent closed in around me, and my heart raced in my chest.

I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Trev had offered to take the lead, but now I was glad I’d shoved him aside, because it meant I was the first one out.

The vent led us to a storage closet, big enough that we could all stand inside once we’d climbed down from the vent.

The air was stuffier here, hot and pressing. With Sam at my left, a gun in his hand, I popped the door open a crack. We were at the back wall, the maze in front of us. Which meant the holding cells were to our left. There were no Branch agents in sight. If I had to guess, Riley had used up a lot of his manpower to guard the outside.

I signaled to Sam which direction we should go, and he nodded in the half dark. The others filed in behind us. I was the first one out of the closet, the need to find Elizabeth fueling me. If she was in a holding cell, she was within my reach, and escape was not far behind.

The first cell was empty. And the second. And the third. The last was open, the floor still painted red with my blood.

I cursed beneath my breath.

Elizabeth was somewhere in the maze, and if she was in the maze then she was in an exam room, and I didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

I wanted the group to divide to cover more ground, but Sam vetoed that, so we all crept through the maze like an army of ants with guns in our hands.

We crossed paths with only two agents, and both were on the floor in seconds, then tucked into offices, out of sight.

The farther we got into the lab, the more I panicked, worried that Elizabeth wasn’t here, that this was some kind of decoy. I could sense Sam growing edgier behind me, but I couldn’t give up yet. Not until I’d searched every corner of this lab.

And finally, somewhere in the middle of the maze, at a window that looked in on an exam room, I froze.

Elizabeth was strapped down on a bed, her dark hair spread across a pillow. A pair of dark-tinted glasses covered her eyes, and electrodes were plastered all over her head.

My gut twisted on itself, and my free hand tightened into a fist at my side.

We were too late.

Too fucking late.

39

ELIZABETH

THE GLASSES WENT DARK.

Something thumped beneath me, and I had the distinct feeling that I was floating, the world carrying on below me, far, far away.

Hands shook my shoulders, and I came crashing back to my body. Sounds floated in and out of my hearing like river currents, and the sounds formed into words that seemed suddenly foreign. So I just stared. Stared and stared at the face looming above me, wondering when it was I’d opened my eyes.

The face belonged to a boy. Black hair curled around his ears and down his neck, and his eyes were two orbs of glowing blue staring back at me.

“Elizabeth,” he said, and the word felt familiar in my head. I repeated it without a sound, forming the word with my lips, testing it out.

“Elizabeth,” he said again, more urgently.

My body trembled in his arms. He tightened his hold around me, and the heat from his touch spread through me, fiery and immediately recognizable.

“We have to run,” he whispered in my ear, and his voice hitched with an emotion I thought might be misery. “Can you?”

I nodded, only because I knew it was what he wanted, and if I was sure of nothing else, I was sure of this: pleasing him pleased me.