“Where are they?”

Garret’s cool, steady voice broke through the rising panic. My dragon snarled at him, impatient and wanting action, not this sitting around to chat. Stop it, I told her. We can’t just charge through the window and wing off to find Riley. We need a plan. I took a deep breath to calm us both and forced myself to think.

“Ava said something about a rail yard a few blocks from the abandoned hotel,” I told the soldier. “But she didn’t give me any street signs or numbers. And I didn’t see any railroads when we were running from the building, did you?” Frustration reared up again, and I rubbed a hand across my face. “They could be anywhere, and we don’t have time to guess. St. George is almost there.”

“We won’t have to guess. Come on.” And Garret strode purposefully from the room, leaving me and Faith to scramble after him. We crossed the nearly empty hall, not pausing to look for would-be enemies, and Garret banged twice on Wes’s door.

It swung back, and the gangly human glared out at us, looking exhausted. Dark circles crouched under his eyes, and his hair stuck out in every direction. “What do you—”

“Ava contacted us,” Garret interrupted, making the human’s brows shoot up. “St. George has them cornered in a rail yard a few blocks from the building we left. Can you pull up a map of the city?”

“Shite,” Wes muttered, and ducked back into the room, hurrying to his laptop. We followed, crowding around the chair, as his fingers flew across the keyboard and his shoulders hunched in concentration.

“All right,” Wes muttered, his nose very close to the computer screen, making it hard to see around him. “A rail yard, you said? That shouldn’t be terribly hard to find.” He typed a few more things, and the screen flipped to a large map of Las Vegas. “Okay,” Wes mumbled, zooming in until street names appeared on-screen, “this is where we are now. And here—” he scrolled over the map “—is the site of that abandoned hotel. So, now we’re looking for a railroad… Wait, that must be it.” The mouse arrow circled a confusing jumble of lines and squares on the map. “About five blocks east from the hotel site,” he said. “Right on the edge of town. Bollocks, Riley, what were you thinking? You don’t run away from the lights and crowds if the Order is chasing you. Certainly not to an isolated warehouse in the middle of nowhere.” Sitting back, he eyed us over the chair back. “If they’re down there, that place will be crawling with dragonslayers. You’ll be walking into a death trap.”

“We don’t have a choice,” I said. “Riley’s in there, and he’s hurt. Besides,” I went on, glaring at him, “I thought this was what you wanted. It’s my fault he’s in trouble, isn’t that what you implied?”

“That doesn’t bloody mean I want you to rush into a trap and get your stupid head blown off,” Wes snarled back. His eyes flashed, staring me down, before he sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “What do you think Riley will do if you get yourself killed?” he went on in a softer voice. “He nearly lost his mind the last time you were hurt. If anything happens to you now, he’ll never be the same. Riley is the beating heart of this underground, but if you die, the resistance might very well die with you. Because he might not have the will to care anymore.”

I blinked in shock. Wes sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, his face taut with pain. “I just want you to think, hatchling.” He sighed. “To come up with some sort of plan, otherwise you’ll all be killed.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Garret broke in, and Wes turned to eye him wearily. “I know St. George,” he added. “I know their tactics, and what they’ll be doing. We’re not going in blind. I’ll get them out.”

“I’m coming, too,” Faith said.

Surprised, I looked at her. She stood a little ways behind us, pale and terrified but resolved. “Ava saved me,” she insisted. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of Talon if it wasn’t for her. I want to help, however I can.”

Garret shook his head. “You’re not trained for this,” he stated. “I can’t effectively search for the others if I’m worried about protecting you, Faith. It’s better if you stay here.”

“Please,” Faith whispered, and turned to me. “Don’t leave me here,” she pleaded. “I can’t stay behind, doing nothing, not knowing if you’ll come back. I swear I won’t get in your way or slow you down. And I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.” Her eyes went glassy, even as she took a deep breath, composing herself. “Ava is like a sister to me,” she said, making my stomach knot. “I won’t abandon her. I might not be trained for this, but two dragons stand a better chance against St. George than one. Please, I have to come.”

I looked helplessly at Garret, who nodded. “All right,” he agreed, sounding reluctant. “Just stay close, and try to hide if things get dangerous.” He turned to Wes, his voice cool. “They’ll need weapons,” he said. “Both of them. If St. George is down there, we can’t take any chances.”

Wes nodded, rising from the chair. “I suppose there’s really no other way to do this,” he said, pulling a duffel bag from the corner and setting it on the bed. Unzipping it, he stepped back as Garret rummaged inside and pulled out a handgun. Turning, he offered it to me. I took it without hesitation this time, checking the chamber for rounds before shoving it into the waistband of my jeans and pulling my shirt over it, as I’d seen Garret do. No being squeamish now. I was a soldier, and this was a war. If we were going to save Riley and Ava, I had to accept that.

Faith paled when Garret held a pistol out to her, but she took it without hesitation. Wes watched the soldier with hooded eyes, his expression torn between dislike and cautious hope. “Get Riley out,” he told him, as Garret checked his own gun for rounds, then snapped the cartridge back into place. “Nothing else matters. You’re not just saving him, you’re saving everyone in his underground. I can’t do what Riley does. If he dies, all the dragons and humans he rescued from Talon are as good as dead.”

“We’ll bring him back,” I told Wes, feeling a fiery determination spread through me. There was no way I was going to let him die. He was my other half; without him, I felt incomplete. I wasn’t sure if this was my dragon talking or me, but I couldn’t imagine a world without Riley. I looked to Garret, meeting those solemn gray eyes, and took a deep breath. “Ready?”