“Garret? Ember?”

Faith edged into view. She held a length of rebar in both hands, and it shook as she gazed around at the fallen soldiers. “The shooting…stopped,” she whispered, her body poised for flight, as if the bodies might leap up and attack again. “I didn’t know if you were still alive, or if they had…had…” Her voice trembled, and she trailed off. I huffed a cloud of smoke at her.

“So you decided to come look for us? You’re supposed to be hiding—”

One of the soldiers from earlier, the first one I’d taken down, suddenly lunged out of the shadows, gun held before him. Faith shrieked, swinging the rebar wildly as he appeared, catching him right in the face. He crashed to the floor again and lay still, while Faith scuttled behind Garret, breathing hard.

“Is he dead?” she squeaked, as I forced myself to exhale and relax my muscles, releasing the air that I’d sucked in slowly, and not in a violent explosion of fire. Garret walked to the fallen soldier, knelt and rolled him onto his back. His head flopped, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“The others will be on their way,” Garret muttered, not looking up from the body. He started rummaging through the soldier’s stuff, checking for guns and ammo, most likely, anything to help us get out of here. “We need to hurry. Ember…” He glanced at me, narrowing his eyes. “Can you Shift back before we leave the hotel?”

I cringed. Not without my clothes. “Gimme two seconds,” I said, and hurried to where I’d left my belongings, then changed back and slipped into them as quickly as I could. When I returned, Garret stood waiting for me, gun in hand, the soldier’s belt now looped around his waist. Faith hovered beside him, watching his every move with starry eyes. All her fear of the former St. George soldier seemed to have vanished, and I bit down a snort of disgust.

Garret tossed me a pistol as I came up, and I caught it grimly. “Let’s go,” he ordered, and we fled the room, knowing the rest of the force was still out there, swarming the building. I suspected we weren’t safe yet, and I was right.

As we turned down one last corridor, two soldiers looked up from where they guarded the stairwell at the end of the hall. The carbines blared, and we ducked back around the corner as bullets peppered the walls and floor. One of the soldiers called for backup, alerting the rest of them, and I snarled in frustration. So close; if we could just get past these guards, we were home free.

Raising the gun, I tensed to dart out of cover and fire, when Garret grabbed my arm.

“Wait.” Drawing me back, he crept to the edge of the hallway and pulled something from the stolen belt at his waist. A small metal cylinder with a ring at the top. Glancing at me and Faith, he narrowed his eyes. “Look away,” he ordered. “Close your eyes and cover your ears. Both of you.” And he hurled what was in his hand around the corner, toward the soldiers.

The boom rocked the corridor, and even through my closed lids, I saw the brilliant flash of light, as if a star had exploded in the hall. The gunfire ceased, and Garret took my hand, pulling me to my feet with a brisk “Let’s go!” We sprinted past the stunned, gaping soldiers, hit the stairwell at top speed and didn’t stop running until we reached the very last door and burst through it into the hot Vegas night.

Riley

We finally reached the end of the elevator shaft.

I heard Ava hit the bottom, the quiet thump of her feet on solid ground echoing faintly up the tube. Relieved, anxious to be done with tight spaces and lethal falls in utter darkness, I descended the last few rungs and hopped off the ladder, before realizing we weren’t home free just yet.

The floor under my boots swayed slightly, as if hovering a few inches off the ground. Clicking on my flashlight, I saw we’d hit the metal roof of the elevator box, thick cables coming out of the center and rising up the tube. A small square hatch sat in one corner, and Ava crouched next to it, her hair a ghostly silver in the pale light.

“It’s stuck,” she whispered.

Putting the flashlight on the floor, I knelt across from her and grasped the handle at the top. “On three,” I muttered, as her fingers wrapped around mine, slender and cool, and I tightened my grip. “One…two…three!”

Together we tugged. The hatch, like the elevator doors, resisted a moment, then opened with a rusty screech that made my teeth vibrate. I poked my head through the opening, shining the flashlight around, then pulled back with a nod.

“Clear.”

We dropped into the elevator box, Ava landing as lightly as a cat. The doors were partially open, and I could see an empty hall beyond, dark and silent for now.

“First floor,” Ava whispered, gazing at the brass number in the door frame. She sounded relieved. “We’re almost out.”

“Not quite.” I eased into the hall, gazing around warily. “The doors will be guarded for sure, and there’s no telling how many snipers they’ve got watching the exits. And of course, that damn chopper will be circling around, making things difficult.”

“So we can’t go through the doors.” Ava followed me, pragmatic and as cool as ever. “How will we get out, then?”

“Easy.” I grinned at her. “We use a window.”

Voices echoed down another hallway, making us both tense. A moment later, the sound of boots started toward us, marching ominously closer. I switched off the flashlight, and we ran.

Ducking into an office, Ava closed and locked the door while I raced to the window and peered cautiously through the glass. The empty construction zone stretched away into the black, but past the barren lot I could see the lights of civilization in the distance, tantalizingly close. Question was, could we get across that flat, open plain without taking a bullet to the forehead?

“Cobalt!” Ava hurried to my side, her voice a warning growl. “They’re coming.”

Shit. Out of time. “Stand back,” I told her, and grabbed an abandoned fire extinguisher from the floor. Raising it over my head, I smashed it against the window, feeling the impact jar my teeth together. Cracks appeared on the first hit, spread out on the second, and on the third, the glass finally shattered. I bashed the window a few times more, making a large enough hole, then threw the extinguisher down and beckoned to Ava. “Go!”

A heavy blow rattled the door behind us. Ava sprinted three steps and dived gracefully through the glass, then rolled to her feet like an acrobat. I followed, hunching my shoulders as I plunged through, feeling shards catch on my leather jacket. But then I was on the other side, scrambling upright, and we were running across the empty lot, hearing shots fired as we fled into the concealing night. Nothing hit us, but we didn’t stop running until we reached the edge of the pavement, scrambled over the fence and darted across an empty street. Into the safety of civilization and away from the Order at last.